So I was doing maintenance on the battery cables today. Some white stuff built up on the negative cable. Whatever, cleaned that off using the Lynx corrosion spray (just Sodium Bicarbonate with water in can form).

The positive cable however was a mess. It was covered in green/blue/white stuff everywhere and then it even had this sort of hard tumor of yellowish stuff maybe half an inch stuck to the terminal.

So for the positive cable I sprayed the stuff on and let it foam then I put a paper towel under it so it doesn't drip and went back in to go eat. After eating I come outside and the foam is gone (this is normal it's supposed to turn to liquid) but the positive battery cable clamp is no longer the whitish/silverish color it started out as, it's pink like copper only on the bottom half of the clamp. What happened here? I have a feeling the hard build-up was dried acid and when I sprayed the foam the water mixed with it and re-activated the acid which melted the plating (tin?) on the copper. Does anyone agree?

I'm wondering if this would cause any problems now? Am I looking at issues now or in the future now that the plating is gone? There's a nut and bolt that looks like it holds the clamp on to the cable so I could probably replace the clamp if I wanted to but don't want to if it's not going to cause any problems.

 

Just test for continuity from the battery post to the outside of the connector. As long as you get no resistance there is no issues.

 

After cleaning and now the "plating" coming off, I'd suggest you protect the cable ends as well.

Several ways of doing that, I'll let you decide how you want to do that.