fuse box hell....corroded terminals

Dropped the fuse box on my 89 the other day because the fuses were getting hot and discovered a nightmare.

Plan is to clean the factory dielectric grease off so I can let the terminals soak in lemon juice,vinegar,or coke to eat the green corrosion that has built up on the bulkhead terminals.

What kind of grease did the factory use on the fuse box firewall bulkhead connector anyway?It looks like brownish/black tar and no matter what I do I cant clean this stuff off so I can pack it with new.

I was able to get enough length out of the wires and was able to put the entire bulk head in a container full of castrol super clean.Let that soak for two days and the stuff is still packed in there!!!

Thinking about letting it soak in acetone but dont know if it will eat the plastic of the bulkhead or wire insulation....almost to the point of doing away with the bulk head connector and hardwiring the wires that go through the firewall.Would like to avoid that at all cost because that would be ALOT OF WORK!!!

Don't have an answer for you on that one. PM 5-90/Old Man, they may know.

Also, while you are under there, check your brake/clutch MC, when they leak the fluid will run down and EAT the fuse block.

i eliminated the bulkhead connector on my 88. Took about 20 minutes, and made a world of difference. That bulkhead is garbage, and prone to causing electrical gremlins, it was causing an intermittent starting issue on mine. If you go that route, take your time and do one pair of wires at a time. Also try to shorten them a little if you can.

So you ended up with all the wires hardwired together and running through the square hole that the bulk head connector used to go into???
How did you seal the hole around the wires going through the firewall?

Maybe were talking about different bulkheads? The one i eliminated was on the firewall on the drivers side next to the mc. Which one are you referring to?

Looking at your other thread, we are talking about the same one. It contains sensor and electrical connections that go inside the cabin. It is not just for lights and other misc. items.

If you eliminate it the right way (solder and heat shrink) it should not take any longer than an hour to cut it out and splice them together. I used wire nuts and it only took me 20 minutes. You just have to be careful, and work one pair at a time. You DO NOT want to connect the wrong wires together.

Don't use acetone on plastic. If you wat to, you should be able to push the metal pieces out of the plastic by reaching in with a little screwdriver and freeing the little tab that holds the individual wire ends into the bigger plastic piece. Then you can clean each one good and even crimp down the socket pieces for better grip.

Actually, try butane on the gunk... I have never had butane dissolve plastic, but it does a pretty good job on various gooey messes I've had to clean up. Just be careful to not hit it too hard till it's warmed back up or it might fracture, and don't get frostbite spraying it on your fingers.

X2 on avoiding acetone, acetone melts a lot of different plastics.

We use a brown tar like goo at work. Is just some sort of Corrosion preventative compound (C101, C102?). Ill take a look at it tonight at work for ya. We normally just use alcohol and a plastic brush to clean parts up with it on there.