I work at a steel mill, doing all the telephone support. Most of the lines are punched down on 66 blocks or BIX and even a few terminal posts. My problem is with the 66 and BIX blocks.

These are installed in home made steel (natuarlly) boxes with no seals, no matter whether they are inside or out. I've got a ton of corrosion problems.

Is there any way to clean the corrosion off of these 66 blocks? If not, is there anything I can put on them to waterproof them after I replace the bad ones. I know they aren't going to spring for new boxes so I'm going to have to make do with the crap I've got.

I wouldn't waste my time cleaning them - they are inexpensive and you would probably spend more time on labor / salary than the cost to replace them.

No, no way to save the corroded blocks. Question is what to replace them with. You have to treat it like OSP but much depends on how the blocks were used. If it's a simple distribution of something like a 25 pair to individual drops I would say just splice with UYs. But if it's more complicated you will have to do some work and spend some money.

-Hal

Thanks! Spending money is something rare around here so I'll go with the splice. It's a 25 pair drop that runs 100 yards to three more 66 blocks in boxes before it runs to a shed with the phone. Don't ask why there are so many boxes with no other drops, I haven't yet figured that out. My guess is that they had a few spools of cable with a few hundred feet and decided to use it up rather than buy new.

Anyway, of these 25 pair only 2 are used, a phone and a fax. A couple splices and I can forget this ever happened.

tismith 1000, Welcome aboard! Just a clarification here. Since you are a newbie to this forum, Hal has recommended UYs because they contain a weather resistant gel.

Thanks, Dave. I've got a bunch I can use, I just never thought of it. I was worried about maintaining the infrastructure the way it is. I don't really want to replace the 66 block as the problem will just come back once it gets as wet as the one I have now.

You should see some of the mess I've come across. I'm always asking myself "What were they thinking?"

Can you post some pictures in the Pictures of Ugly Work topic in this forum

Last time that I had to deal with that problem, after terminating I put Vaseline on the BIX blocks. No problem since.

I don't think I should even try. This is a steel mill and they have extreemly paranoid about photography.

Ah..Ok...I was hoping to see how the 66 blocks look. No worries.

A customer's basement was flooded (think mud from a creek) and the 66 was completely covered with nothing working (all analog POTS extensions).

Up and running in 15 minutes courtesy of a garden hose. No static, no problems. Been that way for 5 years now and everything is clean as can be.

Now what would cause the bix/66 to corrode? Would it be something from the steel boxes that is causing it? Humid air getting into the boxes and corroding out the punch down slots?