Ha, good times right there.
Agreed ^^^^
Sorry misread. Thought you said weird.
Must be the west coast lingo.
John presented information I was not aware of. Prior to bonding my bikes ran fine. There was a slight, (but noticeable) improvement in both after completing the work. Always looking for rainy day projects as I no longer suffer from the "Work-A-Day" blues routine. This project fit the bill.
If so inclined, this might be a good winter project, especially if you have odd little issues you can't quite put your finger on.
Hope this adds to the info on maintaining earth connections.
Everybody seems to have their own pet way of 'protecting' electrical joints. The various responses to this post were:
• Silicone protective contact spray
• Dielectric grease
• Roller chain spray
• Pure Nickel Never Seez
• CRC2:26
My father used to coat battery terminals with Vaseline (petroleum jelly) and he was an electrician.
All this got me thinking and searching. The facts are:
• Electricity is only conducted through metals or carbon (as graphite or CF)
• Joints require metal to metal contact
• The more metal in contact the lower the resistance
• Anything non-conductive in the joint will increase resistance
• Grease and silicone and most oxides are non-conductive
• All the above (apart from CRC2:26) are grease or silicone based
Therefore, all those above, apart from CRC2:26, must make joints LESS conductive.
I think the reason people swear by them, is that when you tighten the joint, almost all of it squishes out the sides and leaves a coating of waterproof grease on the outside of the joint, preventing water getting in and corroding it. Enough metal to metal contact is made between the high points of the surfaces to get acceptable conductivity.
BUT there will be less conductivity than if the grease wasn’t there!
The Air Force specify using sprays like CRC2:26 that ‘enhance electrical properties’ (if you can believe CRC’s advertising).
Now the only way to ‘enhance electrical properties’ is to create more metal to metal contact in a joint, i.e reduce metal oxides back to metal, remove tarnish. So I part-dipped a tarnished copper penny (up to the birds tail) in CRC2:26 and waited. After 4 days, its not bright and new, but has removed some tarnish:
IMG_3925 (2).jpg
It seems that CRC2:26 really does have the ability to improve electrical joints like they say. It’s a solvent, so cleans off surface grease. If you tighten the joint wet, it can reduce oxides and promote metal to metal contact. Then it evaporates leaving the best possible joint. Maybe it really did revive that suspect crimp in my loom, though I’m still skeptical.
BUT the joint needs to be protected from later water ingress. That’s why the Air Force also specify a waxy protectant compound over the outside of the joint, like CRC CPC400, which will stand >500hrs ASTM salt spray testing but CRC says it still needs to be reapplied every 2-3yrs (though you don’t have to take the joint apart).
I guess what it means is that no method is ‘for the life of the bike’. If you clean the grounds you have to maintain the protection or do it again every so often – jv
Last edited by John Vreede; 10-18-2018 at 06:04 PM.
I can tell you all this, I started using roller chain spray on battery terminals years ago to stop the white and or blueish build up on the terminals which, happens for different reasons. Since starting to use the chain spray, I've never had a build up and have never had a connection problem, I only reapply when the connection is taken apart for other maintenance reasons, I use Malco roller chain spray only because I had it on hand.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ the above post also sounds like a really good idea.
Thanks for your extensive write up John, I appreciate the time and effort involved. This is the next job on my Ulysses XT and your initial write-up and the PDF summary have saved me a lot of time. While getting a knowledgable steer on the ‘how’ I also appreciate knowing the ‘why’ too.
Thanks again!