Battery acid spill / boilover?

[Joe G]

After a 650-mile one-day ride this past weekend the RT, as always, was put in the garage and the Deltran/BMW battery charger was plugged into the accessory socket. The bike had cooled off outside before it was brought inside.

 

Next morning there's an acid spill where the drain hose on the right is. The battery has Always been kept on the charger, even for long periods of time when I was back East, and I've never had this happen before. The bike was not overheated because the last 200 miles of the ride were up the coast through Big Sur and Santa Cruz with lots of fog, moisture and temps in the 60's ( at best ).

 

Thoughts?

[Bob Palin]

Maybe it was low on fluid and overheated when charged because of that?

[Joe G]

In anticiaption of the trip this past weekend (Death Valley reconnoiter) I wanted to check the battery electrolyte level, so I took the left side panel off, the battery out of the bike, put a flashlight behind the battery and checked the cell levels. I added maybe 10 cc total to the outer cells, so I am sure the battery wasn't underfilled (or overfilled).

[KMG_365]

I had the same thing happen when I topped off the battery electrolyte and then charged overnight with the tender (back when we had the stock lead-acid batteries). I realized afterwards that I had filled them to the bottom of the little tang inside the hole (like the old car batteries), and in checking it later that dang hard to see line on the fairly opaque case is quite lower than the tang. Perhaps even if you got it to the top of the proper line (as you mentioned) when re-charging the battery after a partial discharge (heated grips and lights on while cruising at lower RPMs?) the electrolyte bubbled rapidly enough to spit a bit out the overflow tube? Just a WAG on my part.

 

( [hijack] Wasn't that a great ride to Death Valley?? I can't wait to go back in January!! [/hijack] )