[77newell]

I have had a battery explode. It did so while being charged by the alternator that was functioning correctly, but the battery had been losing charge for awhile. I'm guessing here but I think an internal plate was disintegrating and eventually a big piece caused a big internal short that boiled the water fast enough to blow the casing. In your case if you have a 200 amp alternator the whole output was probably going into the shorted battery and heating the heck out of it which reached a point of a self-reinforcing runaway. My point is that when we notice our batteries are losing charge internally fairly quickly, rather than failing to fully take a charge (the sulphation thing), there is potential danger of explosion lurking. It is time to replace batteries.

jon
77 coach