An easy problem? With a Corvette?! Whoohoo!

I went to a car-club get-together with my roomate this morning. Really nice bunch of guys, unfortunately they don't understand the concept of torque, nor speed, but still, nice guys. One of their girlfriends is a real sweety, and I took an instant liking to her, and she to my car. So she's asking me questions, and she's a pretty knowledgable girl, and she asks me which exhaust system I have. I tell her I've got headers, through a high-flow catalytic converter, with muffler eliminators. She asks me what that sounds like, and since its easier to start the car and let her form an opinion, than to sit there and make grumbly noise like a dork, we go over to the car.

I get in and have her stand behind the car, and I turn the key....CLICK. :eek: Doh! Hang on, I say, I can fix it.

Hmmm it wasn't VATs, because all of the lights went out. So I get out and pop the hood, hmm, time to check the one year old battery. EGAD! There is corrosion litteraly oozing out of the positive post! Arg! So I took it out, the bolt is eaten beyond recognition of being a bolt. Darn, I'm about fifteen miles from home. Fortunately there was a vending machine right there and I got a Pepsi, and she got a lesson in cleaning off corrosion. Reinsert the bolt, and VROOOM. I think it scared her a little, but she was smiling after it was started. :smash:

Anyways, it wasn't long before her boyfriend reclaimed her, and since my mom was coming into town for some sort of soft-ball tournament, it was time for me to leave. So I cruise up to where my mom is watching one of my sisters soft-ball games, about an hour away, and I shut off the car. Doh.

Come back out about two hours later after the game and the car refuses to start. I messed with the bolt over and over, no luck. So I got my mom to drive me to the local checker, and I picked up their $30 special, with new bolts, and installed it, how's this for a new record? 5 minute battery replacement!

Anyways, it seems that the corrosion didn't just eat the bolt, but the threads, and the battery is needing serious repair. I'm going to see if Sears wants to replace it under warrantee first, and if not, I'm going to tap it to the next size and install a larger bolt.

Arg, I'm going to take the new battery out tomorrow and make sure I've got all of the corrosive properties away from that bus-board to make sure it doesn't get eaten through like EvilDeed's car did.

Now I just hope I can get along with 530 CA's and 345 CCA's for the next few days while my 930 CCA battery is being repaired! :smash:

 

Check for positive post acid leak, should be tell-tail signs in battery tray, streaks down side of battery, maybe some splatter. If leaking return for replacement from Sears.

Check battery cable carefully, if acid leak that cable will wick acid into the cable - perhaps all the way to the other end. You may have to replace the cable. Once acid is in there, the connection will never hold and the there is no way to get the acid out.

Don't think tapping is a good option. If you do get a bolt in there, make sure it's a properly plated battery bolt, or a least use brass.

Good Luck,

Pete

 

Sears? Hmmm that sounds like a Die Hard battery. A vey similar thing happened to my die hard. It worked great that morning, it worked great at lunch, when it was time to go home I just got a click. In my case there as nothing I could do about it though and wound up getting a jump from somebody and driving home.

When I got home I put a charger on it for a few hours. Oh it worked so well, with the charger on it, the battery was reading 14 volts. I turned the charger off and it read 11, I hooked it back to the car and turned the key. The voltage fell to 3 volts with the wonderful click. After I replaced it, I noticed some crap started to ooze out of the positive terminal. Luckily mine didn't destroy my battery cable while it died.

IMHO I wouldn't let Sears replace it under warranty, I would demand my money back and go buy a real battery. Personally I bought the Optima battery to see about the rumors first hand. Some people call them junk, others say they are great. I'll be the judge of that. If it quits as suddenly as my Die Fast I'll never buy another Optima either. I can tell you for sure I won't ever have another Die Hard.

Batteries I've had bad experience with:

Die Hard

AC Delco (they seem to be alright, but they all quit after right at 3 years, as if on schedule)

Batteries I've had good experience with:

Deka (before we traded 3 cars in 5 months, we had one on every car we owned, excellent battries, but I don't know where you get them other than here locally. They even sold my dad a 6 volt for his 46 truck that is just now quitting this year. It's something like 8 years old and easily sits for months at a time without being started.)

