Late Sunday afternoon, I pulled my 77 camper off 36 at the Boulder scenic 
overlook to make some exposures of the storm clouds. When I was through I 
got back in bus, turned the key and ... nothing. No buzz, no click, and 
definitely no engine turnover. Being a mechanicaly-challenged individual, 
such things are worrisome. I tried the headlights, nothing. I checked the 
fuses, they're ok. I check for loose wires in the engine compartment, nope.
I look at the main battery, there's a bunch of blue powdery stuff on one
terminal. I begin to brush it off and notice the terminal is loose, in 
fact, it slides off easy. A cursory inspection shows me that it's almost
entirely corroded away. I jury-rigged the conection, start up the bus and
drive away. I went to the Target store and bought a replacement terminal
which I'll put in tonight or tomorrow.

What causes a battery terminal to corrode? The one that's on now is copper.
The replacement is heavy-duty lead. Does that matter? Why didn't the 
secondary battery kick in? Was it because it needed to go through the 
primary battery whose contact was bad? How can you tell whether or not 
the secondary battery is doing its job? What is its job? I always figured
it handled the interior lights and maybe the electric cooler that I never 
use.

Thanks.

   ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------
            John Dziadecki     <dziadeck@spot.colorado.edu>
             <http://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/tel.html>