Hot battery

J

Johnnyj

Member
Installed a very old battery, recently charge in a 47 1/2 ton.. Engine not run in many years. At first I forgot to polarize and tried to start at solenoid. I could smell something and touched the battery.....it had gotten warm. I disconnected lead to battery, let it cool, reinstalled and then polarized as needed. When I tried to crank the engine again, the battery had lost some voltage and once again felt warm. Is there a chance the starter has a short causing this? Previous owner said he thought the starter may be bad.
 
As Chisel said no good, junk it. When a lead acid battery sets too long the lead flakes off the plates and drops to the bottom of the case, eventually causing a short or dead cell.

Mark
 
Does the engine turn over even slightly? The starter could be bad and be putting a dead short on the battery or the engine is stuck. Put it in gear and push truck to make sure the engine turns over, I would pull the plugs first and put a little Marvel Mystery oil in all of the cylinders. If the engine turns free hook up a 12 volt battery with jumper cables to the starter and see if the engine turns, do this on the starter side of the solenoid and don't turn on the ignition. If it turns with 12 volts then hook the 6 volts back up and try it with the plugs out. I don't think the battery would get hot if it was bad. Put a rag over the plug hole or the MMO will make a mess. G.M.
 
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A battery like that is also dangerous, they tend to gas a lot, and are the most likely to explode, be carewful about making sparks near it ---I once had 5 batterys in a golf cart explode at the same time, they were old and hot from trying to charge them, I was sitting on the seat, landed 10 feet away, luckly not hurt or acid burned.

If you are charging such a battery unplug the charger and walk away for a few hours.
 
Open Flame & Battery being charged.
When I was in high school in 1956, I was charging a 6 Volt battery with a home made battery charger made out of an old electric motor and a Model A generator. I had the caps off and was smoking a cigarette at the time. An ash fell into the open cell and the result was an explosion. The battery was destroyed and the Positive post was embedded in the wooden overhead. How I escaped having acid all over me is outside the realm of reason. Not a drop hit me. I never told my dad what I did as I didn't want him to know how stupid I had been. I had never heard about the gas that comes off a battery during charging or how explosive it is. I still can't figure out how I escaped being hurt by the acid, but I sure learned a valuable lesson. I don't smoke anymore either.
 
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