die aux power terminal! die!!

[ryan.h]

 

Long story short: my aux power terminal is heating up. Bad connection somewhere. I need to remove it from the junction box or whatever you call it to clean everything up. (wire brush, etc) Problem is, I don't know how it comes off!

 

It seems like it was designed to slide out the bottom, but there are a couple metal plates (that go to the junction box) in the way. So, how do I remove the metal plates? I know someone has done this before.

 

95 GP 3.1

[GutlessSupreme]

unbolt the nuts remove the plastic from the bottom of the housing, there's another nut underneath. unless they did something overly elaborate and homosexual for '94+

[ryan.h]

Figured it out. Stay tuned for a walkthrough.

 

ok... upload folder is full. gay.

 

Here is the auxillary power terminal and junction box:

 

 

I was removing the surface charge on my battery by turning on the high beams for 3 min, when I noticed the auxiliary power terminal was getting quite hot. I noticed the plastic around it was partly melted. Awesome. So what causes this? Well, when your lights are drawing a lot of amps, any extra resistance in the line will also dissipate heat in the form of current squared * resistance. So, there is some unnecessary resistance somewhere in the terminal causing it to heat up.

 

So....... I noticed the aux power terminal is the main connection between the battery and the rest of the car. Interesting. Looked closer, and the bottom of the aux terminal is a bolt that goes to metal plates that distribute power to the junction box:

 

 

Henceforth, it shall be known as the "bad bolt". The bad bolt is what is responsible for delivering 100% of the power to your lights, ECM, ABS, ignition, etc etc. Just a little bit of corrosion on this bolt and your car is not happy. Maybe your dash lights dim when your blinker is on. Maybe your ABS light is on. At any rate, you can see the plates that deliver the power to the junction box, and the power post sticking down and to the right.

 

So, remove that bolt. Clean it up with a wire brush. Take the cover off the junction box and remove the 4 big fuses:

 

 

Take a small flat screwdriver and jam it in the 4 marked holes. This will undo the latches holding in the two metal plates. This might take some finagling and you'll probably stab yourself.

 

After that, the metal plates fall out, you take some sandpaper to them, make them shiny again, and do the same for the aux battery post that just slides right off. Reassemble and problems be solved!!! BTW, tighten up the bad bolt and the battery post nut like there's no tomorrow!