'98 Escort, Corroded battery leads

So I've got a 98 escort, great little car. Been running fine for 6 years or so since I got it, regular maintainence/oil changes, etc. however, my battery leads started getting extremely corroded, to the point where  the terminal clamp snapped once when I was giving someone a jump. I went to replace the cables, only to find out that the negative cable is supposedly $160 from autozone. Also, it has this weird boxy thing on there. Does anyone know what this does/if I need it? I was going to just splice a new clamp onto the old cable, but this thing is kinda preventing me from doing so, as I would have to cut it off. I don't have a digital camera (college kids life poor :D), but i drew a picture.

Let me know what you guys think,

Josh





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It's probably a fusible link - you can't just cut them off. I'd shop around on the price though - or maybe find a decent one from a salvage yard. $160 seems hellish steep for just a cable - and it's amazing it survived as long as it did.

 Why not take off the cable and carefully dissect it? Then you'd know more what it's for.