advice for battery connectors to replace

Hello,
I have no problem, but solved one and want to share with you. The battery connector screws are poor quality if you are going to unscrew them often maybe because you have a bigger problem what needs often to remove the battery. After a longer time the thread will be destroyed due to its short screw depth ( and in consequence the batterys threads are exposed as well)New original screws are not avaliable, to my knowledge only together with a new wire. I found out that the battery threads are 3/8" UNC and you can use a standard hex screw. I used both for plus and minus and turned two bushes out of brass ( copper will work as well) and used them as a spacer from the screw head to the battery connector cable. You have to match the length of the bushes just to use all the depth of the thread in order to do not overtighten them, leaving about half a mm before binding to the thread bottom. The  thread depth of the original small screws leaves something unused ( what makes the battery thread prone to tear out). If the new screws are protusing maybe 3/4 inch out of the battery, it can be  used perfectly for jump starting to put on the clamps of the jumper cable.
No more danger to ruin the battery threads. If you use the old weaky original screws with worn threads, you feel the danger of overtighten, the connection of the voltage will get poor and might make you think your battery is poor - happened to me. When i  replaced the connections in the way i talked, the battery is fine due to perfect connection and no voltage losses at the terminals. But be careful when tightening the new screws with the big screw head sizes, don´t use torque figures  as a 3/8" bolt is rated usually....

Hope that was helpful from 5000 miles over here

I have used stainless studs and nuts to keep everything together. It allows me to put a number of accessories on the posts.

Danke schön,. We are lucky, we can just go buy one,..

Autozone part # DL07050

Hi Fred,
I would be wondering if you wouldn´t have found a better solution as yet
Godfather of Buick Wagons  

The stainless studs work great. I needed to attach the power and ground for my Holley computer directly to the battery, and I can use any length I need. They were sort of "free" because they were left over from my 454 build. The nice things about using studs and nuts is that they can be any length you need, the clamping force of the stud and nut is much higher, you do not have to screw the bolts in and out of the delicate terminal threads, and they do not corrode. I think I have 3 leads attached to each side.

There are some extended length stock style bolts available for the battery terminals. I have used them in the past, and they worked out well when I had two leads attached to the battery terminal.

I just changed my battery to a top post, as I intensely dislike side post batteries, especially in my RMW... I am aware of the limited clearance between the pos post and the hood, and will fasten the battery down to the tray, and provide some insulating material between the post and hood, probably a sheet of 1/4 rubber. I just have bad hands and can't get in that tiny space.

On another note, while redoing the battery cables, I discovered I have the zinc auxiliary battery hookup on the under hood fuse box. The cover for the post was melted halfway, and I also discovered the under hood lamp was stuffed behind the fusebox, also half melted. It appears I can still order the brass post kit from hamilton_chevy on ebay... think I'll; do that before everything goes up in flames.

But no drywall screws were found.

Yep.  I used the extender that Nick suggested (image below).  I might swap them out for the stainless studs Fred described.  If you can't find them locally and want them, PM me and we'll work out a way to get them to Germany (assuming we still have a Postal Service next week).

Yes, I had one of these connectors on my positive side of the battery. With my bad hands, I was constantly dropping yhe brass nut down into the battery box, where a magnet wouldn't fish it out. I usually had to pull the battery or buy another brass nut, letting them pile up before pulling the battery and retrieving 2 or 3 brass nuts at a time. The ground was the standard short 5/16 head 3/8 thread cable which I found very difficult to deal with due to the proximity of the coolant tank. If I had an extra 1 to 2 inches, I could have lived with it.

But that stud does help. You need to punch the captured bolt out of the cable to use them.