Updated post below, I shall refrain from posting in the middle of the night ramblings

 

If the battery blew up you more than likely hooked up the cables backwards.

As for it going dead, you need to find out if it is charging or if it has a voltage draw when it is shut off.

Is this a dailey driver or does it sit for months? Have you checked the charging system?

Give us something to get started on here.

 

Jason, You are all over the chart with your words. Your video doesn't have anything to do with the electrical system.

Exide is one of the 3 major battery manufacturers in the US, The brand shouldn't be a problem. What do you mean blew up?

Sounds like you have a dead short somewhere that is draining the battery. That needs to be investigated fully then fixed. You or someone qualified is going to have to find it, as it could be many places from simple to complicated.

What have you done to or added to the electrical system in the last year?


John

 

Hi All

Sorry for the lack of clarity on this. The reason for showing the video was to show that just minutes prior to the battery popping everything was, seemingly, running fine an dandy (Also because I'm throughly enjoying the mean sound of the new exhaust and because I'm very proud of it up until yesterday)

The cables were hooked up correctly (+) to Red (-) to ground, but lights were dim and the engine wouldn't crank (The starter solenoid would only click). I hooked my charger on to the battery to check the current condition and everything checked out fine 100% charge with 12.6 volts. At that point I disconnected the battery charger and cleaned up the terminals and re-hooked the wires. At this point the lights were working, but still no love on cranking the engine.

Now that I knew I had a good charge I started checking the ground and starter connections for anything loose, everything checked out fine here as well. Next I grabbed my remote starter to the solenoid and tried cranking it a couple times. It was at this point that the battery gave a loud pop and the positive side of the casing blew out spraying water/sulfuric acid everywhere.

In the past 2 years I've driven this truck maybe 3 times (Test drive #2 shown below- pre-exhaust). This most recent trip was to the muffler shop to get a full exhaust system hooked up. New parts on this thing, I have a long list for that and a bag full of receipts. The major electrical components were replaced (Starter, alternator, starter solenoid, Voltage regulator)

I guess I'm a bit discouraged and feeling defeated with this truck (Maybe I just needed a shoulder to cry on - or community of folks with similar experiences), I guess I was hoping that someone may have experienced this in the past, or was somewhat common, but I guess there is a gremlin somewhere in the electrical system that I'm going to have to track down. I just don't have much time and lord knows this may be a time consuming endeavor

 

There are three things I can think of that'd make a battery blow. 1.Major current flow like a direct short. 2.internal plates short out. 3. being overcharged. Since you have a remote starter switch I am assuming you are not new to the world of Car Guy ism. So I don't think you did the obvious and leave your 1/2" wrench sitting on top o' the battery. Hitting both terminals. As John mentioned that is a quality brand of battery so we'll figure the short was not internal. That leaves us with external. You mentioned hitting the remote then it blew. Sounds like it is in either pos cable,solenoid,starter cable, or starter. Unless they are cheapy made in china stuff, we can rule out the solenoid and starter. I'm guessing either you got critters around there that ate away some of one of the cables insulation, or the starter cable was messed up by headers or the muffler shop.
COME TO THINK OF IT, years ago I heard of some guy using a MIG or a TIG welder on a vehicle and some of the charge from it went to the vehicle's battery. Did the muffler shop clamp your pipes or weld them?

 

Yeah definitely looks like a MIG job. Pretty sure they didn't unhook the battery. This is quite unfortunate cause they did a beautiful job running the exhaust.

 

With all those hanging wires, someone has be intercoursing with the electrical system. Something is hooked up bassacwards. This is the second battery that you have blown (or in your possession) It is not the batteries fault. I believe the issue is near the battery with in 18 in or so. Maybe at the solenoid.

Where are you located, maybe another member is close by and can help out.


John

 

all the wires hanging are from the trailer hookup from the female adapter hooked up on the bumper. The forward routed wires are all capped appropriately.

 

One think, I'd do is install a aftermarket volt gauge into the charging system. So you'll notice right away when there's a some thing wrong right away with your charging system.

The old amp gauges were not really worth a damn with a Alternator in the system.

Yeah they were great for yesteryear with a generators tho.

What was the battery cold cranking amps rating on the two batteries that have failed you.?

I think I'd change to another name brand of battery just for a peace of mine.
With a cold crank rating of no less then 700+ The lower rating battery has to work harder to crank a big V8 motors. In my way of thinking with what's left of my brain is having a much lower cold crk amps would put an extreme load on a lower amp rating
may been the cause of the battery blowing the wall out. Just sayin..
orich

 

you know in regards to the battery I always thought the one Baxter auto parts had sold me was under rated for the truck application at only 625 cold cranking amps.call just came back from a trip to Autozone and I picked up a yellow top optima Battery

 

OK, so my plan tonight is to pull out my ol' trusty Fluke 8060 Multimeter and do some current drain measurements. I'll keep you posted what I find.

 

Just throwing this out here so that everyone knows this, or what can happen.
Got this off a battery dealer store.
orich

Jumper cables can be a lifesaver, literally! However, when you use jumper cables to start your vehicle, you are placing a tremendous strain on your vehicle's alternator and battery. That is why we recommend fully-charging deeply-discharged batteries with a battery charger as soon as possible.

