214: Saturday 29th October 2011

My daughter had asked me to drop her off at a party and I had been running on 10 batteries all day doing just short journeys. As the weather has been mild this week and I had put the package tray back in the rear, the batteries were running nice and warm. I had a few hills to hit on this short journey and my 10th battery (the suspect one) sang out a little whine and then a hiss. We carried on wondering where the noise had come from when there was a huge his and a big cloud formed in the back of the car. We pulled over and opened all the windows quickly, then opened the trunk to find a melted 10th battery. Fortunately I had been running on 9 batteries for several weeks and had terminals with easy access set up and a wing nut to secure the connection. So I went through the process, to the front of the car and unplugged the Anderson connector, disconnected the 10th battery and moved the terminal onto the 9th battery, to the front and reconnected the Anderson connector. We shut everything and got back in the car ready to carry on the journey on 9 batteries, but I had no power. Then I realised I had hit the emergency stop button, so I released it and keyed on and away we went again. That was that drama over with. See the photos below, this is a proper melted battery.

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the next photo shows the vent cover has popped off and melted. There was water under the cover from the steam that was ejected.