[RE-wrenches] Surrette Battery Terminal Repair

[robert ellison]

Hi Travis,
That cell will have 2 or 3 posts coming out of the battery and you will need
to use a post cutter to remove the old mounting foot. Quick cable has them,
any other method id an incredible pain in the tail and hard to get the posts
right, and that makes them hard to weld back together,
Once you get the old foot off, fan the cells to get all of the gas out
there, kinda scary when they pop off if you miss some! (ALSO DANGEROUS)
Also, don't do it in the battery room unless it has been vented and unused
(no charging or discharging) for several hours. If you do that remove all
the caps and fan all the cells.
You can not do this with a hand torch, you will need oxy propane (cleaner)
or acetylene (Sp) but its dirtier.
Get a piece of the old terminal to use for the lead, just clean it up real
good. It will work in an emergency, unless you have a lead stick on hand.
Clean it up real shiny on both parts and set the new foot on the
posts.itshould fit relatively tight. Use a real low flame, too much in
one spot will
melt it out and ruin it. Get the lead liquid and add just enough to fill it
in. They are pretty ugly till you get the hang of it, but it can be done. I
do it on big packs all the time.
I just did one with a sawzall and a file but it took me 2 trys to get it
right. I got the connection too tight and the terminal split when I heated
it. I had a bag of terminals and extra lead in the truck so we were good to
do with that one. Just for information the terminal was ripped off by the
constant force from a 4/0 THHN battery interconnect. From looking at it it
have been failing for a while from the strain.
I prefer welded connectors to cables on the big battery banks. No bad
connections from corrosion and who are they gonna call for service? This is
a pretty unusual skill set to have and the companies that service the big
banks charge $65.+ an hour from when they leave till they return to the
shop, in short it's easy to look good. In this area they are 100 miles away
so it's even easier!

If you want more detail let me know or I can send you a number if you want
to go over it on the phone.

Later,
Bob

On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 6:21 PM, Travis Creswell <
tcreswell at ozarkenergyservices.com> wrote:

> Hello Wrenches,
>
> So I've got 4v x 1104 AH battery that took a beating whilst being moved to
> it's 4th home in 10 years.
>
> One of the soldered on L terminals got broke off.  Battery itself still
> works "fine".  I was able to vice grip the battery cable and lug on there
> and determined that it charges and discharges normally.
>
> I've got a replacement L-terminal from Surrette and am preparing to make
> repairs.  I have to remove the remnants of the old L terminal and solder
> back on the new one.  It's a pretty large assemble.  It's approximately 6
> inches long x 2 inches wide and weighs at least a few lbs. I familiar with
> sweating copper but have never soldered lead to lead.
>
> I'm sure someone has done this and can offer me some advice on what to be
> careful about.  I only get one shot at this.  I have to remove (unsolder)
> the old terminal from battery and solder the new one on.  Do I flux it and
> what sort of flux? Does the new terminal just melt around the "nubs" on the
> battery or do I need to add material (lead?).
>
> Thanks,
> Travis Creswell
> Ozark Energy Services
>
>
>
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