Baking soda w/ water and a scrub with a wire brush. Don't allow the cleaner to get inside the battery. Polyurethane on the posts or even petroleum jelly will deter corrosion. An old trick is to lay a penny next to the terminal. It will corrode instead.
Awww geez what did those people ever do to you to give silly advice like that ?
To the OP
Newer batteries don't usually gas enough to cause serious corrosion unless there is a battery or charging system problem particularly if your application uses side terminals.
brush off as much of the corrosion as possible THEN Loosen the nuts, and carefully remove the terminals and make sure to clean the post and inside of the terminal until it's shiny reattach the cable and get the battery and charging system checked.
Just flush the outside of the battery with regular water to remove as much acid as possible.
Using alkali's like baking soda will rot out your battery tray, hold-downs, or fender faster than the battery acid.
And keep your pennies in your pocket, or give it to a charity as it won't make any difference to acid.
I suggest you go to the auto parts store and get a battery terminal cleaner. They are easier to use than a wire brush. As for the anti-oxidant stuff they sell for inflated prices I have found that Vaseline works better.
I don't think I've ever read it anywhere but I suspect that the gooey stuff that forms on top of storage batteries eventually will become conductive and form a path between the terminals. This may only be my paranoia but I always keep my battery tops clean just in case.
I've always just cleaned them (already described above) and then a thin coating of non-conductive grease (basically just about any grease!). No worries at all. Learned this when I worked in the mechanics shop years ago. Cheers, cc
Remove terminals from battery and clean thoroughly with a wire brush to remove all deposits and corrosion. Liberally coat all terminal and post surfaces with anti-oxidant compound (OxGard, found in the electrical department at most home centers and hardware stores, works great). Reassemble.
I've preferred Kopr-Shield for about 40 years. It used to be available only through electrical supply houses, but small bottles of have made their way into the auto supply stores now;
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AFAIK It's a light grease loaded with finely divided copper powder which both prevents corrosion and fills up the microscopic roughness on the surfaces of the mating parts, increasing the amount of contacting metal.
Ummmm.... Vaseline is an electrical insulator. If you apply it between the terminal and the post -- which is where you *really* need corrosion prevention
-- it ain't gonna work. OxGard, on the other hand, is conductive, and can be applied where it's needed the most.
How come there is so much corrosion between the terminal and the post? In most cases they are the same material (lead), so the corrosion isn't caused by dissimilar materials.
I like what another person wrote--new batteries don't have much corrosion. So what does that tell you? Maybe cleanliness is a deterrent and that corrosive gas or corrosive liquids are a problem?
In my experience, covering the whole connection with some type of material is what prevents corrosion on older batteries. As for vaseline--it works. And if you put a light coat on the connections surfaces, it still works because it is thin and squeezes out so you get a good electrical connection. But, I prefer to have the connection clean, make the connection and tighten, then rub in whatever you want, and vaseline is just fine, but I think a heavy grease works better. Lasts for several years. Best bet is a good battery and charger so you don't get any spewing of corrosive materials.
snipped-for-privacy@milmac.com (Doug Miller) wrote in news:5eMSe.86$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com:
When you tighten the clamp,it squeezes out the Vaseline,and small differences in the surfaces penetrate any film left,so Vaseline does not insulate the post from the clamp. It does keep oxygen from the cleaned lead.
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