i have some battery corrosion on my ranger. does anyone know how to get rid of it?

 

I have had good luck pouring some coca cola on it and clean with metal brush.

 

the coke trick, baking soda and scrub. Recoat if its the battery box or inner fender with some undercoating that comes in a spray can. If you dont put an optima type battery in, seal the terminals with RTV or silicone and then put the cables on. the corrosion comes from the fumes leaking around the post where it goes into/out of the battery itself. Regular cleaning will help keep corrosion to a minimum.

 

If you don't want to mess with mixing & applying the baking soda & water, to neturalize the acid & clean up the corrosion, your local Walmart & most autoparts stores carry a spray can kit, made by Noco, that'll spay on a yellow color foam, that'll turn red whever it contacts, neturalizes & cleans up acid.

You just wipe it off after it turns red, then brush the battery posts & clamps so they're clean & bright, reinstall them & spray on the overcoat in the kit, to seal things up & prevent further corrosion.

It sounds like your battery, or electrical system, is trying to tell you something.
Maybe the battery is sulphated & near the end of it's life, or maybe the alternator is over charging it & causing the acid to boil excessively, or maybe the battery is low on water.

In any case, after you get it cleaned up & check/adjust the battery level with distilled water, I'd run this puppy by your favorite autoparts store, for a no cost, in vehicle, electrical system check up, via their portable electrical system tester.

Properly used, it can sniff out any weakness, or problems in all the electrical system components, before they lay down on you, on one cold winter night!!!

More thoughts for consideration.
Let us know how it goes.

 

I would also check out the battery tutorial at the top of the main page. It has a lot of useful information.

 

After you take old battery out and clean or when you replace a battery, before putting the cables back on put some antiox on the posts and the cable ends.
You can buy this in the electrical dept. at any home center. the paste comes in a tube or small bottle with pointed tip. It is commonly used to prevent corrosion on allumium wire.

I have used it for years on my batteries and donot have any corrosion problems since unless the battery fails.

You also want to put this on the hold down bolts and any clamps.

 

I coat the terminals and lugs in petrolium jelly and never had a corrosion problem.

 

Petrolium jelly should work fine to fight corrosion, but may increase the electrical resistence between the connections.
The anti ox helps to keep the resistence low and combat the corrosion.

 

If it does then it's not very much, I never have any problem starting.. even in very cold weather(-30C), and once a battery is installed I typically never have to touch it again until it dies.

 

thanks guys. i tried the petroleum jelly a few days ago. so i'll just wait it out a little. does anyone know when the corrosion occurs?

 

Biggest thing is to make sure you got everything clean with baking soda and water. If not you will start to see it reform in a few months.

 

Well "when the corrosion occurs" depends on just how persnickety one wants to be in defining when it begins.

As soon as we clean the battery posts & cable clamps so they're bright, molecular surface corrosion begins, by attacts on the metals from oxygen & moisture in the air, to galvanic corrosion, because of the difference in the metal composition in the battery posts, clamps & wire strands in the battery cables, to acidic fumes from the battery vents, to high under hood temps & humidity all of which hurries things along, to any putrids we may spill or spray under the hood, that ends up on those connections that speeds the corrosion reaction up.

So as soon as we get those surfaces clean, we need to apply a "barrier coat" of some sort, to seal up those connections & slow down the corrosion we Can control, ( battery acid fumes, oxygen & mosture contact with those surfaces).

So the barrier coat we choose needs to be able to stand up to the high under hood temps & not evaporate, run, or bake off, or be affected by moisture.

The Noco kit is handy to use & holds up well.
I use their barrier coat, or a spray can of white lithium grease, as it can hold up to high temps & comes out with low enough viscosity to flow into small places & gets a really good seal on things & being a bone white color, it's easy to see just how good a job I've done.

Noco's spray barrier lube also does a good job, holds up well with high under hood temps & is a nice simi clear red color, so it too is easy to see how thorough an application we've made.

The better job we do in applying the barrier coat, the longer the good connections will last & the happier all the electrical system components will be & the longer they'll last, not having to operate under load at reduced voltage, being dropped through corroded up battery connections!!!!

If we wait until we see the surface corrosion, we've waited too long!!!!

I even go to the trouble & expence of using a commercial silver loaded conductive lubricant on the battery posts & cable clamps, called "Conducto-Lube". It's not cheap, but works real good to make & maintain a really low resistance connecton between the battery cable clamps & battery post, so I get very little voltage drop through that connection over time.

A bunch more thoughts for pondering.