Hey people. Any advice is appreciated. I had to fix up my turbo coolant hose and while tearing the front end apart, removing the battery tray, I see this!



Thing is the battery is still good! What I figure is that when the car was in the bodyshop a while back I remember they saying my battery died/created problems. Thats all they said. Now I dont really remember what battery I had in there at the time and now thinking about it I think its different. Somehow all this battery acid got under the tray(I think the other one exploded or something?).

Anyways, how do I go about cleaning this up and protecting it from rusting further?

Thanks

 

Baking soda will neutralize the acid. Scrub that area down with baking soda mixed with a bit of water and a wire brush. You'll have to then clean the metal, get rid of all of the rust. There are products out there that you can spray on to the rust to stop it. Then just primer the area and paint it.

 

If you have some Super Clean kicking around the garage, you can use that to neutralize the battery acid (actually, there is prob not much neutralizing to do, since the acid has reacted with the metal already). Anyway, that Super Clean is big time caustic. Plus, it will help clean up the area at the same time.

 

Thanks People!

I ended up sanding and scrubbing the area down to bare metal. I picked up a product called Rust Killer which said on the label that it can be directly sprayed on the area and rust, which will stop it from progressing. It is also a primer. Then I just sprayed it black for now. I need to get the engine out at some point to respray the engine bay.


later

 

when the battery exploded in my FD it ruined the crank pulleys and oil cooler lines too. make sure you neutralize everything!

 

this mite be a dumb question
but what makes a batt explodes or how does it starts leaking?
thanx

 

Freezing a battery in cold weather when it's got a low charge/weak electrolyte can lead to cracking the case and acid leaking. They can explode from serious overcharging or the case failing to vent as designed, leading to build-up of flammable hydrogen.

 

my alternator decided that it was happier putting out 20V than 12.

the power windows were much happier too. but the battery was not.