Real time - battery just exploded
 

My optima red top just exploded. I pulled the battery out, doused everything with baking soda. What's next? If I flush water through the battery tray area, is there a drain hole? or will I just fill my trunk with water? I have a shop vac, but I'm concerned about electrical (battery out, but still concerned).

I'm searching as we speak, but any help or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

ouch....I am wondering why? Maybe your regulator is toast and you had severe overvoltage cooking the battery?.

I don't think there is a dedicated drain plug as far as I remember. I would proceed with the baking soda and use the shopvac to get it out. Use water very sparingly just so the soda gets into the double bottom of the battery tray.

Ingo

mop it up with disposable rags/ paper towels. use gloves- acid sneaks up on you in a nasty way. Baking soda application again with water- the concern is the hollow gas tank support area that goes across the tank inside the trunk- the small holes are usually open and allow liquids to get in. Also the battery support has underlying layers where the liquid will go. Mix up the soda solution with water and rinse it several times. This should neutralize it pretty well.
imho, after its all dry, i would get some por 15 as a preventative measure and get that into the cavities as soon as convenient. Enough of it so it oozes out from the undersides on each end where the front control arm supports mount. Make sure you mask off the non affected areas so you don't have this super sticky goop in unnecessary places

after you get a new battery, get your charging system tested right away. it could have been a blown regulator allowing overcharging , which would lead to the battery failure

dude! glad you are ok, buddy!

Optima=JUNK

I hate Optima batterys, nothing but bad news...

Why do you say that?

We at the Air Base use Optimas for our backup generators to be sure they will start on power failure. For us, no power = failure to perform our Homeland Defense mission. Pretty critical, would't you say?

Thanks guys. After a midnight run to the 24 hour supermarket (closed!) and then to 7-11, I put two boxes of baking soda in the battery area, tossing it up under the front lip/bumper area, around the wiring harness, and down in front of the spare/gas tank. In between baking soda showers, I sprayed water, getting it out with the shop vac. It stopped fizzing, and I'm reasonably sure that I got it everywhere the acid may have gone.

As an aside, there is a drain hole (or the acid ate through the floor) of the trunk.

I am about to drop it off at Rundtner's on Tuesday. I'm in Long island, 90 miles away from new york. The plan was to drive to nyc tonight, then back to rundtner's (~30 miles) on tuesday. If I pop a known good battery in, assuming my VR is shot, what is my range before the next battery eats it?

As background, the car sat for about 3 months. I jumped it a few days ago, it died but held a small charge. Jumped it again and it was running fine for two days. It sat overnight, started it earlier this evening to move it (difficult), then went to start it again and it barely cranked over. I went to jump it and that's when I realized there was an issue with the battery. Yes, battery acid stings if you get it on your hands. Do you think the jumping got it? Could the sitting have taken out my alternator or VR? I had a rebuilt alternator put in about 40k miles ago.

I had thought optimas didn't explode/leak? what gives?

Thanks again for all of the help and info.

No battery will hold up against overvoltage. It's like saying I hate Porsches because they get all banged up when I hit a telephone pole :rolleyes:

Agreed, but how long does it take? I mean, do I have this thing flat bedded over there or can I get there on my own steam?

Thanks.

Edit: I guess you may have been talking to Pete.

The Optima red-top is not made for deep-cycling. You might have damaged the battery by having sitting for prolonged periods of time. Self-discharge and small drains from the alarm, clock, etc. will cause it to go fully empty and into deep discharge. That is when sulfation sets in poisening the electrodes. It reduces the battery's capacity to almost nothing. That is why it doesn't take and hold a charge.

The jump starting and the battery not presenting much of a load could have damaged your regulator or the diodes in the alternator. The nearly dead battery has a high internal resistance. The charging system on the other hand need a battery as load to function properly. You should never run a car and then disconnect the battery. But that is essentially what you are doing when you have a battery that doesn't take a charge.

Get a new one and measure system voltage at idle and check that is isn't about 14 volts. If it get's higher than 14 volts, stop the engine, disconnect the battery and remove the alternator. Time for a rebuilt.

Cheers,
Ingo

Dumb question - where do you put your multimeter to test system voltage? I've only tested resistance across specific pieces.

Thanks

Anything that takes 12V will do...one way to make a voltage meter for testing is to get the male cigarette lighter socket plug in...wire a multimeter to it's leads...
That way you can run the engine, read voltage at various revs, when starting, etc.

(edit) I agree with the others...ANY battery will explode with over voltage coming in...I've had great luck with the Optima brand.

