NO .. not the plumbing flux! It is highly corrosive .. do not use on elecetrical connections .. Yes it will clean thse connectors .. and than keep going to eat them all away in 5 to 7 years time .. If you have used this stuff.. clean the flux all away .. then clean the flux away again!

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To seal the joints - dielectic grease is the stuff designed for the job. The job is simply to stop air getting at the joint .. no air =no oxegen = no corrosion. Petroleum jelly will do the job in non critical aplications .. and so will grease (wheel bearing etc) for battery terminals.

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Regards Frank Warner
motorcycles BMW R80 G/S 1981, BMW K11LT 1993, BMW K75 G/S

you can try some sandpaper on the corrosion till there all bright. If the corrosion has gotten in to the copper wire it may be to late and a new wire job is the right fix. Use Di-Electric grease and use more than you need to seal up the wires, leads, and the plug ends its not that expensive and will last years.

What a great thread! I think we've all had this problem at some point or other. Black Wire corrosion, eh? Well I never.

The oxalic acid idea sounds the best to me. I normally struggle with needle files and rolled up wet-and-dry abrasive paper - both of which have already been suggested, and which often leave a lot of contaminants of their own behind. I remember in the early eighties my father used to make electrical circuit boards by using an acid to etch a thin copper sheet bonded to a plastic sheet. I've noticed that the acid layer of black mud at the bottom of stagnant water also removes copper corrosion. In that case the acid is sulphuric acid (a biproduct of the sulphate reducing bacteria), so battery electrolyte should work too. Failing that, phosphoric acid definitely works on copper (and steel). I think you should be able to source some dilute phosphoric acid from gun shops as I believe it's what they use for gun barrel blue. Perhaps the salicylic acid used to treat veruccas would also work, and comes in handy tubes of gel.

One obvious thing to watch for would be traces of grease; those circuit boards my father made used wax to preserve the parts he didn't want to etch. Oil or grease would do the same.

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Tall men see everyone else's bald patch but their own.......

ferric chloride is the stuff used to etch copper clad circuit board, entertaining stuff, not nice, and dyes everything YELLOW, not yellow.

dont even think about getting it anywhere near your electrical stuff, it eats copper, thats its job

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Harley Davidsons,
The most effective way of turning petrol into noise without the side-effect of horsepower

Ah - that's the stuff! Does it eat copper oxide too? It would be poor if it ate the metal and left the oxide! On the otherhand you'll remove copper whether you etch it or abrade it, so surely so long as the contact is not sustained too long, you should be Ok....

However, there must be something that at least loosens the oxide. I understand that museum preparators have compounds that remove or loosen paratacamite from bronze artifacts, so there must be something out there?

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Tall men see everyone else's bald patch but their own.......

I needed to clean some weatherpack automotive terminals in the shop the other day, and I asked my local tool truck driver.

He had these on the truck: Diamond Grip Terminal Cleaners which did the trick. Handy little set, and much easier than the above method.

Looks like IPA is the manufacturer, but they must rebrand these since I have buddies who have them under various professional tool labels.

I use a product developed by Boeing Aircraft to prevent corrosion. It is marketed privately now by a company called Boeshield T9. Search for it. I can attest that it works very well to prevent corrosion from even starting and it lasts once applied.

Crappy covered connections are a pita.
chop them off, fit new original ones from here ..clicky.sorted.

Ive rebuilt several bikes with original plugs and pins.
You may need a special micro crimper to fit the pins to the wires, with a dash of solder.I say dash, as you dont want the solder to flow too far up the cable and create yet another problem with a fractured wire.
Dont go too much by the colours of the plugs,its the fitment that matters.
I repaired a suzuki voltage reg with new connectors which melted a while back.
The plugs on the loom cant be bought from suzook, they want to sell you a new loom.

I think those melted on covers are done that way to stop the cover from sliding away,thus exposing the bare brass connector,the water still gets in the other end.
Wurth do sell new bullets,but you need the micro crimper to fit properly.It isnt the crimper you associate with red blue and yellow crimps.
Snap on do sell a tool to take apart the sealed multi connectors btw,it kinda looks like a sheriffs badge in anodised green.



Sent by funkytechnogadget

800 grit wet and dry, but use it dry, then Vaseline the connectors.
If the corrosion is too bad, or has reached the wire, cut off and wire in new connectors, often the quickest and best way.
Don't forget to heat shrink sleeve where possible.
Bikes don't have very complicated wiring, with the right gauge selection of wires you can rattle up a new loom in an evening if needed. Helpful for those awkward breaks in a single wire in the heart of the loom that take forever to locate!

This may be an old thread, but is a problem that'll always exist so long as copper contacts are used on machinery!

Someone mentions Phospohric acid, and there's a number of other mentions of various over-the-counter chemicals. None so far of good old Coca-Cola however (not to mention worldwide availability) - that's pretty much all Phosphoric acid; pretty good at making old copper coins look like new: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkVBMuTdEOQ

And ketchup easy to make it stick on connectors.

another good tool for cleaning terminals is a "prep pen" used for automotive painting prep - like this one: KTI Sanding Prep Pen Spot and Paint Chip Repair Tool Adjustable | eBay

the bristles are fiberglass and abrasive - can easily reach into sockets etc