OPTIMA BATTERIES - GEL FILLED

Over the past month, I have seen so many people send out messages to the " THE LIST " mailing list through vwmagazine.com about having fires in the rear seat. I have had this happen too, and there is some simple things you can do to fix this.

THE POSITIVE BATTERY CABLE
You dont have to be a rocket scientist to know that when the positive battery cable hits ground on your vehicle it could spark or blow up the battery.

Many of us have had batteries with no plastic cover over the top part of the positive cable. When your large friend sits on the passenger side of the rear seat, this is when you get sparks. The springs and horsehair from the bottom of the rear seat can hit the positive battery cable, causing huge sparks, and a lot of white smoke. If this has happened then you know what a pain it is to put that little horsehair out, it's almost like the driest wood you will find, and it burns very, very well.

THE REMEDY
So you dont feel like driving to grand auto to pick up a plastic cover for your battery cable. I have found a little " Home Remedy " which will work 10 times better than the little plastic cover.

SOLUTION #1
Find an old plastic measuring cup in your cupboard. Take this cup and go out and see if the cup is wide enough to fit over the positive end of the cable. If it does, then you will need to take some snips and cut out a small section on the side of the cup so the cup will sit on top of the battery, and the section you cut out has the cable coming through it. This way you will have a thicker area covering the cable, so even if your friend weights 300lbs, he wont cause a fire to start in the back of your VDUB.

SOLUTION #2
Another good solution that you can find at home would be to get a piece of cardboard ( THICK PIECE ) and take a twisty tie and attach it to the metal part of the seat where the metal springs are. If you use this with solution #1, you should have no problems when it comes to fires in the back of your VDUB.

SOLUTION #3
The other solution is to get an optima battery ( above in picture ), these batteries are gel filled and can take some real abuse. The nice thing about these is you dont have to worry about them exploding, they will still spark, so you may want to use SOLUTION #1 with this battery. These optima batteries are perfect for Baja Bugs, and Sandrails. Overall, they will make any VDUB a safer VDUB to work with.
You can visit their website at : www.optimabatteries.com

SAFETY - READ
Always remember to have a pair of protective goggles on when working around a battery. I know that 99% of the time that it will never do anything, but I have had too many friends and family members have the battery blow up in their face. Just be safe and always try to carry a small little fire extinguisher in your VDUB. Even if you dont use the extinguisher on your VDUB, I am sure in your lifetime you will find a fellow VDUBBER sitting on the side of the road with his engine on fire.

Brock Eastman

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