I usually put the leads right to the battery terminals. No chances to short anything out and they sort of fit into the slot of the cable clamp. That way I know what the battery "sees". Set the voltmeter to VOLT, hook it up and you want to see something around 12.6 volts for a nicely charged battery. When you crank the voltage will drop a couple of volts. and then it should come up to 13.6 volts. When you rev. the engine it shouldn't go much higher. If the voltage stays around 12 volts with the engine running you are not charging the battery. If you voltage goes up about 14.5 volts or even above 15 volts your have a bad regulator.

Just out of curiousity, did it blow up when you were attaching/disconnecting/wiggling the charging leads? I learned the hard way by having a battery blow up almost in my face when a poorly placed clamp slipped off on it's own. As it disconnected, there was a spark that ignited the hydrogen gas present and completely obliterated the plastic casing.

Hydrogen gas is created whenever you charge a non-sealed, lead acid battery. You may recall topping off batteries with distilled water for this very reason (water is consumed). The harder you charge it, the more gas is created. It's why they recommend attaching the neg lead to a chassis ground away from the battery, especially when jump starting a car with another car as a severely discharged battery will outgas more than one with a partial charge.

I've also had batteries overcharged by a runaway voltage regulator...you would definitely know it as it "boils" out all the water and it gets close to shorting out, the sulfate on the plates reacts with the water causing hydrogen sulfide gas, giving that rotten egg smell. I think you were the victim of hydrogen ignition due to an errant spark.

I was lucky I didn't get acid in my eyes wehen it happened to me & it has given me a new found respect for car batteries. I'm very careful around them & wear goggles if I have to attach clips to the terminals...I still remember the sound, like an M-80.

My guess, and it's only a guess, is that the battery went flat, or almost flat, after it sat for three months. Once you jump started it, the alternator then tried to charge the dead battery, and something in the charging system (either the alternator or more likely, the regulator) went south, thereby overcharging the battery. Alternators don't like to charge fully dead batteries; they're more for topping off batteries that are already charged.

Under no circumstances would I drive the car until the charging system has been thoroughly checked. If you (or a friend) have AAA+, the 90 mile tow job will be free. Otherwise, it's gonna be pricey.

Good luck!

wow i didn't know optimas could spill acid? i had one pop but it just pushed the caps on the corners up and released some gas?

what the heck is in an optima to spill out? i saw one cut in two and it didn't have much in it. just a little wetness.

sorry to here about your mishap i run dry cells because they don't spill acid well so i thought.

learn something new everyday

ed

thats all we use for our engines with the FAA.
i would suppose ANY battery is suseptable to expolsion, although i would think a sealed one would be less.

i would make up some more buckets of baking soda and water and just keep pouring it everywhere.

i had a similar thing happen. i relocated my battery in my 914-6 to the rear trunk over the right axle. my batt box broke and the battery fell on the cv joint putting a hole in the battery. i did as i said, although not as big a mess as yours im sure.
that was an interstate battery, i used that battery for another year with a drained cell until i left the lights on and it died.

oh, another thing i did was to pour os pho all down in the hole where the batt was originally mounted. i also sparyed some under the car after i was done just to prevent any rust.

I wasn't aware that ANY Optima battery is type certificated for aircraft use.

John, FIX the regulator immediately you don't want it frying the Motronic control unit.

Bill can fix you up if you just flatbed it to him, he's not cheap but he knows what to do.

Jgordon, have you checked out / replaced your voltage regulator as suggested by some of the other posters? I had a bad voltage regulator lead to a battery explosion in a 280Z I used to own.

Is the consensus not to drive at all? I could just make the trip straight to Freeport tomorrow, with no driving in between. I actually do have triple A, I just would prefer not to call them in and have to do the "I need a flatbed, no seriously, I do" dance.

Should I even put in a battery to do the voltage tests? I'm still trying to get an idea of how much room I have to work here before the new battery would eat it, or other damage might occur. Cramer seems to be telling me not to do anything, just to get it to Bill, which, given my skill at electrical work, may be the best solution.

I wasn't doing anything to the battery at the time. I suspect that it was as has been said - long storage coupled with having the car's system charge the battery.

I didn't know they could leak acid either. I opened the trunk and pulled up the carpet, noticed a lot of liquid, initially thought the trunk was leaking due to the rain we've had. However, the liquid stung my hands, and fizzed like crazy when I poured baking soda on it, so I'm assuming it's acid.

Update - AAA told me that they'll tow me 3 miles, and it's $4.50 a mile after that. Rudtner's is 68 miles away, making it a proposition of $300 to get it there.

So, if I were to put in a new battery and just wrap a garbage bag around it, even if it dies, that's about $120, making me lean toward the sacrificial battery option.

Thoughts?

i forget that a lot of you are pilots. i meant for the engine generators at the facilites like he said above

Call Bill and explain, maybe he will come pick it up or one of his shop guys can come get it on the back side of the clock.

