Battery Clamp Fix
 

I have noted that a few members have complained of their battery clamps not holding tight onto the battery positive & negative posts, therefore i hope this little how to will help to rectify that problem for them.

Remove both clamps from the battery using a 13mm ring spanner, once you have them both removed undo both nuts fully without removing.
Now you have the clamps removed and the nuts fully undone, open the clamp ends with a screwdriver as in Fig 1/2

Positive
https://i.imgur.com/1s4N4n0l.jpg1

Negative.
https://i.imgur.com/e6M9BhWl.jpg2

Make sure you have opened the clamp fully Fig 3/4
https://i.imgur.com/XXG3LAYl.jpg3

https://i.imgur.com/BE1D8Eel.jpg4

With the clamps open you can now refit the clamp to the battery post pushing the clamp fully down to the bottom of the tapered post, tighten the nut up with your fingers only at this stage. Fig 5/6
https://i.imgur.com/OH4Itj9l.jpg5

https://i.imgur.com/eS4EevLl.jpg6

Now that the clamps have been hand/finger tightened you can proceed to nip them tighter with the 13mm ring spanner slowly until you feel the nut go tight, stop there do not carry on tightening the nut if you do all you will do is make the clamp become loose. Fig 7/8
https://i.imgur.com/IZ4cVIGl.jpg7

https://i.imgur.com/wSNAk0Ml.jpg8

These clamps do not need to be tightened by the Hulk, this should sort out those clamps that are loose, do a visual and finger check maybe once a month if you so wish but they should not come loose cheers Arctic.

How to here...

Disclaimer:
You are responsible for any work or modifications carried out on your car and you undertake any such work at your own risk.
The 75 and ZT Owners Club nor the original author of this How-To can be held liable for anything that may happen as a result of you following this How-To.

Thank you Steve, this has been incorporated in the How Tos' as it is yet another worthy post:bowdown::D

Winter check
 

With the cold weather & winter closing in on us this maybe one of the checks you would like to do, it should help you getting caught out one cold evening or morning if you car will not start. ;)

I had this problem a couple of months ago and someone had inserted a piece of wire clip to jam the battery clamp on in the past. It was clear that the battery clamp was always going to come loose again and there was no more tightening adjustment on the clamp nut.

On a couple of occasions the car wouldn't start and I could only get it going by jiggling the clamp about.


I popped down my local helpful garage and explained the problem and on removing the clamp and added wire clip it could be seen that that the slot on the clamp at the top was closer than at the bottom ( similar to Steve Artic's number 3 photo ) so that when the nut tightened up the clamp the top part of the clamp butted home before the bottom bit in the slot so that there was no more movment to tighten up the slot at the bottom thus leaving it looseish on the battery terminal.

I'm guessing that in Steve's photo's he has used a screwdriver to even up the slot gap so that it closes evenly when tightened.

In my case we tried that but it still didn't even up so the mechanic very carefully nibbled the top slightly with a grinder until the top bit was even with the bottom leaving a uniform slot all the way down that when tightened pulled together perfectly and never had a problem since.

Thanks for resurrecting the post, must have missed this one, nice fix.

Photos replaced due to the original ones being stolen by PB :mad:

And ‘How To’ copy also updated now too :cool:

Another great tip post, sorted my loose clamps, many thanks :}

I had wondered about this, my new car the earth terminal was loose on the battery, I've fixed it thanks to Artic's guide.........simple yet effective.


Thanks for that, I just need to work through her other problems and previous owner neglect :o

Hi Chris.
One job at a time and we all get there in the end, only trouble is sometimes the car throws up another problem so we start again :D