wiring under the hood

[QueBert]

I picked up some Tsunami battery terminals today, they have holes with Allen screws to hold the wire in so I don't need a ring terminal. I cut and spliced the wire so it fits in without any of the copper being exposed. My question is it looks like water could still get in the hole I know you're supposed to use heat shrink to protect the wire from water when you use ring/spade terminals. I don't want any getting in there and screwing anything up, am I being paranoid? Heat Shrink definitely won't do anything here.

 

[SSSnail]

Electrical grease.

 

[Howard]

Water's not going to do any harm, but dielectric grease won't hurt either.

 

[brblx]

don't worry about it.

if a significant amount of moisture is making it to the top of your battery, you have other issues, like your missing inner fender. or hood.

 

[Pulsar]

Heat-shrink.

But special.

I spent a long time doing wire-harness fixes for manufacturers, and there's a trick to making those splices waterproof. Well, perhaps not so much a trick as knowledge that isn't terribly well known.

The heat-shrink you get at most places is shit. Go to mcmaster (www.mcmaster.com) and get the heat-shrink with adhesive. There is a water-proof glue that will squeeze out of the tube as you heat it. It provides a couple benefits:

1. It makes the heat shrink take any axial forces, rather than your joint or splice. This makes fine-wire splices much stronger as you have to tear the heat shrink before the joint fails
2. It makes your splices / crimps semi-waterproof.

The thing about wiring like that is that you'll never make it truly waterproof. The wire-end has tiny holes between the individual strands of copper. As those heat up and cool off, they actually "pump" water. Once the water is inside the wire it's a matter of capillary action that will wick it inside. Not much you can really do about it - but that's why we use copper rather than steel =).

 

[lurk3r]

Liquid electrical tape, seriously there is such a product, the stuff I've seen used is blue, paint on and comes with a little brush similar to the old copper neverceaze but it dries like a rubber. Its great stuff, Honda uses it on their assembly lines to keep water out.