All battery terminals over heating.

[nlarson]

We recently purchased new batteries, and cleaned up the terminal connections replacing all the lugs. Prior ot this I have not noticed any problem, with old batteries lasting 4 years of very heavy use, likely could have gone another season even. Everything looked nice, clean and tight on the connections.

All seemed good at first, but recently I noticed high heat to the point of melting across pretty much all terminals lugs. I first noticed it in a middle connection, and figured it was a single bad wire so replaced that with a heavy cable, but as I kept investigating I noticed the issue is across the entire battery bank.

I know a single hot lug is generally a loose or bad connection, but I am not able to find info about what could heat up the entire battery bank. My next step is to replace all wires, but I am wondering if it is possible for the motor or control to pull higher amps than the terminals can handle?

CC President 2 all OEM other than remanufactured control put in about 2 years ago.

Any help pointing me in the right direction is greatly appreciated.

[Bama Brad]

Not knowing age/condition of cables, you could replace pretty inexpensively:
https://www.batterycablesusa.com/2-g...battery-cables

Usually heat means weak connectivity.

[nlarson]

Yes, I am waiting on delivery of all new 2ga wires - but I did replace all the Lugs with tinned copper and put them on tight on put on with a Lug Crip when I put in new batteries. Insulation looked good, so I feel like the copper was in good shape.

Not saying it can't be the cables, but have seen many cable issues but never all the post terminals getting hot. Tring to figure out if anything else could cause this. - maybe all those new terminals are the issue, and just not high enough quality for this use.

[swm63]

Over-tightening the connections can sometimes spin the post within the lead terminal. This creates a loose connection, and in turn creates heat. Hope that's not your problem, but kind of sounds like it.

[meimk]

Originally Posted by swm63

Over-tightening the connections can sometimes spin the post within the lead terminal. This creates a loose connection, and in turn creates heat. Hope that's not your problem, but kind of sounds like it.

Spec for those is 95 - 105 inch pounds. The torque wrench I use for them is in foot pounds so I round off to 8 foot pounds. Very easy to tighten them too much, crush up the lead, and cause an air gap inside the battery post.

[ThreeCW]

Originally Posted by meimk

Spec for those is 95 - 105 inch pounds. The torque wrench I use for them is in foot pounds so I round off to 8 foot pounds. Very easy to tighten them too much, crush up the lead, and cause an air gap inside the battery post.

I would be surprised if you found out that it was anything other than over-torque. 100 inch pounds is not much torque ... but it is certainly enough to keep the connection tight without damaging the lead.

[Roy Gurley]

What charger u using? Did you change the setup on charger to the new BATTERIES you got.

[HarryT]

You didn't by any chance put lock washers under the nuts. Trojan and other battery manufacturers don't recommend it.
Harry

[Goober11]

I agree with others. After getting a inch torque wrench I found that I have been over tightening my battery connections. 95 to 105 inch pounds is not a lot.

[Tom47]

Eliminating over tightening is the reason I only tighten battery terminals with a 1/2" nutdriver. It is almost impossible to over tighten them.

Also, much less chance of shorting a wrench between terminals. And the terminal nuts are much easier and faster to remove.

As has been said, do not use lock washers!