This 1996 Ford Explorer came in with an intermittent no crank condition. Followed by a stalling and no re crank condition. The customer told me that he had fixed the battery cable connections. Well yes, there was a new negative battery terminal installed.
I have mixed feelings about these painted battery terminals. I dislike them, because they are such poor conductors of electricity and cause so many problems. On the other hand, so many people are compelled to use them, and because they cause so many problems, I have a lot of work fixing the condition properly.
The customer was fairly ingenious, in that he had cut the loop off of the old terminal and reused the bolt, along with the remaining nut, to hold the cable to the battery terminal. He failed to realize that paint is an insulator and has no business on any unassembled electrical connector. He also failed to do any kind of cleaning to the old terminal.
Now for my way of fixing this problem. I first cleaned the battery post and then installed a marine style battery terminal. Note that the nut insert will not fit over the terminal stud.
Using a drill bit, cordless drill and a pair of pliers to, hold the cable with, I removed the crimps. Then pulled the nut, off of the cable with a pair of pliers.
Now, the hole is large enough to fit over the stud. I used a pair of pliers to flatten the metal. Sure looks bad though.
I used a pair of side cutters and a coarse file to round out the metal and remove the sharp edges.
Next, I used a cordless driver and one of my favorite battery brushes to clean the terminal. If you want one of these brushes they can be purchased here.
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Now, the metal actually looks more like a terminal than a raggedy, corroded piece of crap.
I installed my newly crafted battery cable terminal onto the marine style battery terminal stud.
The engine now cranked and ran normally.