Broken Ring Terminal on Positive Cable

Question

Today I broke a ring terminal to one of the smaller positive cable when I dropped a new battery in the place of a dead battery. There were a lot of corrosion at the battery terminals, and there’s rust everywhere under the hood. I don’t have the tools to remove the nut at the terminal end (it’s bigger than 10mm and smaller than 11mm) so I don’t know if the nut is actually stuck or not... or if the other ring terminal is fused together to the broken ring terminal or the clamp (will be broken if removed) or not due to corrosion and rust...

I would like to know what’s the easiest fix that can last me at least five years with this car. I thought a lot about what could be done here: solder the cable down on the terminal, replace the ring terminal, replace the terminal and the ring terminals on it, use a terminal that I can jam the wires as illustrated below (but the cables are just long enough in the standard configuration, so it won’t be long enough without adding more cables)... I don’t have the hands on experience to know what fix is best or can last at least five years.

EDIT: I soldered the cable that’s broken off to the hex bolt on the terminal that holds down the ring terminal and everything worked okay afterward. I’m not good at soldering so I don’t know how long this solder connection will last.

Answer 1

What you described will work fine. There are several options out there to replace terminals. You wouldn't be the first one with corroded cables/terminals.

IF the cable is still good... There are several products on Amazon that will work, just make sure you get something that'll fit the wire gauge you're dealing with. There are charts out there which can help you determine how large your cable is.

I'd personally get a solution that would allow me to solder the cable into the terminal, but that's me. The "quickest" and "easiest" solution is a simple bolt/clamp style, and it will likely work fine for years.

If you have corrosion ALL down through the wire (which is possibly the reason you might have thought your battery was bad), you might have to replace the cable assembly anyway, in which case you can probably find a complete kit that with new cables that are already assembled to the terminals (there are generic kits too, Summit Racing sells them). The common setup is one heavy cable to the starter, and one not so heavy running to the alternator (or possibly a regulator, if it is external).