Quote:
Originally Posted by Joyman
What do you guys recommend for the post. ? To keep em clean?
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Mix some Baking Soda in water and pour it onto the Battery Posts and cable ends. It will fizz. This is neutralizing the Sulfur Acid on the terminals.
Keep another batch in the event your battery is creating Oxygen and a spark will cause an explosion. You can then wash your face and any skin that may be on you.
Rinse well with fresh water until they are sparkling clean.
The WORST CASE:
I had one battery my 2016 F350 Diesel that has two batteries. One shorted internally and I could smell Sulfur from the battery acid. I thought it was where we had stopped that had a sulfur smell. When I figured out it was under the hood, the smell of sulfur was my battery.
I touched the side of the battery and it was warm to hot. This was not good at all. A battery can explode with a spark due to Oxygen being released from the battery and here we are in a gravel lot in a small town. I covered the battery with a couple of wet towels, disconnected the cables and wore sun glasses for eye protection. I was able to lift the battery out of the vehicle and sat it down on the gravel.
Then leaned it over to pour the Sulfuric Acid into the crushed limestone in this empty lot. It fizzed and was neutralized. Now harmless. Whew...
I am sorry if this is a typical Ray post... but this is something you DO NOT want to happen to you and not know what to do.
After the battery was drained, I looked into the battery (from above three feet or so) and two or three lead cells were fused into a grey mass. It had shorted. I was the first owner of this 2016 truck. This occurred last year while Boondocking towing our Airstream.
A local resident saw the commotion as some kind of exciting thing to check out and took myself and the battery into town to a Automotive Shop that was closing within an hour. I check the date on the equal sized battery that had more turning amps than the Ford Battery... got a deposit for mine, installed the battery, left the plastic handle that most people remove... ON.
If you have ever been around a battery that is vaporizing, like yours may be, it will EXPLODE if a spark occurs removing a cable connection. This caustic acid will eat through your clothing even if you wash any that have been contaminated. It can disfigure you if not rinsed and neutralized immediately. It will corrode metal and do general harm to everything from paint to metal.
If you SMELL Sulfur. Please be aware it looks harmless... but is potentially dangerous.
Please let us know what you discover. Be careful.