Melting battery terminal

Energy One

RLA671

Member
Heres one; anyone ever had the neg batt terminal melt from starter / comp resistance? 08 Mastiff carb/very low miles. When starting sometimes compression resistance spinning, puff of smoke for neg batt connection & the neg terminal begins to melt & wires come loose. New batteries, fully charged, good connections, no other electrical issues of away kind. Is there a test for the comp release system? any thoughts or ideas appreciated.
 

Bowhunter

Well-Known Member
I have seen it happen a couple of times on buddies bikes, I am fairly confident that this is caused by the terminal NOT being tight when you put the battery under a 'load' while cranking the engine.
I am still on my original '09 battery, when I brought the bike home, I put a small amount of blue Loctite on the bolts and then covered the entire terminal with dielectric grease. I keep the bike on a multi-bank battery tender unless I am riding.
These bikes will loosen everything that does not have Loctite on it.
 

FrankBDPS

Well-Known Member
These bikes will loosen everything that does not have Loctite on it.[/QUOTE]

Ain't that the truth!
 

woodbutcher

Mr. Old Fart member #145
Staff member
while under the seat, check the underside of the seat pan to see if there has been contact between the pan and the post. that has happened to some. see if you can get a little more clearance between the two, if not might want to add a piece of rubber to the back of the pan for insulation at the contact point.
 

BadDawg Bill

Well-Known Member
while under the seat, check the underside of the seat pan to see if there has been contact between the pan and the post. that has happened to some. see if you can get a little more clearance between the two, if not might want to add a piece of rubber to the back of the pan for insulation at the contact point.
It could be that but I'd check to see how you are connecting the wires to the battery. Make sure the large wires are connected first then the accessory wires. Also, if you are using a spacer make sure it has a washer on the inside and out side for good contact. The reason it melts is because of an arc from a poor connection.
 

JR03CHOPPER

Well-Known Member
Mine happened after a wire became chaffed, made contact with the terminal. Ugly mess. The entire corner of the battery melted.
 

Peckerwood

Active Member
I also melted one of my terminals last year, on a six month old battery. Loose connection. Do also check your seat pan, but you may find it's fiberglass, not metal. Tighten THE FUCK out of ALL connections; not just your battery, but your ground, starter; check EVERYTHING.
 

Jwooky

Well-Known Member
As stated, high resistance...either loose or something in between the cable and battery..ie smaller wire, corrosion etc.
 

Sven

Well-Known Member
I'm going to assume... 'When starting sometimes compression resistance spinning...' means the engine has stopped but the starter button is still depressed. So that means there is a resistance to the starting system, rather than the compression. The compression is a given so not too many fry their battery upon starting. Say this is a for every action there is an opposite and equal say.

New batteries, fully charged, good connections, no other electrical issues of away kind. Is there a test for the comp release system?
Now say the neg flow begins at ground and ends at the posi side on the jobber. I may be wrong but here is where I apply 'for every' flow that begins, it reverts back to the source it first came. That to me says a bad ground somewhere?

So I would scrub my ground at the ground cable to frame, scrub the relay to cable to starter post and scratch in a new contact onto the jobber. The jobbers being the [starter] post and [relay] posts. I have my ground/posi cables with new, clean contact points to the frame, I am not done yet. I take jumper cables and those 4-ends wind up grounding the trans/engine/frame/ to the battery neg side of the battery are now 4 contact points.

I now start the engine and see if the ground goes to the starter this time, not back to ground or the shortest path melting the post down. I want to start the engine twice so when I remove the jumper cables it made no difference. If the bike starts sluggish, I reconnect two cables back on, it starts sooner again, I have a trans to frame grounding problem. I may have an engine to frame grounding problem. This is one scenario on the basics looking for a bad frame/eng/trans to battery post ground.

I can now remotely hook up the trans only and see how well it starts, or the engine only and how well it starts? I am assuming a belt drive and say the primary was not a ground source from trans to engine to frame kind of connect the dots when chasing for a battery post cook kind of grounding issue.
 

Sven

Well-Known Member
Well thanks, Peck. My deal with bad grounds was one motorhome and one chopper build. A rusted ground [braided style] strap was the motorhome's cause. I saw it arch trying to start it. Low and behold did the engine turn right over I chased clean metal to metal contacts. Same with the chopper build. Jumper cables pinpointed my grounding problem using those 4 points.

And then the part where it took me for a loop reading, 'we can move neg to posi or posi to neg with a little chemical reaction onto a silicone chip,' and I said, no shit?! And I then took the theory 'for every action,' applied it to the neg side rather than a posi or we'd have the posi meltdown. That's how I would follow that kind of theory or I am wrong out of the box with that apply.

I'm not sure, but it makes sense to me if the 'for every' is valid. And no shit, dropping something like arsenic onto [I guess], molten silicone, can cause the electrons to breakdown and expose another layer of; too complicated to explain how man can manipulate the directional flow of electricity via a chemical reaction. Fascinating to come across that kind of trivia, then apply it to a circuit board in our brain and the chemical reaction of... :cheers:



:cheers:
 

kickstart

Well-Known Member
The basic Hot through Resistance to Ground is a Complete Circuit, however it's assuming the ground is good.
 
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