Corrosion and Broken wires!

My IBA started acting very screwy yesterday. Intermittently, the gantry would begin travelling down the rail prior to the car entering the treadle pad!

I determined it was either a) the floor switch or b) a broken, loose, or corroded wire.

It was very cold yesterday and we washed alot of cars. It only happened once, near the end of the day, then seemed fine. The problem occurred again this morning with a line 6-deep for the auto bay (of course!).

Shut the bay down. Powered down. Pulled the cover off the junction box where the treadle wires go. There was water inside and evidence of corrosion. I pulled all the wires out carefully and found 2 broken wires and 6 corroded connections under the wire nuts. I dried everything out slowly with my heat gun. Repaired the breaks, stripped back and cleaned up the corroded wires and reassembled the junction box. Put some clear silicone around the cover. Bingo. We're back in business. But I am ordering another floor switch as a spare.

The electricians that wired our auto were told to use only plastic boxes and junctions, but they used a metal box on the wall for the treadle. To make matters worse, whoever wired the treadle used wire nuts, so after six months I had to rewire it on a busy day to get back up and running.

Most electricians (at least around here) are cheap and not too bright. They'll use whatever is fastest and costs them the least to get the job done. They don't care that the metal boxes will disintegrate a couple years after they've been paid.

Works on Peterbilts

Funny, my 'dirt guy', who has owned and operated big rigs for years, told me the best thing for connecting wires is to wire nut them and silicone in the wire nut. He runs in the worst weather and conditions and that's the method that lasts. Hmmm.

You shouls try heat shrink butt conn. crimp them on and heat them up with a torch and they shrink and it also has adheiseve in there, they are used all the time in boats.

wire bolts, electical tape and jelly coating for anything high voltage in a wet or damp area. I had to replace a few baldor dryer motors because they drew so much start up AMPS that they melted the wire nuts and burned up the 480V wires! The heat/expantion on the winged wire nuts is too much at higher volts/AMPS and in damp locations it's too dangerous to mess with. I had to redo all of the motors as I changed them out with screwed bolts, tape and coating on every wire.... hadn't had one motor hard start since.

In a wet tunnel with 480V electricity can arc 6 feet or more to find a ground...I'm not taking any chances over $15 worth of wire bolts!

When using heat shrink tubing I have always been told to twist the wires together then solder them. Then slide the heat shrink tubing over the exposed wire and heat shrink it on. ANother trick I use is a product called Scotch lock water proof coating. You can get it at electrical supply houses and it comes in a can. You can dip the exposed wires in it or brush it on and it dries quickly forming a waterproof barrier on any wire connection.

Waxman said:

Funny, my 'dirt guy', who has owned and operated big rigs for years, told me the best thing for connecting wires is to wire nut them and silicone in the wire nut. He runs in the worst weather and conditions and that's the method that lasts. Hmmm.

Click to expand...

I've used wire nuts made for sprinkler systems to connect vacuums that had boxes under the vac, and they always held up well. When I mentioned wire nuts above, they were just wire nuts, no sealant, so the metal in the nut rusted and the wire corroded.

soapy said:

When using heat shrink tubing I have always been told to twist the wires together then solder them. Then slide the heat shrink tubing over the exposed wire and heat shrink it on. ANother trick I use is a product called Scotch lock water proof coating. You can get it at electrical supply houses and it comes in a can. You can dip the exposed wires in it or brush it on and it dries quickly forming a waterproof barrier on any wire connection.

Click to expand...

When I used to service D&S 5000's and had to replace the gantry cable, I'd solder the connections, coat them with liquid electrical tape (Usually 3M when I could find it), then heat-shrink tubing.