scared the **** outta me, driving along in my buddies 65 Ford Pickup the other day and an explosion went off like we'd run over a landmine. coasted to the side of the road, through up the hood and the engine compartment is full of smoking bits of battery..how does that happen??
Alternetor could have over cherged battery, then it lets off a flamable gas mixture, and boom. Have heard of it, but never seen it myself. My Papaw had it happen to him once while wrenchin' for the Air Force, had to call Nanaw to bring some fresh clothes from home.
my shop teacher used to always warn us about not making sparks near the battery when jumping it for the same reason.
i have seen a few with the tops blown off, if your altenator is over charging and boils the acid out your left with a battery full of hydrogen gas where the acid used to be. any spark near by will set it off, happens mostly when the battery has gone dead and someone is trying to get a boost and sparkes the terminals. your lucky it happened while you were driving.
Sooo, the alternator was overcharging the battery causing a buildup of Hydrogen gas, then a short to ground on the pos side caused thermal runaway which ignited the hydrogen gas, causing my pants to turn brown..sounds like a weird chain of events...
I think what really happened was either one of two things: it overcharged, or it was shorted. Not both. the last part (brown) is a natural result of either cause.
Been there too brother. I used to wear gl***es, and Thank God for that. I have 1 eye to begin with, and I was charging a battery on the wife old beater when It did not appear to have a good connection. I was wrong. Very Wrong. It had been charging, but the battery was toast. I did not notice ithad swollen, because of the cover around it. I went to wiggle the cable to make a better connection, and BOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM that SOB blew up in my face, even with gl***es(not saftey, but were poly lenses) It still got in my eyes, and all over my clothes. I was home alone, and noone to help me. I fumbled my way to the bathroom, and got in in the shower clothes and all on. I was REALLY lucky. Guy when you mess with batteries please wear some safety gl***es at the minimum or a face sheild. I still have a couple of small pits in my face where the hot acid got me, my galsses were shot, and clothes was ruined. Oh yeah my ears were ringing really bad too. Like a damn shotgun went off point blank. Anyhow enough chanting by me. Just be careful guys.
**** man about 3 years ago i had a ****ing battery blow up in my face.........thats some **** ...... in my 50 fleetline...kept getting a reoccuring miss..so i pull over in a gas station parking lot...i was narrowing it down to the no 1 plug wire so i had the boot pulled back a bit checking the spark jumping it to the plug...went to go shut the car off and pull another wire out of the trunk..stupidly instead of putting bum wire back on the plug i set it aside...right when my ****ing face was over the battery...it fell and jumped spark up against the battery i guess...and booommmmmm........man...talk about shell shock...i couldnt hear ****...felt my face and eyes burning...i guess i stumbled around for a minute and asked a guy to shut my car off....haha....and stumbled into the gas station and rinsed my eyes and face for about 15 minutes.....the guy wanted to call 911 but i told him id be all right.... when i got my senses about me...i went back out side to find the whole top had blown off...and hit my hand and head i think cuz they were sore as **** and blew my hat off about 15 feet away....man...like a ****ing hand grenade going off in your face... moral of the story...be carefull around car batterys....
I had a voltage regulator go out on my Chevelle. We couldn't figure out what the smell was, so I finally pulled over to check. Battery was swollen, had steam coming out of it, and I could feel the heat coming off of it. Luckily a kid at a gas station offered to drive into Olympia and get me a new one. By the time he got back, it had cooled down and reverted back to its normal shape. I guess I got to it just in time. Good luck getting all the acid cleaned up.
Back in the 60's as a kid working as a gas pump jocky I was charging a battery for a customer when we heard a loud explosion. Ran to the service bay just to find the customers truck with the fender blown away and a huge buldge in the hood. Found out that not all vents on the battery caps work and caps should be removed prior to quick and heavy charges. Appears the the gas build up in the battery causes it to swell and when it can't swell no more the case gives way. Learned a lot that day about charging batteries and also learned that after a 15 minute *** chewing, from the Boss, the words "You're Fired" caused an involuntary response of my fist flying into his 75 lb beer gut. The *** chewing I deservered, the Firing I deservered but not both. One or the other I would have accepted but not both.
