Page 1 of 1

White powder on battery

PostPosted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 9:23 am
by wixy
I've noticed a white powder on my battery, see photo below:

Image

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Is my battery stuffed? What should I do?

Re: White powder on battery

PostPosted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 9:25 am
by tangcla
Stop fapping on your engine bay. :P

Re: White powder on battery

PostPosted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 9:27 am
by libsti
start snorting it, that will fix you and your battery

Re: White powder on battery

PostPosted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 10:50 am
by jp928
Battery acid vapour corroding the hold down bracket. Remove all the damaged bits, wash in warm water, scrubb with wire brush, dry off, paint with anti rust stuff is good, and/or smear of vaseline or light grease. Check the battery poles also - any signs of similar corrosion, clean off, smear of vaseline. If its allowed to grow, the corrosion can wick down the multiple wires in the heavy leads and slowly reduce their current capacity until one day it wont start.
jp 08 gtb 6mt wagon

Re: White powder on battery

PostPosted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 11:03 am
by 3rspecb
jp928 wrote:Battery acid vapour corroding the hold down bracket. Remove all the damaged bits, wash in warm water, scrubb with wire brush, dry off, paint with anti rust stuff is good, and/or smear of vaseline or light grease. Check the battery poles also - any signs of similar corrosion, clean off, smear of vaseline. If its allowed to grow, the corrosion can wick down the multiple wires in the heavy leads and slowly reduce their current capacity until one day it wont start.
jp 08 gtb 6mt wagon



+1, done this 2yrs ago and it hasn't reappeared. Along with spraying the bracket with anti rust (black) paint, I also sprayed the bracket with Battery corrosion inhibitor.

Re: White powder on battery

PostPosted: Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:44 pm
by Ric
This may indicate your battery has been gassing, which would be caused by the alternator voltage output being too high.
See if you can get it checked. It should be about 13.8 volts with the en ngine running. If it goes over 14.5V when you rev the engine, you have a problem.

Re: White powder on battery

PostPosted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 5:55 pm
by wixy
Thanks guys, I cleaned it up and painted it, smeared with vasoline and so far no more white powder.

Ric wrote:This may indicate your battery has been gassing, which would be caused by the alternator voltage output being too high.
See if you can get it checked. It should be about 13.8 volts with the en ngine running. If it goes over 14.5V when you rev the engine, you have a problem.


Thanks, only just saw this post. I hooked a multimeter up to the battery today with the following results:

- Engine cold and not running: ~12.5v
- Engine running: ~14.4v
- Revving engine to 3,000rpm: ~14.45 - 14.49v
- Turned engine off: ~13.04v

Is it possible to determine any potential fault from the above?

Re: White powder on battery

PostPosted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 12:57 pm
by jp928
If you checked Volts just after starting it, I think the 14.4V is ok.....it should come down after a while and stabilize around 13.8V. The fact that it wont bust through 14.5V at revs means the regulator is OK, IMHO. Has it needed any water recently? If not, should be OK. Just keep an eye on water for a bit, but corrosion on the poles is not that uncommon.
Years ago I had a problem where I had to keep adding water to one cell - something wrong inside was boiling the acid and driving the water off.

jp 08 gtb 6mt wagon