so my battery went completely dead due to not running her for several months. While the fj sat, I installed new battery terminals to cleanup the wiring. Everything was working prior to this change. When I went to put the charger on the battery to jumpstart it, it sparked violently and burnt one of the terminals pretty good. Pics below.
I checked all connections and grounds and they look good. What should I do next y’all? Is it the terminals? They’re aluminum. Don’t know if that’s the issue??? Feeling pretty dumb here. This must be super simple but for some reason I am unable to figure out what I did wrong.
I just thought of something…. My battery is wired through to a winch… I unbolted the power box from the bumper. Does that need to be mounted as a ground for the winch?
These rigs will have some parasitic drain that, over time, will cause the batteries to go dead. The more equipment you have added, the greater the possibility for a drain or a larger drain. A trickle charger or battery tender should be used any time you store these units for more than a few weeks without use.
On another note, those battery terminals are not designed to be used with the finely divided conductor strands used in the cables. These should be re-terminated with what is commonly referred to as a pin connector. These are compression connectors, an example is below.
You should never use these finely divided stranded conductors with a standard lug, it is a point of failure that will give you problems later on. Always use a lug that is intended for this type of conductor or you will have issues later.
I figured out my main issue…. User error. I wired a negative wire to the positive terminal. Started right up with portable jumper cable. I’ll buy the appropriate crimp fittings in order to properly terminate each wire. Thanks for the info!!!
Yeah. You were correct. Although there are two black wires one of which is negative, the other positive. Not very straight forward for someone like me with a brain like a siv. Thanks for the help!
