Battery Problem

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22dog22

22dog22

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Hi All, I have a battery problem, I have a 4 year old Exide lead acid battery, over the past few winters I have had a Battery Tender brand hooked to car over the winter, I have used this same unit for the past 3-4 years never had a problem, had charger on battery some how the Battery Tender unit seemed to over charge battery had acid leak from vent caps, all over , had to replace the started relay was covered with acid, also took out my voltage reg. sent the unit back to Battery Tender thinking it was still under warranty but as normal was not, so bought a new unit which I had hooked up till the early spring of this year, but still was getting acid coming out of the vent caps and covering the battery tray with acid damaged, I have since taken the Battery Tender unit off the car , and today with just the car battery cables hooked up had the same acid damage to the battery tray , now I have made sure all the time that the battery cells where not over filled with water to cause this . Any ideas thoughts ??
 
Don't know whats causing your prblem, but your battery might have a dead cell, or if your maintainer has "settings" on it, maybe it was set to high.

When I put my batterys on a trickle charger for the winter, I take them out of the cars. I put them on a workbench, on a rubber matt. I use the batt maintainers from Harbor freight. They are what we use to call trickle chargers. They will not charge a batt, but keep it from loosing juice. Ive never had a problem with them.

PS: get you a piece of rubber floor matt, and cut it to fit your battery tray install it under your batt after cleaning/repainting the tray. It helps a lot.

Dave
 
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The battery is cooking, are you disconnecting the neg side of the battery while charging?
 
I've preached for years that the worst thing you can do for a battery is leave it on a tender. It's also a great way to make a hydrogen bomb when you have it almost boiled dry.
 
Thank you , barracudadave67, I will try the rubber mat under the battery , as I said the latest problem is WITHOUT A BATTERY TENDER hooked up. Do most of you keep your battery cables hooked up while not in use ?
 
dadsbee said:
I've preached for years that the worst thing you can do for a battery is leave it on a tender. It's also a great way to make a hydrogen bomb when you have it almost boiled dry.
Click to expand...
Nevertheless it should work. I leave some of mine on tender occasionally, but not always, AKA when parked for a month in the winter. The short answer is:

TRY the tender on a DIFFERENT battery, and I bet it is fine. MEASURE the terminal voltage which should not be above 14.2 That is, measure this while on a battery, in operation, that you believe has "come up" on the tender---most of them have an led indicator for such

Most likely the battery has a problem, aka bad cell or sulfated.
 
I have 4 tenders, they all work fine. An old HF I got "somewhere" maybe a thrift store. An old I think it is Sears. Two of the, "Battery Tender" branded ones, which I believe are only 1/2A charge

In a previous life I worked for a Motorola radio service shop for a few years, installing 911 equipment. We had LOTS of radios out there on various sites, with battery maintainers, mostly AGM. I don't recall a problem with any of them other than batteries finally so old, they simply did not have the capacity anymore.
 
A couple of things.
It is best to charge the battery out of the car for a few different reasons.
The charging process generates hydrogen gas which is very explosive.
The sulfuric acid vapor is very corrosive to any paint or nearby components.
A faulty charger can explode a battery, damage electrical components if the cables are left connected while on the charger.
Exide batteries are not very good battery's anymore. The company I worked for sold Exide made batteries across the country and we had so many bad ones that we switched to Interstate Battery.
The best lead/acid batteries are made by Johnson Controls. They make batteries for several companies and just use their name tags.
Johnson Controls® manufactures brands such as Duralast®, Diehard®, Kirkland®, Motorcraft®, and Interstate®.
 
Thank you MoparLeo, I did not know all those battery where made by Johnson Controls, when ever I had the Battery Tender hooked and charging I always had the hood open for venting, but sometimes I had the cables still hooked up to the battery I may just look into a new battery , this battery seems fine for cranking and starting my car just the acid damage it is causing me.
 
White case batteries were Johnson Controls, or from offshore with the import cars .
Black case were Exide.
Didn't matter what name was on it
 
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