We're not alone in that thinking either. Look at the first installation instruction on this alternator box, which is printed in bold text, for additional emphasis- "CHARGE BATTERY - (12.6 Volts min) The alternator isn't designed to charge a dead battery. Premature alternator failure can occur and may Void Your Warranty."

Alternator manufacturers know the same things about alternators that we do- they are designed to maintain batteries that are near a full state of charge, not recharge deeply-discharged batteries. We post this on message boards all the time, but there are still folks who are convinced their alternators are designed to recharge deeply-discharged batteries. We know this, because they call our tech support lines on a regular basis, because their battery keeps getting deeply-discharged (it is actually just staying deeply-discharged). The alternator manufacturers also get calls from these folks, because they've burned up their alternators, trying to recharge deeply-discharged batteries.

Does this mean you should never use jumper cables to start your vehicle? Absolutely not! We carry them in all of our vehicles, in case of an emergency. However, when jumper cables are needed, be sure to get the battery fully-charged with a battery charger as soon as possible.

As the alternator instructions suggest, our REDTOP® batteries are fully-charged at about 12.6-12.8 volts and our YELLOWTOP® and BLUETOP® batteries are fully-charged at about 13.0-13.2 volts. Failing to do this can lead to a cycle of dead batteries and jump-starts, until either the battery (expensive) or alternator (really expensive) fails.

 

EXIDE dirty little secret.
Wow did a search and stuff like this pops up..
Bad battery all right!

Charged a 12 volt battery on balewagon (takes 2 group 24 batteries) hooked up battery and it exploded. Fortunately I had my sunglasses on, clothes on the other hand didn't fare well at all. Fortunately I was only 40 feet from a water hose and soaked myself down completely, within 1-2 minutes. Acid still burned something awful thou face hands etc looked like 4 weeks in the desert without sun screen.

Took it back to the J.D. dealer and asked for a refund the parts man said it was inpossible for a battery to blow up,, unless I hooked it up wrong. I explained that would be impossible as I only unhooked the positive cable and as it was one long cable running between 2 batteries, AND it was the first battery, his senerio was illogical. I was/am positive there was a dead short inside the battery which caused it to blow when I attached the positive cable. He didn't warrentee the battery..

I do not buy, have not bought batteries from John Deere since that day. I never suggest anyone I know to buy JD batteries either.

I refuse to buy an overpriced EXIDE battery just because it is painted Green and YELLOW and says JohnDeere. I buy the same EXIDE battery from N.A.P.A. for anywhere from 25-35% less and THEY STAND BEHIND THEIR PRODUCT DEFICIENCIES.

I would go buy an Exide Battery from NAPA. EXIDE makes all of the JD batteries anyway.

 

Good to know. Thanks for sharing. I was just out checking the voltage on the new yellow top. It's reading close to 13.

I just checked out optima's web page and they have a promo going now for a free Digital 400 12V Performance Maintainer ($109 Value) Pretty cool, hopefully it will be coming soon.

I'll be doing current draw analysis tomorrow before trying anything with significant current draw.

 

Here's another post I found!

I'm leaving my girlfriend's apartment, go to start the car, and I hear a loud pop. All electrics go dead (everything, no dome light or anything) and I see a puff of smoke from the hood. My car is only a month out from the alternator recall so I'm thinking great, my car's on fire. I smell battery acid very strongly, lift the hood, and it looks like the cover for the fill holes just popped off and the battery's dead. I think okay, I'll just get a new one. At this time it's midnight.

I head to Wally-mart in my girlfriend's car and pick up the super cheap-o special and go on back to her house. I get a good flashlight, open up the hood, and look around.

Oh boy.

The side of the battery is completely ripped open and I can see the cells inside. The top is broken apart from the rest of the battery. The whole engine bay smells strongly of acid. I start to realize this is more than I can handle in the parking lot of her apartment complex. I shut the disaster area and call the tow truck, since all my tools and supplies (aka my roommate's tools and supplies) are in my house. The car and I get home around 1:30am. Wearing very thick leather gloves I get to work in the engine bay. I also realized that I need new hood struts, but that's another very painful story.

Thanks to high school chemistry I came armed with baking soda, spreading it over most of the affected area. I used the scientific "spread until it doesn't sizzle anymore" method to clean it up. After making the engine bay looked like a cokehead sneezed on it, I put in the new battery and shut everything. The old one, leaks and all, is being held inside two garbage bags on the edge of the driveway until I figure out wtf to do with it.

Cliff's Notes: My battery exploded completely at random and I have a large lump on my head from the hood.

Now, questions:

- WTF do I do with the old battery? Walmart charged me a deposit for the new one until I bring the old one back (double wtf) but I really doubt they're equipped to handle this portable environmental disaster.

- Do I have a cause for compensation from Exide? I understand batteries die and it did have 40,000 miles on it or so, but this should never, ever happen. If I had been working on the car I might have been killed.
Thanks for reading.
.................................................. ........................
This is only one statement of a long, list I found on the net..
So, I say to all that have a Exide batt. in use, you should maybe replace it soon.
That's my 2cent why wait for danger to possibly happen to you or a loved one..
orich