Wal-Mart Brand (eveready? or something like that)

MotorCraft (my dad's 95 F-150 still has the original battery, I'm just waiting for it to die)

AutoCraft (I think this is the advance brand)

Batteries I'm not sure about:

NAPA (was on my old car. It quit suddenly, but I'm pretty sure I killed it when I left the lights on. It did fine until then, but never recovered. I'm not sure how old it was)

Interstate (no experience with interstate batteries)

Optima (I haven't had it long enough to decide. So far so good, although expensive)




[Modified by Nathan Plemons, 8:39 AM 3/3/2002]

 

Just had the same 'click...nothing' problem with my 86 and went to Wal-Mart. They have the MAXX75 (650 CCA) for $67 installed. It has a 3 year warranty. I decided to go with it incase I come across my 'click' problem at 3am and need to get it replaced ASAP.

 

Your smaller CCA battery will work just fine in your vette. Even in the winter, your starter motor does not draw 345 amps. The only down side I see in your inexpensive replacement battery is a shorter guarantee life. I would just use that battery to the end of its life. Battery manufacturers are excellent at determining the life of their batteries.
Also, you can buy 5/8" brass battery terminal bolts at a parts store which are much much better than the wimpy 5/16" factory bolts. I agree with PeteL and recommend that you not tap the terminal on the old battery because that terminal is leaking acid and that battery is not serviceable. Get your pro-rated refund on it.
For whatever it is worth , here is my experience with car batteries.
Delco. No problems
Die Hard. No problems
Interstate. No problems
Motorcraft. Positive terminal pulled out of the battery.
Exide. No problems
Optima. No experience, but smaller gel cell lead acid batteries don't have the life of flooded cell lead acid batteries I have worked with. Also, being a cheapskate, if I have to pay twice the cost of a conventional car battery, I want twice the value and I don't see twice the value in Optima batteries. But, its your money and we wouldn't want to disappoint P.T. Barnum would we? :D

 

Thanks for the replies. :)

I have an insterstate in my motorcycle, and while its lasted four years, it has always been underpowered. I service it about once a month and its done just fine so far, but I still end up push starting it occasionally.

I have had nothing but bad experiences with Optima batteries, agreed with JFB, both the Barnum and Self-Serving Bias's are causing an excess of positive reports on these batteries, and its obviously nothing more than trying to justify the excessive price.

I love my die-hard, we own 5 of them, this is the first problem, and I think it may actually be my fault, although I can't know for sure. The battery is still in the back of my mom's truck, but she's coming over soon and I can get the serial number and start trying to get a replacement. Thanks for the tip on getting a 5/8 inch battery-bolt, I wasn't sure what I was going to do there.

The cable seems to be in good condition, although I am still going to give it a good cleaning when I pull the Checker battery out, which is an excide. The only upside to this battery is the location of the top-posts, I could run top posts with this battery if I wanted to, which I do, unfortunately Die-hard doesn't have a battery that would work for that.

 

From what I can see, everybody has had bad experience with every battery, everybody has also had good experience with the same battery. It's just like the spark plug issue, do what floats your boat.

I'm not trying to justify the excessive price. I'm trying to see IF the excessive price is justified. I won't know the answer to that question until the battery craps out, which I hope won't be for a long time, but you never know. I can't draw any conclusions on anything until I have seen first hand how it works for me. In which case my optima is "fine so far," no better or worse than any other healthy battery. When my optima does finally crap out I'll take a look at when I bought it and see how long it lasted, and what type of signs it gave me that it was going out, then and only then will I start to promote the battery. Some people buy the optima's because they road race or drive very hard and have had about 10 of the plate style batteries crack, while never having a problem with the optima. There is more involved than price, people may have their reasons to buy things. Until you know those reasons, try not to call them stupid.

There are a whole lot of variables that are being overlooked in this. One of which is how often do you drive the car. For a battery to have any kind of shelf life it needs to be maitained, and kept charged. ANY battery will eventually run down sitting on the shelf if not charged. It's been my experience that batteries in a daily driver tend to last a lot longer than the monthy driver battery, even if it's the exact same battery. The reason is that the alternator maintains the battery and doesn't let it completely discharge.