Hi,
Very ODD thing happened yesterday, While waiting in a parking lot at Smokey Point yesterday, I had my truck idling for about 40 minutes, when I went to leave, I had thought 'I'll check the oil', while engine was still running I opened the hood to the smell of rotten eggs, sodium, and looked over at my passenger side battery, It was steaming, and was covered in "water" upon closer inspection, it was covered in battery fluid that was steaming hot. I quickly covered my eyes and lowered the hood, found some paper garbage bags to cover the battery, and made my way home. The volt meter was showing 8 volts, and the check gauges light was lit on the dash. As I made my way to the Stanwood exit , the truck KINDA seemed to run a little ODD, but not much, as I got closer to the exit , more and more lights started lighting up, BRAKE light, then ABS light, then Seatbelts , when I got to the exit I shifted into Neutral to coast on down the offramp, when I did, all the idiot lights went out, and I had 14 volts, HUH ???, I just kind of took it easy on the way home, engine running fine, all the time looking at the hood expecting an explosion from under the hood. But I made it home , pulled up next to my pressure washer and hosed that half of the engine compartment down for 15 minutes. When the smoke cleared , LITERALLY, I took these photos...........













Next Morning: Turned Key to on position, reading 13.75 Volts,
Continued to turn key Engine Stared , relatively quickly, NO EXTRA DASH LIGHTS on
I then turned the engine off : And hooked up my FOXWELL scanner to it .................
NO CODES !! ZERO ZILCH NADA

The question is:

Did the battery ground out causing the short in the plates ..... OR
Did the Voltage regulator get stuck causing more volage to flow to the batteries , thus causing the melt-down and subsequent Shorting of the plates .......
Hmmmmm

Batteries are 5-1/2 years old, sticker (7-2020)
SUPER START EXTREME Group 65
)
Ways to move Forward:
A) Replace Both Batteries with big type 31 wet plates (Problem could come back, fry one or both batteries again)
B) Replace both Batteries with largest AGM's available (Problem could come back causing expensive batteries to fry)
C) Replace with cheap batteries ......See how it runs for a month.........replace with good batteries .........
D) Replace the one dead battery with a dead battery brought to life from battery pile, then run diagnostics ..... hmmmmmmm
E) Take off Positive cable / Leave negative attached, start and run to Autoshop/Parts Store on one battery

F) Have truck towed to Repair Shop and have them fix it the way I want it fixed ,
Diagnosed / New HUGE AGM Batteries / New Cables / New Ends (Military) / Add a 60amp sub panel under hood to run NEW Air Horn Compressor's (Yes, Plural )

Which would you choose ?

After doing a little more poking around , it was suggested to look at the crossover cable, so I did
Photos of what I found :
This is the Driver side battery, the crossover cable end shows signs of heating, the ground bolts looks OK, the zip ties used to tie down the rubber battery covers show signs of melting, as do the covers.





As I moved the crossover cable to get a better look , I noticed the cable moved a lot easier than I remember from before ...Hmmmm
Possible broken cable end ?
From corrosion over 23 years ?

That's where I am now any idea's are always appreciated ............. I'll look at it some more later ..........
Maybe check the continuity in the crossover cable.
What are your idea's ?

 

It appears that you had a battery short out internally. It does happen, they do melt, and on occasion actually explode.
If it happened with no other harm done, you’ve done well.
it could be time to do some new cabling anyway, and what better time if its on your to do list anyway. Also, if you’re looking at agm or gel batteries, make sure they have a charge limiter built in. They really don’t like high charging rates.
if you have done a thorough check of your cables and fittings, and are confident there is no other damage, put it back together with good batteries and run it.
​​​​​​​

 

I always run the cheap rebuilt batteries in my rigs and have never had a problem with them, that said you should always replace both batteries at the same time. You really need to clean and or replace your battery cables and anything else that is showing corrosion and you should be good to go.

 

It is clearly your crossover cable and corrosion issue. The computer overcharged that one battery because of the crossover cable. REPLACE THE CROSSOVER CABLE, clean up the battery connections (replace any other cables) and then get your 2 new batteries. This is a fairly well known and common issue.

 

Thanks PIND , I am in the process of going through all cables including grounds , checking continuity as well as checking OHM's of resistance of all cables ..........

 

Thanks noted