battery terminal corrosion from amps

[breakparts]

i have a stock replacement battery and a thick guage wire setup. two amps one for the boom and one for the highs. when hooked up the batteryterminals get so dirty with whitish blue powder that the battery seems dead due to no connection of metal. when i pull off the terminal, scrape it it works fine and only lasts about a week then it will die again till i do the same.ive tried everything is this a problem anyone has had and how did you fix it.

[White Rascal]

Are you using a side post adapter to connect your power wires to the battery? If so you may have a cracked battery casing. This happened to my Tahoe a few years ago. I used one of those side post adapters like this...



to connect my power wires. The adapter bottomed out in the battery and when I torqued it down it cracked the battery casing and allowed acid to leak. I cleaned the corrosion off of the terminals twice before I realized what was actually causing the problem. I ended up having to replace the battery tray and the cables. Not mention the battery too. The threaded part in the side of the battery ended up coming completely out of the battery. When I got my new battery I used a bench grinder to shorten the adapter so it wouldn't bottom out in the new battery.

[dementia]

I use an adapter similar to the one shown in the above post and I have no complaints. I did have to use a razor blade to cut away some of the rubber boot that goes on the the terminal to get it to sit snug though but thats no big deal. Before using this I had jerry rigged an O ring with a slit in it and bent it so it came in contact with the terminals. Bad Idea, pretty sure its what caused my battery to spew its guts out a few months down the road. Nothing like being stranded 20 miles away from home in single digit weather 3 in the morning.

To me the corrosion youre getting sounds like either an acid leak or a bad connection.

[DrMilhouse]

I second the cracked battery possibility. To keep from doing this on mine, I used a battery that has side mounts and top mounts. I use the side for the car and the top for my amps and everything else. Works out well that way, but be careful not to use anything too tall for mounts on the top part. It could potentially ground to the hood if you use something really tall or don't wire things in a decent way.

HTH

[sidonsbones]

A bad ground will cause this over a long period of time, but if you are having it every week try a new battery.

If your battery has caps, check to see if they are all on tight and there isn't crud where their seals are. If they aren't when your battery get's hot (like during cranking, or using the amps with the car off) the acid will boil and push some out of it out of the top. If your battery is too small, or old it may be getting hot anyway and pushing acid out. Check under the battery to ensure this isn't happening, there should be some residue in the battery tray if it is.

I used a similar bolt, but there were two available where I bought mine - a short one and a long one. The short one won't bottom out in the side post.