'00 HD Truck, I was detailing under my hood one day, when it dawned on me that I've never check the water in my battery. I looked at it and thought, is this a maintenance free battery or am I looking at a cover over the battery. It ends up being a cover, which I had to take the cables off the battery to check the level. Well, the cover is now history and I have my battery explosed so I can open the caps for inspection. The radio kept it's memory when I removed the cables, but I had to reset the clock. I know that Ford probably has this cover on for corrosion reasons and at some point I'm going to buy a maintenance free battery that doesn't emit fumes.

 

I believe the battery is supposed to be treated as maintenance free? It should never need water.

Wonder if your battery was low on water when you checked?

 

Yes its a maintenance free battery in your truck.

 

I'll have to do some checking in the manual or with Ford, but when I removed the cover and checked the level, I added at least a cup of distilled water to the battery. It sure doesn't look like a maintenace free battery to me. I have a Delco in another vehicle and it is very obvious that it's maintenance free. Thanks