Our latest post on battery maintenance is also from our last vehicle worked on. A 2005 Mazda 6 Sedan. After time working on this car, I didn’t have the time to work on cleaning the battery cables. Doing the cleaning that was needed to get rid of the acid corrosion that had built up on the post connections and the cables themselves, from what I could see the insulation around both cables was swollen with so much corrosion that they were in desperate need of attention!
I was so surprised that this car was even running! So, I disconnected the positive wire first to see how much acid corrosion was actually in here. Now, I had to go down almost a full inch to get all the acid corrosion built up out of this wire. While going through this wire I separated each wire, trying to get out as much acid corrosion I could, even sometimes I would stick a flat bit screwdriver to dig in a little farther to get as much as possible out.
Then I turned my attention to the positive feeder wire that was also connected alongside the positive battery cable. It had its OWN amount of acid build up. Then I went to the battery top post connection and cleaned it out with my battery post cleaning brush.
Then, I grabbed my battery cleaning spray and sprayed a little bit on each positive battery wire. Just to be sure, it got it cleaner than I did. Now the positive side is done I can switch my attention to the negative side.
This wasn’t as bad as the last one except this one didn’t have any insulation to strip off because it was ALL IN ELECTRICAL TAPE! So I did the same as I did on the positive side. Using a little bit of my battery cleaning spray to get a little extra cleaning power. Then I cleaned it’s battery post connection also and as pictured you will see how well the battery cleaning spray does at attacking acid corrosion.
Then I went and retaped the wires where I cut the insulation off to give it that nice and clean finish look. A nice clean battery and I’m sure this car and all of its electrical components will work better now with getting its full power. Don’t forget to clean up your battery post connections and top off your battery water with distilled water, but do not overfill the battery, because overfilling is harsher on a battery especially during the summer and winter months.
