Loose Car Battery Connections

[TorqueVR]

My son's away until April and has left his car on my drive. I went to start it earlier on and it struggled to turn over so I popped the bonnet and clipped on the battery charger. That's when I found that the connections are so loose they are barely resting around the battery posts, despite the bolts being as tight as possible. It's as if the posts on the battery have worn down. I've been scratching my head deciding what to do and the best I've come up with is to cut strips off a tin can and wrap them round the posts to pack them out. Any better ideas chaps?

[JAHetfield]

I've screwed self tapping screws into the gap between the clamp and battery post before. It's a bit rough but it works.

[normalbloke]

Tin foil wrapped around the post can work.

[hairykrishna]

Bit of lead sheet wrapped around the posts was how I cured the problem on my MR2.

[TorqueVR]

it's not that uncommon then

[chris1roll]

If they are the clamps made of lead, after a while the "jaws" of the clamps bend in towards themselves with repeated tightening, so that they come to touch on a point rather than sqaure. Then the bolts dig into the outside and everything gets loose.

One solution is to gently try and bend the jaws back so they are square on to each other again, and/or file them sqaure both inside and out which should enable you to get them tight on the posts again.

Alternatively you can replace the clamps, brass ones are cheap enough.

[normalbloke]

Here's a ground breaking idea. What about a new battery?...

[chris1roll]

Because there is more than likely nothing at all wrong with it. It's the clamps that will have worn/bent, not the battery posts.