Tie Fighter battery disaster

Hi all,

Spent around 4 hours with my boy yesterday emptying and sorting all my old Star Wars toys in the loft.

Came across my old tie fighter which appears to be in really good shape and still surprisingly white.

On the down side there has been quite a battery leak. The metal contacts are now bright green/blue with crystals/oxide all around them.

Has anyone had similar? Can anyone suggest......

Best method for cleaning please?

AND

If the tie fighter will come apart easily if I remove the screws? Not sure how many internal parts there are, suspect not many but didn't want to try and open up and instantly regret it.

Wasn't sure which area was best to raise this post against so apologies in advance if I'm in the wrong place.

Any advice would be really welcome. Thanks all!

Vinegar worked wonders on a carriage clock my friend had that had leak stains.
You can see it fizzing away the corrosion.
The clock still worked after clean up, but I couldn't manage to get the chime working as I think the battery acid had eaten away slightly at the contact solder and the wire.

Great adventure in the loft, pretty sure you can fix the T-F, plenty of knowledge on here for that I'm sure. Any Photos?

Vinegar and wire wool should clean up the contacts if they aren't too badly corroded.
Just be careful and don't be aggressive with the wires and terminals.

There are many videos and sites on getting the electrics working again, here are a couple to help you on your way:
http://piranhavintage.com/star-wars-tie-fighter-restoration/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE1kcwXjov0

Good luck with the project.

Lemon juice works exactly the same way. We were clearing out our old board games the other week and our 'Operation' had exactly the same problem. After a few minutes of applying lemon juice with a cotton bud it was working again nicely.

Thanks very much for the suggestions. Will give them a go. I've taken a couple of photos. Hopefully they have attached ok.

Regarding taking the tie fighter apart, any experience there? May need to get to the connector between the battery contacts and wires. This may be visible in the first photo.

Try the simplest way first. Some lemon juice or one of the other suggested liquids on the contacts. If that doesn't work then maybe take it apart

Bossk said:

Thanks very much for the suggestions. Will give them a go. I've taken a couple of photos. Hopefully they have attached ok.

Regarding taking the tie fighter apart, any experience there? May need to get to the connector between the battery contacts and wires. This may be visible in the first photo.

Click to expand...

Think sandpaper should help remove it.

We have lemon juice but no vinegar. Definite progress being made! That's about 20 mins work so far. Not bad!

Is it working? Good job.

A couple of hours effort and a few products later and it looks much better. Sadly though I just can't get the electronics to work.

Has one of the shorter contacts snapped?
I would try to get it a bit cleaner, as the clock contacts came up like new, I had no green or black marks on the copper.

I just hate when I get a new vehicle that looks like that and I have to clean it so I can get it to work again, I do not always get a vehicle to work again.

I do not remember how the engine looks like, but if it is the same type as in the x-wing and a few other vehicles, then maybe it can help to rotate the engine around with your finger and then push the power botton at the same time. Some times then engine need some help to work again. I have tried that a lot and I think 90% of the vehicles I have tried it on the engine starts again.

But the tie is not easy to put together again, I hate to fix tie fighters, the wings are the worst part to put together again

Looks like you're going to have to open her up. Could be the switch that's at fault. Easy enough to test once you can get at it all

How did this go, any luck?

.......I did carefully open her up but two things prevented me from doing any further work.

1. The wire from the battery connector to the motor was quite short so not much room to work. I couldn't remove the wire connector.

2. The motor was attached to the tie fighter with a cable tie and I don't have any right now.

Sounds like it's fixable, don't give up!