What is it with bad connections/surface corrosion of contact surfaces?

[baws]

I thought living in a dry, warm area would alleviate this issue, but I keep running into the same issues.
Electrical components work fine one day then suddenly fail?
The other day I was watching a Jay Leno vid, where he said old cars can fail mechanically, which is easy to see/fix, but modern cars have electrical components which "degrade", as he put it.
Is contact cleaner and regular removing and reinstalling fuses the solution?

[bartman]

I worked with a guy who had been an engineer with Ford in Louisville, KY. He would get calls when there were issues with brand new cars just off the assembly line. He carried a briefcase full of ground straps and said that 90% of the electrical problems he encountered were from bad grounds. This was on brand new cars.

My take on that is that the manufacturers only put enough wires to get the job done and then call it quits. They just run a wire to the chassis near some bulb or switch and screw it down - they don't run a return wire back to make the circuit. That leaves us poor owners with the issues, only made worse when the cars get real old.

So if he was right, then those of us with older cars like the TR6 don't have a chance of avoiding these issues.

[lfmTR4]

Best cleaner is a fine wire brush or emery cloth to get a metal to metal shine back on it. As metals age they oxidize, add electricity and it accelerates. That and the connectors like bullets, tabs and pins are friction fit so as the compression relaxes, they loosen.

[MRankin]

Plus any anti-corrosion coating our connectors and grounding tabs had 40yrs ago is well gone due to the elements. There is a dielectric grease that can be used on connectors to help coat the parts from moisture. Seems this stuff is silicone based. I have used it on some bullet connectors once I got the contact area “cleaned or refreshed” and snapped them back together. I think the contact cleaner is more to remove any grease build up on the contact area or mechanism of a moving switch.

[46er]

Careful how you apply the dielectric grease as it does not conduct electricity.

https://www.electrical4u.com/dielectric-grease/

[poolboy]

Fuses, I like to roll them in their holder every now and then,,,,just like I'll do with batteries in a recalcitrant 'remote'.