Listen, Optima batteries take a 15 volt charging voltage, that's what they like. To blow one up requires that the charging voltage is WAY in excess of that number, maybe 17-18 volts. The reason it blew up is that when the battery charges, gas is released from the cells which leaks out of the battery through calibrated vents. (they aren't really "sealed." When the charging rate goes too high, "somethin's gotta give."

If you want to use a new battery, that's OK, but you should absolutely monitor the charging voltage, either with a plug-in cigarette lighter voltmeter, available for like $25, or put your voltmeter set to the volts scale on the battery terminals with the car running. My guess is, it's off the scale.

It's a VERY common failure mode for the later voltage regulators to fail in the full-field position. The problem, as I said, is frying everything electrical in the car.

I suppose you could change the VR yourself, pull the alternator, look at what you have, order replacement VR from our host, install (takes a few minutes) and then reinstall a new battery and test. That would take probably four hours if you've never done it before with coaching from the Board.

I would call Billy, a calm professional is a good asset at a time like this.

I have owned many Optimas and they all failed quickly.

They do not charge well. If you dont use a trickle charger and do let it go down it will not charge back up from a regular charger. I used to have to use jumper cables just to get them charged up enough to let a regular charger finish them up.

I have had several friends report the exact same thing thay also gave up on Optima.

I even took two of them in to the dealer that sold them to me and they tried to charge them for days and gave up and gave me two new batteries which a year later also pooped out.

Optima=JUNK

For everyone who loves them, fantastic keep buying them, for me after four trys 2 red tops,1 yellow top and 1 blue top never ever again.

I will stick to Odyssey.

My suggestion, take a borrowed battery and connect to the system with jumper cables. Connect a voltmeter to the + and – terminals, then start the engine. Observe the charge voltage. If it's much above 15 volts, don't drive the car as the battery will overheat, perhaps rapidly. A battery will withstand a slightly increased charge voltage for 300 miles, but to increase the safety margin (reduce the charge rate), switch ON the following accessories: headlight high beams, fan, A/C. radio and rear window defroster.

Understand the higher charge rate causes the alternator to operate outside of normal operating conditions which may reduce its service life.

Sherwood

Optimas don't like high amperage charges...I consider that an okay trade-off for their long life. Every few weeks, I use a battery tender, which charges at a low amperage, on the optima in my old dodge pickemup...the battery is now 10 years old, still going strong. The fact that it sometimes takes overnight to charge doesn't bother me. The battery tender shuts itself off automatically when the battery is fully charged. So, perhaps your problem with optima wasn't the optima?

Well, the plot thickens. I used a meter and I'm getting an almost dead even 14 volts across the rpm range (up to 5k), checked both at the cigarette lighter and at the battery.

I had used a battery charger on the dead optima, after jumping it twice (died but held a small charge after the first attempt, got me around with several stop and starts for a day following the second jump). attached the charger just to top it off, before reading that it was bad to let the car charge it on its own here.

So this gives me a measure of confidence that I can at least get to Bill on my own steam. But it also takes out? the primary suspect in the issue, which was a faulty vr. Could the vr be on the fritz, and be going in and out? or do they typically fail catastrophically and that's it?

Again, thanks for all the info.

As I said earlier - you damaged the Optima by deep-cycling it. Then, the charging circuit on your car got really confused because the damaged Optima had a high internal resistance. This caused the overvoltage and the Optima responded less than adequate to that......

Chances are once you get a new battery all is fine. Just monitor your voltage from time to time. There are those gadgets that plug into the cirgarete lighter plug. Maybe get one of those. And if you have a planned non-op time of more than 2 weeks do yourself a favor and get a trickle charger. Works perfect and the battery will thank it with long life.

Ingo

If you want to kill the alternator, remove it from the car and throw it off the GW bridge.

Seriously now, jump starting?

Automotive starting batteries are designed to drop to about 97% of full charge during a prolonged starting attempt in the winter-- then be recharged back to full in normal operation. When you deep cycle them down to 25% charge (12.2v or lower) they undergo physical changes, shorted plates, all kinds of problems.

The car's alternator, too, is designed to top the car up from a "long start" situation and handle the normal running loads. When you use it to bring the battery back from the dead, it goes to maximum output in an effort to do that-- which also means maximum heat. The fact that this whole operation is going on 4" from the engine block inside a fiberglass shroud makes it worse-- particularly when you turn the engine off- the heat then builds up and cooks the diodes and the regulator.

This heat-soak of the regulator is the reason why the Paris-Rhone setup gets such a bad rap by the way-- heat is the enemy of electrical components.

Anyway, don't jump start your car except in an emergency-- then find out what the problem is and correct it immediately so you don't end up writing a BIG check instead of a small one. . .

