car battery cable whiteish corrosion

[Thomas]

On Thursday, February 3, 2022 at 8:35:58 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:

I looked it up and "found the answer on the Internet" so all must be true. :)

This one explains the felt washers can become an acid sponge over time.

This says the felt is mechanical in that it "blocks" fumes from metal. "The washers will only protect the bottom of the post and the clamp. The spray will cover the sides and top. Any unprotected part of the clamp is subject to corrosion."

This says the felt pads prevent electrical shorts across the two terminals

"These washers help prevent high-resistance shorts across the battery case (when batteries get really dirty"

This says the felt pads are "doused with a special chemical", but whenever people don't say the chemical name it usually means they don't know what they're talking about.

This makes a good point that un-oiled felt washers would get wet & stay wet. Here is the question we're asking about do the felt pads work, and how. Product specs just say the pads are "saturated with oil" (but what oil?). These washers say they are saturated with a grease which doesn't evaporate. This oil/grease was "invented in 1914" and it's what they're saturated with. This says the felt is soaked with a "special chemical" which makes me suspicious because more often than not a "special chemical" isn't all that special. This one says something interesting about felt on side post batteries. "On a side post battery, the post is actually BELOW the acid level, so a felt washer, even though it could be used, is not going to provide the level of protection as it does on a top post battery. This is where buying terminal grease will help protect."

This says the corrosion is due to metal on metal and not due to acid at all

This explains why the positive post gets more corrosion than the negative "The positive post of the battery has a positive charge, ie there are no 'free' electrons there (they're at the negative post), so this accelerates the corrosion of the lead that makes up the terminal itself, as the lead atoms give up electrons and oxidize, leading to the corrosion that you are seeing. I know that I haven't worded this very well, but I've cleaned countless battery posts and terminals, and I have noticed that on most batteries, the positive post tends to have more corrosion on it, and it is harder to remove than the corrosion on the negative terminal."

This says the way the soda works is the fizz disturbs the deposits.

Lots of corrosion here on the second battery.

[Michael Trew]

I have a small city lot, and my entire back yard consists of 9 cars... one is on-street parked at another property, and another is wedged into a small storage unit. There isn't really room for anything else in my back yard now. Would you like to buy a few cars? LOL

Latest edition: 1965 Galaxie:

[micky]

Will I get a discount if I buy 3?

I'll need to keep them at your house. No room here.

[micky]

It's possible that I just assumed they had some chemical poured on them, that then dried, and they enocourage t he idea t hat there are two chemicals because thy're different colors. If it was plain felt, they wouldn't need different colors, but it's the kind of marketing a lot of places do and they never say there are chemicals involved.

Still, I've found most manufacturers do go to some trouble to make a good product, and even if they only made a solution of baking soda, soaked them in that and dried them, i wold think that woudl be better than plain felt. Next time I get a new pair, I will taste them, see if I can tell what might be on them, and if there are 2 different things .

[Thomas]

You can guess all you want because everyone on the Internet is guessing. Most of the guesses I found were self contradictory and so worthless.

My guess is whenever they claim it's a "special" oil "Invented in 1914", they're expecting people to be stupid enough to believe that junk.

Nobody is that stupid. (Well, most people are that stupid, but I'm not that stupid.)

I'm sure there's /something/ on them though, as otherwise they'd be a felt sponge soaking up and retaining not only water, but acid, but as for a "special" oil, I suspect it's no different than any regular basic thin oil.

It's just an oil. What you need is anything but water.

Take a piece of felt and soak it in any "special" oil in your kitchen. Olive oil is what I'd use. Extra virgin is pretty special. First cold pressed is the most special of them all.

Darn. Now I let out the secret of my super secret "special" oil. :->

[Beeper]

Certainly, and be sure to not reverse the felt washers by putting the green on the positive and the red on the negative. Doing so will certainly result in anti-depolarionization of accumulated non-ferrous lead isotopes.

