Hi

I recently had to charge my flat battery (cold weather and not using car very much at the moment) and when I attached the neg lead back to the battery (with pos obviously already connected) I accidently (and clumsily) touched the ratchet used to tighten the nut between the neg and pos terminals of the battery resulting in big spark and me jumping quite high.

The car has been used since then and everything seems normal, no blown fuses, but my question is could there have been damage to the electrics and/or the battery?

Many thanks.

R

 

It will be fine .

 

I doubt it. Batteries are designed to deliver hundreds of amps.
If you short them for a few seconds the results are far, far more serious

 

Phew! Thanks folks! Nice to see another Rossi fine BTW.

 

No pics

 

path of least resistance. spanner none etc.

Your cars systems are protected by fuses.

be happy you didn't weld your ratchet

 

I did a similar thing when fastening the exhaust manifold to an engine and touched the starter motor stud with the spanner (not on the S).

It stuck. There was a horrible smell of burning and a nasty electrickery noise.

I hit it with a large lump of wood that was handily in the engine bay propping up the manifold and dislodged it, but not before the battery lead got rather warm and I got more than somewhat concerned!

The battery is still going, some 2 years later, but I do now have a fusible link fitted at the battery and am much more careful about disconnecting the negative terminal of the battery prior to starting work...

 

A bit O/T but worth a safety note - charging a battery releases potentially explosive Hydrogen gas.
Yanking / sparking on the terminals can cause big explosions.
The resultant chemical discharges have blinded people.

 

I had a car battery blow up inches from my head once. I was doing the tappets on an old granada, instead of turning the engine over by the crank, I ran a wire from the starter motor and touched it on the battery to turn the engine over to get the relevant tappets in position to adjust.

Tap, tap, BOOOOOOM. It really knocked me for six, I couldn't hear properly for days. Really nasty shit!.

 

Yeh, not nice is it?

If any of you have met the ex Coca Cola forklift driver (forget his name) who does the H&S tours you'll know what emotional means.
The guy was chopping out a FLT battery and it cost him his sight.
His story, told in person, will make you cry. I promise you.