Boiling battery acid...

[TheSilentChamber]

So this car has allready killed one battery, cracked it down the side, tonight the battery acid in the new battery was boiling, smell was so strong you couldnt hardly breath doing 50 with all the windows down. Voltage reads a constant 12 at the batter and alt, not 14, 12 even. I dont have an ampmeter big enough to test the amperage comming off the alt. I'm thinking the voltage regulator but the constatnt 12volts is kinda throwing me off. All the times I'v seen this before it was reading major voltage comming off the alt. Any ideas?

[Jos4DCivic]

high resitance in cables maybe. i would have said voltage regulator too but since voltage normal

[skotman]

get someone to test the current while you rev the engine. note any changes in the brightness of lights and stuff during night driving.

my old nissan pickup had a broken voltage regulator. the faster you went, the more current you produced. when you sat and idled you'd get somewhere around 12 volts. higher rpms gave 14 volts. the highest it went was 19 volts, but still... lights go brighter, and the battery got hotter and hotter until it started to boil and warp in spots. kinda scary. so i replaced the alternator and the problem was solved (after going through one battery and really hurting another)

[Hilikus Funkin]

wierd... never heard of that happening

nice sig btw man

[slammedcivicsi]

youve got a bad battery....a low battery can accept too much amperage, causing it to boil....its not the regulator because your voltage is too low. Im 90% sure its the batt.....just go to a local battery shop and have it tested....it takes 2 min and then you know for sure.

-Brad

[EF You]

Originally Posted by slammedcivicsi

youve got a bad battery....a low battery can accept too much amperage, causing it to boil....its not the regulator because your voltage is too low. Im 90% sure its the batt.....just go to a local battery shop and have it tested....it takes 2 min and then you know for sure.

-Brad

thats the second battery his car has killed. low or normal voltage at idle, but too much at higher RPMs definitely is a voltage regulator problem. we had that problem on a MKIII supra, and the volt meter would move about as fast and in the same motion as a boost meter. start hauling ass, and the voltage would climb to above 14 volts. shift, and it would drop back down.

[TheSilentChamber]

I free reved to around 5000 when I tested the voltage, didnt budge off 12 volts, but its an old multimeter so I'm starting to wander. But I'm almost 100% possative it is not the battery, I'm replacing both soon though, I'll just fix my other car and drive it mostly till then.

[skotman]

didja checking the fluid levels of the battery? maybe there's not enough water in the chambers.

[TheSilentChamber]

yeah, thats been checked also.