On Line Work At Home - How to Disconnect a Car Battery

You will find a clear explanation of how to disconnect a car battery properly, in this Buzzle article. An electrical battery is no exception and it needs to be handled with care. Electricity can be a terrible damsel when scorned and hence it's essential that one knows the proper procedure of handling any electrical device or appliance. All the electric power required for the functioning of every one of the car components is supplied by the battery. Your car's power station is the 12 V battery installed inside.

About Car Batteries

Make the discharging and charging of the battery possible, lead oxide plates and the sulfuric acid, chemical reactions that occur between the lead. Dipped in diluted sulfuric acid, with every cell consisting of lead and lead oxide plates, most of them are lead-acid batteries. Your car battery is a set of electrochemical cells connected together in series. A brief discussion about the working of the battery is essential, before we talk about the right procedure to disconnect a car battery.

Which will be elucidated in the following lines, you need to take certain precautions when disconnecting the battery, due to the highly corrosive nature of sulfuric acid and the car chassis connection with the battery. That completes the circuit and is connected with the car chassis, the black terminal is actually the 'ground' terminal. The power stored in the battery is distributed to all the electrical accessories involved in the functioning of the car, one negative (black) and positive (red), through two power terminals.

How to Disconnect a Car Battery Safely?

Which is the appropriate size wrench, besides the main tool, baking soda and soap are essential items that you'll need, a pair of rubber gloves and cleaning equipment including a brush, safety goggles. Let me talk about the things you'll need to be equipped with, before I walk you through the procedure for disconnecting the battery. One of the most common ones is the replacement of a car part like the oxygen sensor or replacement of the throttle sensor. There are many occasions when you may need to disconnect the car battery.

Step 1

Fixed with a nut and bolt arrangement, observe the black (negative) and red (positive) terminal attached to the battery. Wear your goggles and gloves. Under the hood, let it cool for some time and then locate the car battery, switch off the car.

Step 2

Make sure that it doesn't come in contact with any metal car part. Just loosen the nuts enough to remove the terminal from the point of contact with the battery. So it's essential that you remove the negative terminal first. A short circuit may result, if you remove the red terminal first and simultaneous wrench contact with car chassis and positive terminal happens. This is because the negative terminal is connected with the chassis. Use the wrench to remove the negative terminal first, now that you are done cleaning the terminals.

Step 3

Soap and baking soda solution, look for corrosive material that might have been deposited over the battery terminals and clean it up using a brush. Then you may continue with your car repair job or battery replacement. Or the negative terminal, doesn't come in contact with any metal car part, again makes sure that the red terminal too! In the same manner, then you can proceed with disconnecting the positive terminal.

Step 4

Your mission is accomplished, with that. Followed by the negative terminal using the wrench, make sure that you connect the positive terminal first, once you are done. Grease the terminals with petroleum jelly to prevent further corrosion.

It's better to be safe than sorry, as always! Leave the job for a professional to handle, in case you are still left with any doubts and don't feel confident enough to go ahead with it. You can safely disconnect the car battery without any problems, with the proper precautions taken. Thereby making it safe for you to go ahead with car repair, this will disconnect the chassis from the negative terminal, as discussed before. Is to always remove the negative terminal before the positive terminal, the key point to remember in the above discussed procedure for disconnecting car battery.