Its another! Spent the weekend trying to repair & replace parts damaged by battery acid! It was charging but for some reason spit acid all over the engine compartment. It messed up my shiny new Air Gap intake, valve cover, sparkplug wires & starter!! Not a happy camper!
Lakeroadster - I was using a charger with multiple settings; maintainance, slow & fast. It was on the fast setting when it burped. Powerglide - Good for you, but some of us like to change things for ease of access. How many vehicles do you see today with it under the floor.... Zigster - Man your truck is looking great!!
Thanks Mobileortho. I think from now on when I use my "big" charger I'll be throwing a shop rag over the battery caps / vents. I've heard of others having similar issues when charging on anything but a trickle charge. Lots of gas generated during fast charging..
Sorry to hear of the battery doing what it did. FYI; From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Exploding batteries Car battery after explosion Any lead-acid battery system when overcharged (>14.34 V) will produce hydrogen gas (gassing voltage) by electrolysis of water. If the rate of overcharge is small, the vents of each cell allow the dissipation of the gas. However, on severe overcharge or if ventilation is inadequate, or the battery is faulty, a flammable concentration of hydrogen may remain in the cell or in the battery enclosure. An internal spark can cause a hydrogen and oxygen explosion, which will damage the battery and its surroundings and which will disperse acid into the surroundings. Anyone close to the battery may be injured. Sometimes the ends of a battery will be severely swollen, and when accompanied by the case being too hot to touch, this usually indicates a malfunction in the charging system of the car. Reversing the positive and negative leads will damage the battery. When severely overcharged, a lead-acid battery produces high levels of hydrogen and the venting system built into the battery cannot handle the high level of gas, so the pressure builds inside the battery, resulting in the swollen ends. An unregulated alternator can quickly ruin a battery by excessive voltage. A swollen, hot battery is dangerous. Another potential cause of explosion is when the battery terminals are short-circuited via a very low resistance path (like a wrench or other tool dropped or lying across the terminals). Apart from the sparks which usually occur in a short circuit, heating due to the internal resistance of the battery can cause the electrolyte to boil, also leading to explosion due to buildup of water vapor pressure (unrelated to electrolysis). Persons handling car batteries should wear protective equipment (goggles, overalls, gloves) to avoid injury by acid spills. Any open flame or electric spark including lit tobacco products like cigarettes, cigars, or pipes in the area also present a danger of igniting any hydrogen gas escaping from a battery (this is the reason that the negative cable of the battery charger or jumper cable is always attached to a ground on the engine or frame and not the negative battery post of the vehicle with the dead battery when recharging the battery installed in the vehicle or jump starting) In this fashion, any sparks which may occur will occur at the more distant location of the negative cable attachment point, away from the battery and potentially explosive gases, and no sparks will occur, as the circuit is no longer complete, when the positive cable is attached or detached from the battery).
battery vomit Most of the old trucks I see at shows, cruise nites, etc.. have the batt. in the floor. When it pukes from overcharging, its better to go on the driveway or street. Learned the hard way from that! It really makes a mess on the wires, valve cover,starter,firewall.
Thanks, Robert! Just like having the master cylinder under the floor, what the heck do you do if you want carpet on the floor that is held down along the edges and not just floating? I'm thinking I'll probably just go with the rubber mat for ease of cleaning, but carpet would look nicer and help with the sound deadening~ Think a new thread about how you all have addressed this concern would be in order...
Fast Charging The # 1 killer of vehicle batteries is vibration . The # 2 killer is overcharging ~ I never understand why folks always insist on cranking the charger up as it damages the obviously already weak battery else why are you charging it ? . The slower the rate of charge , the easier it is on the battery and the deeper the charge too . I hope no one here ever has a battery explode in their faces , I'm lucky I wasn't blinded . Tales like this one should be sufficient to teach all to slow down and relax , there's never any excuse for cranking up the charger ~ 3 ~ 10 amperes will do just fine .
Lesson learned Nate, the irony of this is that I read a post you made awhile back warning of the danger of overcharging your battery1
Battery Charging Yeah well , since they sell those stupid " fast chargers " , folks are gonna use them , what to do ? . When I was a lad , I hooked my buddy up with a nice $125 1964 Lincoln (whatta beast) and of course he was too cheap / stupid to ever tune it up or what not so that HUGE high compression 401 engine often didn't start before the old tech tar top battery ran down , he'd use mommy's AAA card to call for a jump ~ one day I came by as the idiot pimple-crusher tow truck operator was charging his dead battery and had a long wire with a push button on the end of it , every 60 seconds or so he'd depress the button and the tow truck's engine would labor and slow down , all the lights on the tow truck would dim a little bit so I asked him what he was doing " I'm fast charging this old piece of shyte Lincoln " ~ when I mentioned he was ruining the battery by doing this he got all pissy and my buddy had to prevent me from beating his @$$ . Not surprisingly the battery failed completely after a few times of suffering this . I was amazed the battery didn't explode as it got plenty hot and spewed acid fumes out the vent caps . Live and learn I guess . The Optima batteries are very good indeed but you need to hold them in place very well as they're 2/3 the size of a lead acid battery and will skip around and short the positive cable if you're not careful .
Not that anybody asked, but I like to take my battery out of the vehicle to charge it. (On a trickle charge...) With the vent caps off.
I'd actually thought about the Optima, but took mine back & swapped it for a new one. I thought it was going bad because it didn't seem to be holding a charge. After I told the parts manager of all the damage it caused, he swapped it out for me. Turned out that the starter was the real culprit. The battery was three years old anyways so it was a matter of time.
When I were MUCH younger, I was shop foreman for a trucking co. Because when I started the job the trucks had been poorly maintained, we did a lot of charger jump starts on the 24 volt systems...A co-worker and I had put the charger on a truck one cold morning, and 3 seconds after we turned to walk away the battery exploded blowing acid all over the side of the truck and the one next to it.... Scared the bejesus out of both of us as well. Gives you the heeby jeebies after the fact. Learned to respect those batteries after that.
I give up!! So I finally get it on the road & I notice that the oil pressure drops to nil once it warms up (about 40 at startup) and I hear that sickening sound of what I belive are the bearings!! That's it!!! This thing is cursed!!
That stinks~ Breath in slowly, breath out slowly... Do NOT give up. Keep the dream alive, you are closer than most here!
