drewsteriam

I've had a recurring battery problem for a couple years now where the positive battery terminal gets corrosion all over it. I thought I had solved the problem by changing out a leaking lead acid battery about a year back. There was battery acid leaking down the side. Clearly it had cracks. I swapped it out for an Optima Red Top battery and haven't had an issue since. Today I went to pull the terminals off to pull out my nav system, and sure enough, the corrosion is back on the positive terminal. Any ideas what is going on here?

I should note, I have had an issue for some time where alternator whine would come through the speakers when I hit a bump, which told me maybe the ground was bad. Since it got cold, I went to drive it a few weeks ago and the whine was there when the car started up.

Is my alternator bad? It is certainly possible my wiring harness on the nav system has some bad wiring. I knew a lot less about electronics when I set it up several years back. I was going to check that today.

Any advice from you guys would be great. I just want this resolved once and for all. I am over all of these issues.


Thanks

racebum

could be the terminal causing a galvanic reaction.

with an optima even an overcharging alt isn't going to cause hydrogen to escape. sealed battery

drewsteriam

Are you suggesting something wrong with the cable? I'm not familiar with galvanic reaction. This is actually the second cable I have had in the car. Before I noticed the problem the first time the corrosion was so bad that it ruined the cable. At that point in time I thought the cable had wiggled loose and caused the problem so I replaced it with a new cable and carried on for a while before I saw the corrosion again. So I wouldn't think it was the cable.

racebum

cable has nothing to do with the terminal

galvanic reaction happens when two similar metals are on each other. lead on lead etc. moving to steel rather than lead often cures the problem. honda stopped using lead way back in the 80s for this very reason

with an optima you rule out gas release. what's left?

drewsteriam

Any idea what I might do to fix this? I had some dielectric grease on there at one point, but now that I think about it, that might have been on the old battery. I don't think the new battery has any on there.

racebum

it's an ongoing issue with lead terminals. one of my work trucks has them and i use felt under the terminals. clean them yearly. need to convert to brass or gold to cure the problem.

i never had this issue with a stock c5 though. environment is the other. you live in a high humidity environment?

drewsteriam

Any chance a voltage leak could be the root of the problem? The problem seems to not progress as quickly when I leave the car hooked up to the battery tender.

There isn't any crazy amount of humidity in North Carolina. Certainly not on the level of Florida.

racebum

no idea honestly. the question there would be, what's causing it?

Kelly.s

I use a battery terminal spray cleaner and then the spray protection. I buy at napa but any good auto store would have it. The spray is a foam cleaner. Spray on, let sit wash off with hose. In my truck I do it in place. In the corvette I take the battery out. When dry reassemble and spray protectorate. Looks like red Vaseline. Problem solved. Very common in Oregon.

Kelly

drewsteriam

I imagine if there is a voltage leak it is due to an improperly installed head unit that I put in back when I knew far less about electronics. In fact I noticed the corrosion again last weekend when I was intending to pull out the head unit to redo the connections to attempt to solve my alternator whine problem.

drewsteriam

I believe I had this stuff on the old battery. Good advice. Once I figure out if there is really a voltage leak I will be sure to give it a good cleaning with some protection at the end.

racebum

if there is you can find an amperage draw with a volt meter by testing it right off the battery

this should always be step 1. if you have a current draw that has to be addressed