You may want to post up on the Hammer forum but your best bet is to loose the wing nuts and replace them with either SS hex nuts and lock washers or SS nylon insert hex nuts. This will avoid connection problems on the battery. You can also get a specific battery tester at your local auto parts shop that will let you test the amount of charge the battery has. Pop the lids off and draw some H20 into the tester the chart will tell you how the battery is doing. If it was a John/Rude I'd say the VR is going out but I'm not a Hammer tech. Good luck!