mgs
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: battery boiling problem

To: mgs@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: battery boiling problem
From: Eric <eric@erickson.on.net>
Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 22:05:25 +0000
Clayton Kirkwood wrote:
> 
> I need some generic help. Over the last couple of days I've been
> smelling odd things from my car's engine compartment. With an Optima
> battery I was getting a boiled egg smell. 

I didn't catch the model (engine compartment?) but in my 'B the voltage
regulator failed and the only early warning sign I got was the boiling
battery (that wonderful rotten egg smell and fumes from right behind the
driver's seat). The total failure, because I didn't see to it
immediately, ended up costing me a fortune when I had to replace all
lamps and lampholders as she pumped some unknown high voltage through
the car's electricals.  I couldn't work out why one headlight failed
then the next, but I still had high beam (which I hadn't used until that
time).

This was the subject of a rant of mine on this list some time ago.  I
got the regulator box replaced only to have it fail (in a cloud of
battery fumes again) just a few weeks later when I was doing some high
speed practice on some twisty roads in the hills of Adelaide.  The
battery fumes were so bad - it popped a cell cap - that my
passenger/instructor ordered me to hit the side of the road and leapt
from the still rolling vehicle with the fire extinguisher in his hand
yelling "its going up"... (it is funny only in retrospect).

Get your charging voltage checked immediately.


Eric
'68MGB MkII
Adelaide, South Australia

///
///  mgs@autox.team.net mailing list
///  (If they are dupes, this trailer may also catch them.)


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>