Battery connection

[simontaylor]

My '86 turbo has a blue plastic self gripping hinged cable connector on the negative battery terminal. It certainly is easy to disconect this terninal, but the positive is a normal bolt on. "WHY" did Alpine use this sort of fancy terminal, it is not possible to charge the battery without disconnecting it and it is also not possible to use jump leads? Yeh, I found this out yesterday when the battery was flat and I needed to take the alpine out. Luckily a 5 minute fast charge was enough to start 'er up.

Is there any reason why I should not change this fancy teminal connector to a normal bolt on terminal?

[stephendell]

Is there any reason why I should not change this fancy teminal connector to a normal bolt on terminal?

No reason at all, you'll find many people have.

Reasons against?

Originality. If you change the connector, you can always make up a complete new lead and keep the original one as a spare.

Quick disconnect. Useful for electrical fires.

If the connector is shot and you'd like an original they sell the exact item in Maplin, in a pack of two, + and -, same colour and same manufacturer

[simontaylor]

Thanks Stephen, I'll be upgrading shortly, so that next time the battery is flat at least I can use jump leads.

On my car, there is enough exposed braid on the earth terminal cable to get jump leads onto...