Can you make our next McSorley's outing? You deserve a cold beer after suffering through this. (not my post, that's bad enough, I mean the exploding battery syndrome)

How do you know this? Do you know someone at Valeo?

Here is the factory workshop manual page with specific guidance on the point.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1247515351.jpg

I will check the Bosch Automotive Handbook tonight, I think the same information is presented there (I have the Seventh Edition).

I don't have a friend at Valeo but I do have one at Bosch. It shouldn't take long to establish that trying to charge a battery with shorted internal cells, or one that has been discharged to 11v, wasn't part of the design criteria.

I was going to say that you guys are mean, but then you said beer so we're friends again. I am glad to hear your opinions. I also checked with Matt over at Bill's shop. His thoughts echoed yours, both in the cause and the prognosis.

I'll keep an eye on things, and take it slowly from here. They're going to do some analysis at Bill's shop while they have it in for other work, so I'll let you guys know if we find anything.

When is the next Mcsorley's outing? is there an email chain or something?

Mean? If I were really Mean wouldn't say a darned thing. . . :)

I'm absolutely SLAMMED at the moment but I think early August looks promising. I'll try to get Gytis to bring some original bits from his 68 TR barn find. . .

Does it take more to charge the yellow top. Will that tax our alternators too much so that it will never get fully charge? I am in the process of replacing my 3rd red top and am thinking about going with a yelow because it is design to charging and discharging.

oh no! should I panic? I just installed a new red top.

with the help of the forum posts about the cool cutting board holder.

It is all fine and happy now. but if I ever think I need to put it on a trickle charger, like a battery tender, should I take it out of the car, or leave it in?

Here is further information from the Optima batteries website:

Read here about the required charging voltages.

http://www.optimabatteries.com/product_support/charging.php

Generally speaking, even though the Bosch voltage regulator has a set-point of around 13.8v, the high resistance connections found in most old Porsches could result in a reduction in charging voltage.

Here's some tech information from Optima I got recently when a Blue top exploded at work. We also use them at AT&T for emergency generators start batteries.

Hello Bob
Thank you for your e-mail.

If exposed to high temperature and/or voltage the battery can dry out, causing at minimum, reduced service life. For float charging (12V system) we recommend 1 amp max, 13.2-13.8v.

12 years in use for a personal vehicle is as you probably know, much better than average. It isn't unheard of, and for an Optima battery to last that long the consumer is doing all the right things to take proper care of the battery. Generally in these cases, it is either a moderate to cool climate or the storage space is temperature controlled, and the vehicle is used regularly, or if not used regularly the vehicle has very low key-off loads and/or a proper maintenance charger is being used consistanty.

Your application is different in many ways, which is why you may not get 12 years. First, you are using the batteries in a string. To some degree the weakest battery will effect the performance and service life of the others. This of course is not an issue in your vehicle, you only have 1 battery that stands on it's own. The emergency start engine charging system you are using is much more complex than what you may be using for your vehicle. With greater complexity comes a greater possibility of a charging system failure which could effect battery life - such as the battery referenced in your newsletter. Also, I assume the based on where you are that the batteries in your application are likely exposed to very high heat. After proper charging parameters, storage temperature is the next most likely determinant of service life.

Depth of discharge and # of cycles will also effect life. The lower the battery is discharged, and the number of times a battery can be discharged for a given level of discharge is finite. It is my understanding that your application is a very large starting application, the batteries are "working harder" or being discharged more than the battery in your vehicle. Regarding number of cycles, probably the emergency start engines have a regular (weekly? monthly?) performance reliability test and the number of cold start cycles on these batteries may be more than your personal vehicle.

It is not at all unusual to get service life from an Optima battery well beyond the warranty period. But how often that period is exceeded and by how much longer is largely determined by the application, environment and maintenance (charging) of the battery.

Best Regards,
Daryl Brockman

Senior Sales Application Engineer
OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
414-524-6292
daryl.c.brockman@jci.com
www.optimabatteries.com

Thanks John, I have an Interstate battery tender that charges at 1.5 amp instead of 1 amp. Do you think that it will present a problem? It mostly sits in the garage now.

I am thinking that a deep cycle battery like a Yellow Top will take an alternator longer to charge then a normal battery?

I would be interested in what he says. I have never seen any information on the duty cycle or capacity of a modern alternator (ones that don't use germanium diodes as above).

If the battery is not defective (shorted cells) its terminal voltage will be 12 volts pretty quick. I wouldn't think there would be much power difference between that and 12.6 volts, fully charged.

I remember the gold Porsche guy asked a Delphi engineer and he scoffed at the idea charging a discharged battery was bad for the alternator.