[Scott Dorsey]

So ask for the MSDS when you buy them. If there's no MSDS on them, they are likely pretty inert. If there is an MSDS, it will tell vaguely what they are impregnated with.

I haven't used the felt pads in years, though, just the spray. The spray seems to work very well.

--scott

[Paul in Houston TX]

Read the MSDS sheets provided by the mfg's. They are readily available. By US Federal code any substance that could possibly be a hazard to human health and or the environment must have a publicly available MSDS.

[Jim Joyce]

I thought you might have been talking about Marvel Mystery Oil, but that stuff didn't come about until 1923, 9 years after your 1914 reference.

[AMuzi]

Looked at three MSDS all say 'oils'.

NOX or VCI anti-oxide paper wrappers have sodium nitrite don't know if that's in the felt washers or not.

[The Real Bev]

I used them once. No difference at all. I think I just washed the battery off with water, although I seem to remember someone saying that Coke would do a better job.

I once used a glass Coke bottle like a hammer to bash one of the cables on tighter, but I don't think that was what was meant.

[Ken Olson]

Women getting wild with bottles scares me.

[Thomas]

Thank you for looking that up for us.

I googled (almost 'till my fingers hurt) and could only find "special oils" which I've already stated is a euphemism for "nothing special about them."

This one just says it's "oil based" for example.

I also found a few just saying "chemically treated" such as this ad. Hell, this one does _everything_ that one could expect a magic spray to do! As for the 1914 reference, I saw it in one of the Amazon ads for the felt pads, which was their way of making their special oil even more special. If you zoom over the package you can see where it claims that their oil is so special it was "invented" more than a century ago, where those kinds of claims _must_ work on stupid people (because they put them there to do that).

But if people are that stupid, then we'll never get to the bottom of this. Unless we figure out how "special" it is, my claim that extra virgin cold press (first cold pressed, actually!), is my "special" oil of choice.

Same with my grease. Whatever I have on hand is my "special" grease for the outside of teh terminals.

BTW, I'd love to be found wrong as I love to learn, but we've been down this road before where you look and look and look and look and all you find are contradictory claims for what is, in the end, likely just "regular oil."

I think the only purpose of the oil is not to make the felt act like a sponge to water and/or acid (but you can prove me wrong if you can).

Likewise, I think the only purpose of the felt itself is to act as a physical barrier to the acids that can leak out of the battery (especially on side mounted terminals where the post is apparently below the level).

But I'm ok if I'm wrong if someone can find proof that it is special and that the felt does all those magical things it's claimed to do.

[Thomas]

I googled until my fingers hurt on why coke (which is acidic, I believe) would work given baking soda is basic and that is known to work well.

Only one article made a claim as to how the soda worked, and they said the bubbles are a mechanical boost to cleaning the crud off of tight spaces.

Given the crud is a result of acid, I don't see that it would be removed with an acid so if it works at all, I would tend to guess that's how.

So I think it's mechanical more than chemical, if it works at all.

But if you find out something chemical related, let me know.

[RonTheGuy]

On Feb 05, 2022, Beeper wrote (in article<news:stlot4$15n$ [e-mail]):

Actually, the anti-depolarization is only with black felt washers. It doesn't happen with the green ones. :) BTW, back to seriousness.

Why green and not black? I get it that green is ground while black is negative.

But the terminal is both so why don't we see black felt washers too? Is it because batteries are often black and green is a prettier offset?

Ron, the humblest guy in town.

[micky]

Coca Cola definitely works and it works well.

I wouldn't be making this claim in media and fora throughout the country if it were not true.

Micky Pierpont Vice President, Marketing, The Coca Cola Company

[trader_4]

+1

There is also spray on protector products available.

[The Real Bev]

As long as you behave nicely you probably have nothing to fear. Probably.

[Ken Olson]

The group I went to bars with had a group of girls that used to throw bottles into the middle of fights. I got whacked in the head by a few of them.

[Clare Snyder]

I stayed away from bars and psyco drunk girls.