(ET) Battery Box Corrosion

["Geof Thompson" <geothompson xplornet com>]

Hi
1/2 inch or so of Baking soda. In the bottom is about the cheapest and 
probably the best protection, even down the sides of the batteries.
GEof


Message: 2
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 23:28:04 -0400
From: Andrew Poush <agp vt edu>
To: Elec-Trak Elec-Trak List <elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu>
Subject: Re: (ET) Battery box corrosion
Message-ID: <86B5415F-75EA-4A84-AE33-059C96BB008E vt edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

After much reading about and discussing this problem I have concluded that I 
do not have time now to replace even one of the two battery boxes.  So until 
that future time, I have scraped away as much corrosion as I can.  Now I 
need to put another set of flooded batteries in the tractor and get back to 
mowing.  My concern is to minimize further corrosion, especially on the 
frame, but on a student budget.  So I have a couple ideas that the rest of 
you might want to sanity check for me.

The old battery tray is shot and does not appear to be a durable design.  I 
bought battery bags but the perforated/corroded metal is a bit jagged so a 
protective intermediate layer appears to be needed.  It seems I could 
fashion some ABS plastic into a shield by cutting it into a plus shape and 
bending the sides up.  Putting the bags in next and then the batteries seems 
reasonable.  Using wooden shims on the outside of the battery bags ought to 
work well enough to hold the bags up, keep the batteries from sliding 
around, and prevent the wood from being soaked in acid (which seemed to 
contribute to the corrosion in the past).

But the drain port is still bugging me.  I am debating leaving the bags 
without drains.  The main reasons in favor of that are:
1)  the front drain port has been leaking acid onto the steering gear and 
corroding it.
2)  the ABS plastic sheet with merely a hole in it would not keep all the 
acid off the frame either (during runs up and down hills)
3) I have not been able to think of a simple way to attach a hose to a hole 
in the ABS plastic (or the battery bag).  I do have some of the two part PVC 
solvent cement...

Feedback?

Regards,
Andy Poush