Electrical Help Please

[88trailblazer]

Well I took out my 78 k10 for a day of mud slinging and finished what would have been a great day being towed home . My yellow top optima (the really big one) went flying and landed with both terminals touching the firewall. Needless to say, the truck crapped out after that.

The terminal ends were welded to the firewall and required a hammer to be removed. The cables and terminals were sizzling when touched by water or SKIN . After rigging up the wires again, it seams that the battery is dead and the negative post it deformed. While jumping the battery, I was able test some things like the wipers, headlights, etc. Everything seamed to work fine. The starter did attempt to turn, but there wasn’t enough power.

Are there any problems I should be ready for? Would the $200 battery still be reusable? I have been running the 140 amp Powermaster Alternator, what are the chances of that being fried?

I am going to work on it this weekend, but I would like to avoid the shock and frustration.

BTW, i will definanlty start looking into building a new battery tray and upgrading to the 1g cables!

 

[BUDDY]

Man!! You're lucky you didn't burn the whole thing to the ground!! Sheesh! I'll be the first to tell you, secure the battery!! Wow!

Enough with the rebuke, what I'd recommend you do is put the battery on a trickle charger for a few days. the Optimas are pretty tough, but they aren't indestructable. See if it'll revive by using the trickle charger, (2-5 amps/hr for a few days), while you are building some kind of sturdy hold-down/battery box.

I'll mount mine on the frame rails with a couple of these once I do my dual battery setup. Might I recommend plastic or rubber caps over the battery studs once you get it re-mounted in the truck.

You seem to have had angels watching over you, count your blessings.

Later,
Buddy

 

[88trailblazer]

Yeah, tell me about it. I'm sure the next step would have been a fire. I'm thinking of also installing a kill switch when i run the new cable. BTW thats an nice battery tray. I'll problably build mine, because its a 60lb battery, but that store has some nice stuff. Looks like i'll have to buy a trickle charger.

 

[lochenjons]

A unproperly secured battery horror story that happened to my buddy:

The battery was held in with bungie cords in his k5 and fell out (big surprise) knocking the cables in the alternator fraying them and shorting out the truck and creating a ton of sparks. At this point he was at the top of a hill over at hollister hills and tried getting his truck back down in neutral (another dumb idea) with no power steering, or power brakes or anything. It almost worked until he made a wrong turn and accidentally went down the side of a cliff. Fortunately, he stopped the truck when another trail intersected the hill. He put on the parking brake and got out. The parking brake snapped off and since the truck was in neutral, he watched the whole thing roll down the rest of the cliff. And somehow he took it up another time for one last run by himself (another big mistake) and rolled it and knocked himself unconcious and spent the night like that in his truck overnight at hollsiter hhills. Everyone he had been been wheelin with thought he had left already and didnt know where he was. So yeah, secure that battery, wheel with other people, let people know where you are and when your gonna be back, fix your truck on the trail before trying to get back, and yeah secure that battery!

 

[88trailblazer]

!!!!!!!!!!