Tips On How To Replace Battery Terminal Cable Ends

I’m going to explain how to replace your battery terminal ends on your car or Ford, Dodge, or Chevy pickup truck. The reason we’re replacing these is when we go to start the car all we get is that click like a dead battery when we know the battery is new. We went to tighten the positive lead and in doing so we found the bolt rusted and a piece of the terminal broke off so we’re gonna replace both ends of the 2 cables.

First you need to determine what style battery you have, whether it has top posts with the posts on top or side posts with the terminals on the side. Some batteries have both so you need to know where your wires connect. Once you determine what style battery you have, you’ll need to determine the kind of terminal ends. For an older car where the wires are molded into the terminal clamp you’re gonna need to cut that off and you’re gonna use a clamp on style cable end. The wire will go in the clamp and then tighten the two screws and it’ll hold the wire to the clamp and the other part of the clamp will go on to the battery post. They are color coded which makes it nice and easy, red for positive and black for negative. If you don’t have that style clamp and you have an eye at the end of yours, you’ll need to buy that type terminal end.

First, we take wire cutters or strippers and cut the wires to remove the old terminal end. Now that we got the old cable end removed, we strip the end of the wire with the wire strippers making sure not to strip too much off. You want to make sure it’s just enough to fit on the clamp. Now that we got it stripped give it a little bit twist and insert it in the battery terminal and finger tighten the 2 bolts. Once we tighten down by hand we’ll grab a wrench and tighten the rest of the way. Now that we snugged down the two bolts holding the wire into the terminal go ahead and give it a pull and a wiggle just to ensure that the cable is properly connected to the terminal. Set the negative lead aside and go on to working on the positive and do the same thing. You know it’s the positive side because it has the rubber boot that you’re gonna need to slide back and keep it on the wire so that we don’t forget to put it on before you put your new end on. Now cut this terminal off using wire strippers or cutters to cut off the terminal end and we have our positive side stripped and ready to go into our terminal. You don’t want to touch them against the positive side of your battery as you can cause a spark and cause damage. Spread the clamp out, slide it on, run on down finger tight on both bolts. Grab a wrench and turn on the rest of the way down and give the cable pull and a wiggle just to make sure the terminal end is secured to the wire.

Now use a battery terminal cleaner. What you do is just push it on, give it a twist all the way down to the bottom of the battery post and follow it up so we know the connection is going to be good on the battery. Do the same thing on the positive side. Slide it on, push it down and twist it so it’s gonna make a good connection. Now that we’ve got the two battery terminal posts clean go and clean the new terminals we just put on. What you do is pop the brush apart, put it back in and just stick them in the terminal and give it a twist back and forth so we get a good connection, do the same thing on the negative. Now we finished cleaning our battery terminal ends, and we’re ready to reinstall. If you had a lot of corrosion on your battery terminals they make little felt pads and you might want to use them. These are made by several companies such as Shumacher, Pangda, UTS Auto, and Tech Team https://www.amazon.com/Anti-Corrosion-Chemically-Automobile-Tech-Team/dp/B08156L7N3/ref=sr_1_23?crid=2NPB30UXZUXFS&keywords=anti+corrosion+washers&qid=1580221028&sprefix=anti+corrosion%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-23. These will prevent the blue green crud that can cause conductivity problems and hard starting.

To put our positive on we need to use a screwdriver to spread it to get it to fit onto the post of the battery. No need to go super tight just make sure it can’t wiggle or pull off. Once we have the positive side down, we’ll do the negative. Slide it on, turn it down and use a wrench and check to make sure it’s on there and not loose and check to make sure they’re both securely on the battery and pull the rubber boot and put it back over the positive terminal just to make sure nothing could touch it and cause a spark.

With that protective cover, back over your positive lead on your battery, that’s it. You’ve just replaced the positive and negative battery terminal ends in your car truck.