I've had one blow up on me from a loose post inside the case. An old Ford truck I had wouldn't start one day so got out to check the cables. They were tight and clean, but I did notice one of the posts move a little in the case itself. I told a friend that was with me to try it while I watched under the hood. I saw a little white flash thru the white plastic case from inside the battery and immediately turned my face. "BOOM" There I was dripping with battery acid, ears ringing, skin itching and starting to burn, and madder than hell. I got myself cleaned up, and no permanent damage was sustained other than the battery. The moral of the story is, if you ever notice a battery with a loose post, get rid of it, even if it is still working fine. I have allways been careful not to make sparks around a battery, especially after they have been charging, but that one caught me off guard.
Ive been fitting replacement batteries for our Metro breakdown service for the last 12 years, and what happens is the little lead links that join each cell inside the battery develop cracks and when one finally seperates and you load the battery{most go off when starting or jumping} a spark jumps the gap inside{usually dry} and KABOOM......the alternator charge rate if to high{over15volts} will only boil a battery dry and get it stinkin like eggs/sulphur....when I have a bad one in the van I take it straight to the depot.....thats why you should connect the last earth lead when jump starting, to the engine block........had a few go off in those years, but never in my hand or too close.....had plenty of acid in the eyes...ouch..mainly the ****py asian batteries are the main ones to go boooom....the first test we do to a new driver is stand him in front of the van and spin him around 3 times, eyes closed, and then he has to find the eye wash bottle.......its good to know where its always kept ......Im scare dto get a test of the lead levels in my blood though......... .......our batteries are now sealed and are much safer...come with a handle too..Bert
had an old battery go off when working with my dad on a old 24 volt truck- he said to grab a battery and put it on, i was fourteen and none the wiser and put a sun yellowed, 12 volt battery from next to the shed on it- it blew up as the old man started, plastic and aicid sprayed everywhere. he shouted i rany as fast as my fat **** would carry me.
Nothing on any of my rides, but I did see the result of a battery blow up on my neighbor's 4610 Ford tractor. When the pressure built up, first thing to go was a terminal (top post). It literally blew through the hood of the tractor. Clean, neat hole just like a rifle shot. Damn near gave the old man on the tractor a heart attack !!
>>>**** man about 3 years ago i had a ****ing battery blow up in my face.........>>>> So true.... Not all exploding batteries blow out the side case...H
I'm not sure if the gel cells give off the Hydrogen gas like the old lead acid ones do. The local Interstate battery dealer gave me 2 Red Tops back when they first came out about 12 years ago for running a little Interstate sticker on my old race car. They are great batterys, I even loaned them out to a buddy one time while my car was down and he abused the **** out them, but they never missed a lick.
They can boom even with the motor not dumping any charge too. Hopped in my shop truck one night back in 1980 or so and turned on the ignition. Just at the motor began to crank, BOOM, and nothing on the gauges anymore. Opened the hood and the battery was all over the engine bay with acid running off everything in sight. Never happened again after we replaced the battery which was a regular late model plastic case type witht he long oval top caps. Roo
Two words: THERMAL RUNAWAY. I was an Avionics tech when I was in the USN and dumb*** newbies would wire a component up wrong that had a battery back up. then on the flightline during preflight BOOM scared the **** out of the pilots and all hhahaha
i had no idea a battery could blow up like that. just last week i got a battery tested at auto zone, come back 15 min. later to check on it and he had put it on the charger and it had swelled up pretty bad. damn i guess i was pretty lucky nothing happened
Some years back we were running an Optima in a desert race truck and came into the pits with troubles and as we were hunting around to figure it out, I noticed the Optima's sides were heaving in-and-out like it was breathing! - spooky! Shut the truck down and we all ran and hid until it cooled down enough for one brave dude to go and disconnect it. Lost alot of time in that race. Turned out that we had the wrong combination of pulleys which caused the alternator to spin at warp speed which cooked the battery (Also explained why we kept frying alternators in the previous race). So yes...also be carefull with Optima batteries.
Had to relocate my battery in my work van to under the p***anger seat because the tray was rotted beyond repair(the battery gave way and was dangling against the hood -good they dont but positive posts at the front). It was a new acid battery but I wasn't going to take any chances it being in the cab and went out to get an optima with new battery cables-good to have ones with a fuseable link on the pos. I already had my starter fail and internally ground which melted my neg cable, but no problems with the battery.
I had a new alternater in my hot rod and it swelled up my brand new red top Optima battery to near burstin'. That explained the 50 amp fuses that would ocasionaly fry as well as the burnt out gauges. The new alternater was bad and would occ***ionally go berserk. That alternater caused me a lot of money.
The Jalopy Journal
