Battery terminal stripped!

[Ben_Greenberg]

Hey guys,
I seemed to have over tightened my battery terminal bolt and stripped the side that's in the battery. Is there any way to fix this? Or am I screwed and need to pony up for a new battery?

Also, I am referring to a side post battery which I'm assuming is stock in my 78 gmc c15 heavy half.

Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks guys!

[bd]

Replace the battery.

[Ben_Greenberg]

Dang....

[rich weyand]

A lot of terminal posts only have one thread or so of engagement, but there's like 2-1/2 to 3 threads in the battery.  You just stripped out the first thread or so; there're more threads than that remaining in the hole.  So you can fix it like this.

Get a terminal post for the trucks that had two cables on the negative side.  They're extra long.  Put a nut on it first.  Then put it through the cable end, and run the bolt all the way in to the ends of the battery threads.  Do not tighten!  Then tighten the nut down against the cable end.

Here's the long battery post:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Raptor-R4GMSPALG-GM-Side-Long-Post-Adaptor/39669338

[Ben_Greenberg]

Thank you!!!!! I'm going to try this before dropping the 100+ for a new battery

[bd]

When Rich says don't tighten the long bolt, it's because the hole in the lead pad has a very thin bottom wall.  Tightening the bolt so that it bottoms in the hole can punch the bottom of the lead pad all the way through and into a cell, allowing battery acid seep out past the bolt threads.

Perhaps I misunderstood your initial post.  Did you just strip the outer few threads of the pad, or did the nut that's buried in the lead pad break free and spin?  If the nut is spinning, replace the battery. 

[rich weyand]

Batteries I have bought lately have no nut.  The threads are cut into the lead block.

[bd]

How disappointing.  Quality is vanishing faster than one can blink!  It seems that nothing is built nowadays to endure past six months.  We've officially become a totally disposable society!  I fear to imagine what's next....

[roger97338]

How disappointing.  Quality is vanishing faster than one can blink!  It seems that nothing is built nowadays to endure past six months.  We've officially become a totally disposable society!  I fear to imagine what's next....

It's like were living in the collapsing former Soviet Union. We have an entire generation of people now that haven't even SEEN quality; All they see is disposable plastic garbage. They don't know that things used to be made of metal, nor that when something quit working, you could rebuild it.

[LTZ C20]

That's the way to do it! Why replace when you can REBUILD AND REPAIR!

[roger97338]

That's the way to do it! Why replace when you can REBUILD AND REPAIR!

After my Grandma passed away and we were cleaning out her house, I found a desk full of antique office supplies. One of the items was a bunch of paper clips made by Cincinnati Paperclip Company. These are probably the most over-engineered paperclips to ever exist. They have tiny serrations, which I'm betting are to help hold the paper, they have a kind of translucent red coating on them that doesn't flake or crack if you bend them until they break, and in tiny little letters each one says "Cincinnati Paperclip Co. U.S.A." I don't know what that place looked like, but I've a mental image of a huge factory complex on the Ohio river, with it's own dock for ships, dozens of railroad tracks leading into and out of the facility, and huge smoke stacks billowing smoke into the sky. The sort of place where guys started working right out of school, and when they retired they were given a gold watch.

We'll never see paperclips of that quality again. We'll never see companies like that again, either.

Sorry for being so off-topic, now I'll give my two cents about batteries.

I used to work for a battery wholesaler. The side terminal batteries that we sold had threaded stainless steel inserts which were cast into the lead. Sometimes when the battery cable bolt was over-tightened it would poke through the back and the battery would leak acid; Other times over-tightening  would cause the insert to break loose and spin inside the lead. If the insert broke loose, we had these nifty graphite molds that could be placed over the terminal, then we could melt the lead, re-anchor the insert, and have a battery that was good again. Poking through the back wasn't fixable, the battery would always leak.

So, if your battery is built like that, and the insert broke loose, it is theoretically fixable. I don't know if you could find someone that still does repairs like that, though. I suppose I should add the disclaimer that this repair should only be performed by qualified people with the proper equipment. Failure to do it right will either leave a gaping hole where that corner of the case melted, or an even large hole where the battery exploded. I know this because I've done both.

[LTZ C20]

Lol. This is cool. ^^^

[Ben_Greenberg]

As rich recommended earlier, I got a longer bolt, not quite the one he mentioned, but with a few extra washers I am all good! The first few threads weren't great on the battery, but the back few were fine so the cable is back on nice and tight

[rich weyand]

Glad I could help out get you going.  Thanks for reporting back.

[roger97338]

If you get a couple brass bolts to hold your cables on your battery, the brass threads will strip before anything else gets damaged. They also give you a handy power tap at the battery, if you need it.