[Ducati Scotty]

Forgive my lazy searching.  I know someone posted not long ago about the ends of their battery cables cracking off.  I think I have a solution:



These are some nice, heavy ring terminal ends I got at Napa.  Very heavy and would fit the battery cable ends on a UCE well.  I think the box was under $4.  Part #784572.

Scott

[GSS]

+1. I used similar ones from another store.....they work great.

[shamelin]

+1.  Those are nearly identical to the ones that my local bike shop gave me.  I had to bend them, but o/w they were perfect.

[mattsz]

Can you bend these things to the "double" right angles of the original terminals without breaking them?

[gremlin]

http://www-public.tnb.com/pubint/docs/colorkeyed_spec.pdf

[TWinOKC]

+1 to what Scott said.

Good to have some in the garage and in your jacket pocket.

If the battery terminal breaks,  a kicker won't help.

[shamelin]

You can't do a double bend, but a single bend is all you really need.  My 90 degree elbow is at the neck of the terminal, and my battery cable simply goes perpendicular from the battery.

Yep, when your terminal breaks, kicking won't work.  Neither will popping the clutch.  The terminals take up very little room in the tool kit and will save you in a pinch.

[mattsz]

Well, there's so many threads that talk about broken battery cable connectors, I couldn't decide which one to grab.  This one is as good as any...

Either we've been too hard on RE for their crap connectors, or too easy on NAPA by praising their replacement terminals Part #784572, like in Scott's photo at the top of the thread.

Why, you ask?  I got stuck on the side of the road again - you guessed it:



For the second time, I road-repaired the cable by cutting off the broken connector, stripping the wire, and simply wrapping it around the battery's screw.  I'm tempted to leave it that way!

Is there a way to come up with a more flexible solution, but that wouldn't fatigue so quickly?  Either way, I think I'm going to have to replace the ground wire - it's getting too short!

The good news: though I was on my way home on a long trip, and it was getting late in the day, I had my tools with me, and I had no worries about not being able to fix the problem.  Even as I was pulling over on a safe spot on a side road, I was already thinking through the troubleshooting steps and ideas I would try that I've learned here on this forum.  It seemed like an electrical problem, and even though I'd already fixed the battery terminal issue, I checked that first.  Sure enough...

So, thank you again everybody!!!! 

[Norm]

Forgive my lazy searching.  I know someone posted not long ago about the ends of their battery cables cracking off.  I think I have a solution:  some nice, heavy ring terminal ends I got at Napa.  Very heavy and would fit the battery cable ends on a UCE well.  I think the box was under $4.  Part #784572.

Scott

Great idea!  Last year I stopped to help a gentleman whose new(ish) B5 was conked out.  The terminal metal had snapped off.  Some temp repairs and he was good to go, at least for a while.  Do the new RE's come with beefier terminal connectors?

[mattsz]

Great idea!  Last year I stopped to help a gentleman whose new(ish) B5 was conked out.  The terminal metal had snapped off.  Some temp repairs and he was good to go, at least for a while.  Do the new RE's come with beefier terminal connectors?

As far as I know, they still come with the thin terminals.  My point is, the beefy NAPA connector should have been a great idea, but it broke, too.

Any thoughts?  Is there a beefier still connector than that particular NAPA one?

[Craig McClure]

Thin Metal Battery Cable Ends will break if the cable continually flexes back & forth enough. Try to route wires, so there is enough slack to zip cable tie both cables to the battery, thereby limiting cable movement & metal battery cable end fatigue.
   Also, one could by Replacement Screw On Auto Battery Cable Ends, then trim them (hacksaw & vice) to mate up to your Bike Battery. they are rigid soft lead & should be easy enough to cut.

[mattsz]

Food for thought, Craig.

Any problem with replacing the ground cable with a longer one of the same wire gauge, to give me a better lead?

BTW, I'm still using the original Exide battery - I plan to change it out this winter.  Hopefully a new battery will give me some other wire lead options...

[High On Octane]

Longer cables and rerouting them will definitely help with the terminals not breaking off.

Scottie

[JVS]

Why, you ask?  I got stuck on the side of the road again - you guessed it:

Is there a way to come up with a more flexible solution, but that wouldn't fatigue so quickly?

That sucks! Most likely I'm wrong, and the picture says otherwise, but I'll ask it anyway...did that connection have any signs of corrosion?

[mattsz]

That sucks! Most likely I'm wrong, and the picture says otherwise, but I'll ask it anyway...did that connection have any signs of corrosion?

Negative ( ).  Clean as the day I installed it, early last spring.

Actually, I was lucky and it didn't really suck at all - I had the tools I needed, and I found the problem pretty quickly.  Only about 1/2 an hour lost.  It would have sucked big-time if I was on my way to work, though.  Or, I could still be sitting there scratching my head...