[chaka]

Charging a battery over the weekend and noticed that when I had the charger hooked up POS to battery (neg grounded) and Neg to chassi that i was not getting a charge. However I would get a charge if i attached the NEG to the NEG pole of the battery itself... does this mean I don't have a good ground?

Not interested in damaging the battery... but wasn't getting a charge any other way...

Oh...
I was attaching the NEG clip to the chassi near where the NEG battery pole was grounded as well and I also tried a few other locations, all without success.

[John Smith]

Unless you removed paint or rust to get to bare metal on the frame or other surface you were probably not getting a ground at all.

[MrMoMo]

Use and ohm meter to measure from your neg terminal to a good clean spot on your engine, this should tell you how good a ground you have between your battery and engine block...

[72FJ40LandCruiser]

Whenever charging a battery like that it's best to put the leads directly on the posts. I even prefer to have it disconnected. Another good rule of thumb is that if it was drained slow you want to charge it slow. If drained fast, charge it fast.

[fjwagon]

The answer is NO current flows to the path with the least resistence. Just put them directly on the battery. If you still have a problems charging the battery you may have a short cell. A slow charge is best. You don't want it to get hot when charging.....this is not good for the battery.

[chaka]

So what risks do I face by putting the clamps directly on the poles...? obviously I will be keeping a close eye on it while it is charging...

[gladly]

the way I understand it, when your battery is charging it vents hydrogen gas, so if you are breaking the contact at the terminals, you could end up with a hydrogen gas fueled big nasty fire and the end of your cruiser (lisence plate HNDNBRG)
but as long as you have a good contact and turn the charger off, and let everything cool down before disconnecting it, you'll be fine, probably.
the ohm meter is probably a good idea to make sure that you've got a good contact. (with the chassis)

[JC39232]

It's been my experience that it's best to remove the battery from the vehicle. At least that's what we always did on the farm. It is slightly more of a hassle, but if your cruiser is like mine it's not that big a problem. Also, you might want to invest in the charger that stops charging once the battery was charged fully. It will keep you from overcharging and can extend the life of your battery if it isn't already shot.

But I am by no means an expert on the matter. Hope this helps and isn't redundant info.

JC

[72FJ40LandCruiser]

Originally Posted by chaka

So what risks do I face by putting the clamps directly on the poles...? obviously I will be keeping a close eye on it while it is charging...

Disconnect the cables from the battery. Put the positive from the charger to the positive post and then the ground from the charger to the negative post. Plug in charger and charge. Then unplug charger before disconnecting the clamps from your posts. Always put the ground on last, and take it off first to help discourage any sparks. That will help ensure that there won't be any sparks to ignite the hydrogen gas coming from the battery during charging. If it's a breezy day out then the gas won't be hanging around anyways.

Yes, I've had a battery blow up on me and it SUCKS. A customer brought their car in once about a year and a half ago and said the battery was bad. I looked and it was 1 month from being out of warranty. I tested it and it tested bad. There was some oily substance on it that looked like power steering fluid and since their power steering resevior was close to the battery I figured they had spilled some while filling it and didn't clean it up. I took the terminals off and was pulling out the hold down and BOOM the SOB popped and I got acid all over me. It turns out that they poured stuff in their battery to try to make it go bad. I don't know how power steering fluid could have made it explode or even for sure if that's what the substance was, but I was fawkin pissed. Good thing I had safety glasses on.

[Colorado Boy-74-FJ40]

bring it to a battery shop and have it checked. If you have a bad cell, it's not a good idea to try charging it ,especially unattended. You could have a melt down and burn your house to the ground.