Leon Speed

No words other then: I am amazed it even ran for the last years.

Marine Blue

That looks pretty bad.

What condition is your battery box? Any indication that a previous owner had a leaking battery which could have caused this type of damage?

Ducman82

wow, time to build a heavy duty one!

Maleficio

Wow. Completely rotten.

I changed mine a few months ago.

I found my engine/chassis ground strap to be equally rotten. It connects from the passenger side of the block to the body right by the exhaust downtube. It's unsheathed, thus completely unprotected from the elements. I replaced mine with a custom strap made at a car audio shop. 1 gauge wire with super-duty sheathing, solder/crimped gold-plated terminals. Cost me $20, works great. Overkill.

Bill Ball

A classic! Nicely done.

Jim M.

Aww man, you took apart a perfectly good ground strap.

Good find, I need to check mine.

Leon Speed

I don't know what happened to this strap. The plastic is melted at the body-side, so that would indicate a lot of current (or is it amps) being pulled somewhere in the past. There was a leak in the hatch area which I fixed, so maybe it's a combination of water and current. I seem to recall current expedites corrosion, but I don't think water 'corrodes' copper, does it?

Funny enough, I was expecting corrosion at the body-end because the plastic insulation is melted there, and the corrosion I didn't see was under the plastic at the pole-end. Btw the black corrosion is just the surface, so it wouldn't impede current flow I think, but the connection to the strap ends is where there's a lot of resistance. Anyway, I assume it was 20 years old and it was time to replace it.

The battery box is fine, no corrosion. It is really well protected by a layer of whatever stuff it is coated with (not a great sentence but you get my meaning). The engine strap will be checked/done as well in the future.

Jim, it's yours for shipping. I can retrieve it from the trash can

And yes, I have a new camera

Maleficio

Yep, those are excellent pics.

jpitman2

For engine bay earth straps, I have found welding cable (70 sqmm section?) does an excellent job - very flexible (fine wire), good insulation, and crimp well. Welding supply shops obviously the right source.
jp 83 Euro S AT 52k

dr bob

jp--

I looked at the location of the engine-to-chassis ground cable, and think it's darn close to the exhaust downpipe. Too close for the insulation on the welding cable? There are marine battery cable products that have tinned copper conductors, fine strand for flexibility, and good oil- and chemical-proof insulation. Lots of options on that one.

This is on my list of PM's just due to age. My battery ground strap is still in good shape, so maybe I sould archive it and sub in a more 'current' replacement?

jpitman2

Dr Bob, Yes, I must admit I cheated there - I actually ran an additional ground strap from the cam cover to one of the engine bay brace bolts - I had the strap, it was easy to fit there(used one of the air injection pipe bolts on the cam cover), and I didnt need to down and under....I also had some other lengths of this size cable, so I made jumper leads out of them, with clamps that give your hands a real workout to open. I hate the cr@p cables many shops sell cheaply - they look thick, but its 80% insulation, the clamps look like copper, but mostly they are anodised aluminium, and the springs are pitiful. I doubt very much they would ever carry the advertised figures like 400A
jp 83 Euro S AT 52k.

Jim M.

Thanks, Aryan but I think I'll pass. My guess is that the corrosion on the terminal end is from the battery out-gassing. Can't explain the melted section on the body end though.

dr bob

Folks with actual Group 48 batteries should know that the battery comes with a captive venting system. You can add a little 1/4" plastic tube to the vent, maybe a few wire-ties as hose clamps to keep it all connected, and rout the tube out through the positive cable grommet and down. The end on mine dangles a couple inches below the botom of the battery box, routed between the heat shield and the box so the right-side exhaust doesn't melt the tube. White nylon or poly tube will work but it yellows quickly. I used a piece of black poly drip-irrigation tubing and it works great. Simple-cheap-easy, eliminates the corrosion problem and vents all the potentially explosive gas out of the box.

With the battery properly vented, no green copper ground strap remains!

dr bob

jp--

I have those same welding-cable jumpers. They are wonderfull. You know they are good when you compare the weight with the store-bought 'specials'. It takes two Hans to carry 25' jumpers made with 00 welding cable. Good news is that I've never needed them for my car.

SanDiego928

Replaced a few weeks ago and decided to split it to see how bad it really was. Very colorful.