Baking soda and Vaseline.....

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I don't even know when is the last time I had to clean battery terminals due to bad corrosion (on my personal vehicles.) Only time I would clean them is whenever I have to disconnect the battery for certain maintenance but I would use brake cleaner and coat the terminals with CRC terminal protector.

And they are all lead-acid batteries. Once they start leaking they are on the verge of failure.
 
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I use red grease, it's tackier than vaseline. I also torque my terminals appropriately (lightly) and buy JCI batteries that leak less.

Baking soda itself is corrosive. Use it for cleaning up acid then neutralize all of that with plain water and see that it doesn't happen again.
 
i will use baking soda for sure to clean any corrosion I find. I do not have any corrosion on any of my vehicles presently except my wife's car. Hers get a little. i Don't use vaseline but I do use dielectric grease. It tends to collect dirt on the terminals so I do use terminal covers on both the positive and negative
 
SO I keep a cup of left over NAS Fluid Film on the workbench with a paintbrush in it. Battery terminals get brushed down once in a while.
 
Originally Posted By: Kibitoshin


And they are all lead-acid batteries. Once they start leaking they are on the verge of failure.


Agreed. If the terminals are corroding it's leaking and time for replacement.
 
Originally Posted By: dishdude
Originally Posted By: Kibitoshin


And they are all lead-acid batteries. Once they start leaking they are on the verge of failure.


Agreed. If the terminals are corroding it's leaking and time for replacement.


Not necessarily true, vented batteries tend to do this especially when charging voltage is slightly elevated or in higher summer temps.
Back in the day when mechanical voltage regulators were the norm and almost every battery was vented battery post cleaning was routine maintenance, it was not a correctable issue.
 
Vaseline?

My Grandpa used to put skunk fat on the battery terminals.

No, I am not making this up.

It worked......

He died before I had enough sense to ask: "Why in the world would you THINK to use skunk fat??!?!!"
 
Originally Posted By: Kibitoshin
I don't even know when is the last time I had to clean battery terminals due to bad corrosion (on my personal vehicles.) Only time I would clean them is whenever I have to disconnect the battery for certain maintenance but I would use brake cleaner and coat the terminals with CRC terminal protector.

And they are all lead-acid batteries. Once they start leaking they are on the verge of failure.
Good batteries don't leak. And the acid coming out means that there is obviously less in the battery cells. So if it leaks long enough you add water which just further weakens the battery.
 
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