Auto Repair

  1. Home
  2. Autos
  3. Auto Repair
photo of Matthew Wright

Matthew's Auto Repair Blog

By Matthew Wright, About.com Guide to Auto Repair

Fighting the Great Green Monster

Sunday March 30, 2008
There could be a Stephen King movie about electrical corrosion. It's a tiny, green and white, crusty, invasive little beast that sneaks in one dot at a time. Before long, the creeping crust has engulfed your electrical connections and eaten an entire town leaving only you and your hillbilly mother in law to fight the stuff, except she thinks butter kills germs and motor oil is a good cure for poison ivy. This may be an exaggeration, but electrical corrosion is the silent killer of electrical systems. If you've ever had a trailer connection on the back of your vehicle, you know how fast it can turn into a headache if left to the elements.

It's a good idea to treat any electrical connections that could be exposed to the elements. If left unprotected, they will surely develop a layer of corrosion that will make the connection fail. This may leave you without headlights or turn signals, and now you've got a safety hazard. Protecting electrical connections is fairly easy. All you need to do is keep the connections clean, and apply dielectric grease to the metal parts to keep moisture from coming into direct contact with them. Take good care of your electrical system and you shouldn't have any problems. I can't suggest putting dielectric grease on a burn, but it's probably at least as effective as butter, and you won't be stalked by hungry cats.

photo of corroded trailer connection by Matt Wright, 2008

Comments

April 5, 2008 at 4:10 pm
(1) team.xlr8 says:

working as a mechanic Ive dealt with this corrosive critter on many occasion,the dielectric grease really caps it off well,oh yeah..fuel pump failure and ignition component failure are some serious problems caused from corrosion/heat build-up,application of dieletric grease can prevent trbls.

Leave a Comment

Line and paragraph breaks are automatic. Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title="">, <b>, <i>, <strike>

Discuss

Community Forum

Explore Auto Repair

About.com Special Features

Auto Repair

  1. Home
  2. Autos
  3. Auto Repair

©2009 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company.

All rights reserved.