Battery watering blockage - should I panic?

[gwing]

You cant take the top of the individual battery units, its part of the moulding,
Pull each pipe of the cascade off in turn and check that you can pass water through each pipe or blow through them. If you blow be mindful that the contents of the pipe could be caustic and not too nice to get in your mouth, or spray around if you use an airline.
Check none of the pipe runs have been squashed, its often happens when the top case is put on.
Having discionnected the filler pipe does this flow water when you connect it to the top up bottle.
Since all the filler circuit also acts as a vent system, you can blow through the system / each battery unit to see if it flow air. Be careful and use a clean ipe to blow down. If there is a major blockage this will show up.

Good luck, be careful if blowing through pipework.

Grumpy-b

Maybe there is nothing wrong?

Test1: No blockage from normal watering connector to bottom of filler hose on car (i.e. straight out to road as no battery there now) => water connection through to battery is OK.
Test2: Removed coolant manifolds and clear plastic shield. Replaced input pipe on first battery in string with a bit of clean tubing and blew. No blockage at all i.e. it went through the complete string of 6 batteries and out of the exit tube. => there is no blockage in any of the cells.

Now as they haven't had a maintenance charge I I don't want to test further by watering them if I can help it. I assume that as I can blow through (without any back pressure) they should water OK.

On question I have though is how on earth do you connect back the watering supply? The coolant pipe has a 'sensible' design where the connector is attached to the battery pack and you can just push the external hose on. By contrast the water supply connector is pulled out and all that is left is the open tube inside the pack free floating. Now once the pack is reassembled there appears no way of holding that internal pipe (the short bent one connecting to the first cell to be watered) in place while you push the external connector into place. How did everyone else manage it?

[Grumpy-b]

The watering pipe merely pulls off the hard plastic spigot on the Battery case. If you have pulled this out then you will need to separate it from the pipe on the van and put it back into the Battery case before you re-assemble it. It is simply pushed through the case and two simple barbs hold it in place. If these have broken then insert the spigot from the outside and put a tiewrap around the pipe under the remains of the barbs. If this wont hold it then use a small jubilee clip.
Have you fully checked the feed from the main connetor down to the battery. Is the small stub still inside the bayonet connector. This pushes against a similar on in the watering connector and opens the valves in both halves up. This seals both sides once disconnected.

Grumpy-b

[gwing]

The watering pipe merely pulls off the hard plastic spigot on the Battery case. If you have pulled this out then you will need to separate it from the pipe on the van and put it back into the Battery case before you re-assemble it. It is simply pushed through the case and two simple barbs hold it in place. If these have broken then insert the spigot from the outside and put a tiewrap around the pipe under the remains of the barbs. If this wont hold it then use a small jubilee clip.

That makes a great deal of sense and would match how the coolant feed pipe is connected. On mine the pipe vanside seemed permanently connected to the spigot which has pulled out - but I will look at it more closely. If it is indeed detachable its reassembly will hopefully be be straightforward, the plastic bards are a bit bent but intact.

Have you fully checked the feed from the main connetor down to the battery. Is the small stub still inside the bayonet connector. This pushes against a similar on in the watering connector and opens the valves in both halves up. This seals both sides once disconnected.

Plugged in watering connector, valve opened, water flowed through tube without obstruction which I considered a full test at the time. I didn't check that it is sealed when watering connector not engaged but although undesirable I don't think that would account for the blockage - and I don't fancy much blowing on the battery end of the tube to check either Come to think of it I should do that test with the connector a few times just in case the mechanism has gone unreliable and is causing the problem unless engaged 'just right'.

[ChrisB]

Now as they haven't had a maintenance charge I I don't want to test further by watering them if I can help it. I assume that as I can blow through (without any back pressure) they should water OK.

Yep you must carry out a maint charge BEFORE trying to do another watering.

I must admit I still think somethings not right. you say that when you did the last watering you had water come out from the middle center drain hole in the crate ???

