strong acrid smell

[harry morris]

HELP, can anybody tell me what's gone wrong with my shiny red van with its 2003 batteries, the only thing I have done wrong recently was to run the battery really low down to 10% and had to pull the traction fuse 5 times to get me to my place of work! I then put it on charge for 5 hours and she was up to 95% I took myself home and everything seemed normal using some 15% to get home, again normal! So I put her on charge again and left it till the following morning, that's when I noticed this very strong acrid smell like battery acid !!! on switching on there was an odd click coming from the rear of the vehicle and then everything seemed normal but the power gauge was only reading 95% I have had to use the vehicle until friday of this week and it drives normally, any help from members would be most appreciated, thanks HARRY MORRIS

[timpootle]

Is the ticking sound the normal fuel pump sound? Or a different noise from a different place?

The only battery acid is in the 12v aux battery. Is it in good health? Try the headlights and power steering before you bring in the traction pack contactor.

No better ideas than that, sorry. Driving below 10% shouldn't be a problem, but repeatedly resetting to "get you home" is what killed mine I think. Maybe need to check all your batteries.

Good luck!

[harry morris]

Thanks TIM, have had the rear and the dreaded centre pack out and the batteries were fine all showing 6 volts and I had run them down to 25% before starting investigations and none of them dropped at all with my heavy duty battery tester so was quite happy with that apart from the work that is, so now am gunna do the front batts
If a battery shorted out or went into reverse polarity would that not coarse the smell ? havent got a clue what the clicking is though!! cheers HARRY