Leaking Battery - Acid on piping and painted metal

[Hearny]

Hi all,

Looks like the heat has gotten to my battery, Century Ultra High Performance (with the serviceable cells).

I popped the bonnet to fill the wiper fluid and was greeted with a lot of build up on the negative terminal and then followed the trail of liquid to other areas of the car.

 

 

From what I can see it looks to have eaten away the paint in the battery tray, then dripped (from the top of the battery) onto the radiator piping, (maybe) the Turbo Coolant Return Tube and (maybe) the front crossmember.

I'm still learning - slowly making my way through the Haynes and Max Ellery repair manuals - apologies if the parts are incorrect!

 

Besides a new battery, what am I in for?...

 

Thanks all!

 

[k31th]

As long as those spots on the rubber hoses aren't getting too bad you can leave them for a quite a while (clean off any actual residual water/acid), but they are serviceable items so they'll get serviced eventually. For your own peace of mind, you can service them yourself when you do a coolant flush.

 

With the metal bits affected, just clean off the battery acid and clean it back as good as you can then paint over the bits that could rust with some matte black engine bay paint.

[Puffwagon]

Just hose it off and she'll be right. Give it a rub with your hand with the water running to get it cleaner looking.

[Hearny]

Hey @k31th & @Puffwagon,

 

Thanks for getting back to me! Glad it isn't anything sinister and, as pointed out, they are mostly serviceable parts anyhow.

I might swing by SCA/Repco and grab some engine bay paint to touch up the metal exposed pieces.

 

Thanks again guys!