I think it might pay to check that one of the batteries in that pack dont have a split/melted hole in them somewhere,

Rather than just blow through each battery, this time block the output of the watering pipe on each battery and see if you can get a bit of preasure in each battery, dont go mad and try and blow the thing up, just a gentle preasure and if theres any split/melted cells they should soon become obviouse as they will normally gurgle and not hold any preasure.

It would be better to use a small pump and gauge and put say a couple of psi in each battery (no more) and see if it holds it.

If water came out of the center drain I still recon theres either a melted / split battery in there somewhere, if its a split one then they can be quite hard to spot and only the preasure test will really easily find it.

ChrisB

[Grumpy-b]

Some of the pipes are a not very tight fit and may actually be leaking where they go onto the individual cells. Its well worth blowing through the whole pack with the outlet blocked and seeing if you have some leaks in the pipes. If so the simplest cure is to use tiewraps to tighten them or change them for other pipes.

Sounds like the feed system is working fine. If you cant get the spigot out I can provide you with another one. I do have spare tubing as well.

Grumpy-b

[ChrisB]

Thats interesting, must admit I found all my pre 2000 cells all had quite tight connections

Really wouldnt have expected any of them to leak.

Wonder how Gwings getting on ?


ChrisB

[gwing]

Thats interesting, must admit I found all my pre 2000 cells all had quite tight connections

Really wouldnt have expected any of them to leak.

Wonder how Gwings getting on ?


ChrisB

Gwing is fine thanks

All back together now, having failed to find anything wrong at all. No blockages, no dodgy connector, no loose connections - just need to get some replacement coolant tonight before firing her up and seeing what still works.

While I had stuff apart I also checked the gearbox fluid level (fine) and the brushes, which had 50% wear left so good to go I think.

Thanks for the earlier writeup on the gearbox oil check by the way Chris. Not having any suitable square bar I managed to get a socket on the plug quite easily, but it needed a combination of short extension bars with the standard long extension too long & the short one too short My cheap metric set only goes up to 22mm but an old 15/16 socket fit perfectly - so I guess it would be a 23mm.

[ChrisB]

Gwing is fine thanks

All back together now, having failed to find anything wrong at all. No blockages, no dodgy connector, no loose connections - just need to get some replacement coolant tonight before firing her up and seeing what still works.

While I had stuff apart I also checked the gearbox fluid level (fine) and the brushes, which had 50% wear left so good to go I think.

Thanks for the earlier writeup on the gearbox oil check by the way Chris. Not having any suitable square bar I managed to get a socket on the plug quite easily, but it needed a combination of short extension bars with the standard long extension too long & the short one too short My cheap metric set only goes up to 22mm but an old 15/16 socket fit perfectly - so I guess it would be a 23mm.

Thanks for the kind comment, hoped the gearbox oil checking thread would come in handy for folks, it is after all pretty important and the fact it holds just a few drips means its dam important to check.

I'm still concerned you didnt find anything if you had topping up water exiting the center crate drain it must have been coming out from somewhere ???

While you had the top off the pack I dont suppose you ran a volt meter over the batteries to see what they where sat at ??

ChrisB

[gwing]

I'm still concerned you didnt find anything if you had topping up water exiting the center crate drain it must have been coming out from somewhere ???

While you had the top off the pack I dont suppose you ran a volt meter over the batteries to see what they where sat at ??

ChrisB

I'm happy to report that we are all back together now, charged, watered and driving nicely Mind you I did panic for a moment when a warning light came on immediately I started off - 'twas just the heater fuel level lamp though - and I hadn't see that one lit up before.

I didn't check the cell voltages as the vehicle was driving fine and I didn't think a no load reading would tell me much, probabbly should have though, just out of interest. I think the water coming from 'somewhere else' was probably due to the drain pipe having been caught up and hence spraying onto that 'something else' rather than straight to ground. Why it actually blocked though, after letting the initial water flow, that's another question. At any rate there is no obstruction to the flow now

[ChrisB]

Whey hey a result

So if the drain was kinked that could have been why it was blocked possibley ??

Still amazed that you had fluid coming from the center crate drain though ?? wouldnt have thought with the best will in the world that a blocked drain would have managed to get fluid into the crate like that ??

What sort of range does it have ??

ChrisB