Exploded Batteries, please help and explain.

[Adria Haynes]

Guys,

(might wanna grab a coke. I tend to type alot.)

I lurk here alot but almost never post. I've owned my 1980 35FC BB
for almost 2 years now and am still learning about the ole girl. I
have a problem that I'm hoping you guys can help me with.

When I got her, the batteries that were in it wouldn't hold a charge
for too long since it had been stored for a couple years with the
fridge set to electric and killed them. I dealt with it for a
while, but decided that I needed to just get new ones.

I went to the Sam's club and talked to the battery guy about what I
needed and he sold me on getting (4) of the Exide "golf cart"
batteries. They worked great last summer. About a month after our
vacation when I went to go start her up, it was dead and I found
that "somebody" had left ONE little light on. I decided then that
I'd just leave it plugged into shore power through the winter and
leave the battery switch by the shifter set to OFF.

I went out about 5-6 weeks ago, flicked on the battery switch, and
she fired right up. I let her tun for about 30 minutes and all was
well. I went out Saturday to do the same, only when I hit the key,
the volts dropped to zero and it would barely even engage the
starter selenoid.

I checked the (4) NEW batteries for water and soon discovered (while
adding water) that all four batteries had split along the same
vertical seam.

I spoke to a different guy at the Sam's club about it yesterday and
he was a turd. He started telling me that you can't let 6V
batteries get that cold (we live in Flint, MI), that I should know
not to use a battery that says "golf cart" in a bus, and that I
needed to convert it over to run 2 deep cycle 12 volt batteries and
blah blah blah. He pretty much was in "cover our butt" mode and I
pretty much was having none of it - since I bought them on THEIR
recomendation. Needless to say, I forsee myself dealing with
somebody at the management level when I return these babies very
soon.

I didn't think there would be any problem with leaving it plugged in
since it was made for full timers who would do the same darn thing.

Has anybody else ever experienced this?

Can you explain what happened so that I can try not to repeat this
little stunt with GOOD batteries?

Got any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance.
John