My neighbor came over the other day a little rattled after he went to start his 02 996 and heard a big kaboom. He said smoke started pouring out the windshield area and was worried about a fire. He got the smoke to stop by pouring water down the cowl area. When I got there the smell of battery acid was over powering, wow.

No way to get the frunk open so we started to disassemble the passenger wheel well to get to the emergency release cable. Naturally, his wheel lock key was in the frunk so it was a PIA to get wheel liner out with the wheel in place, but we did. Once the liner was out, the by now crowd of 3 could not find the release cable anywhere. The conversation turned to having it towed to the shop, but being Saturday afternoon that would mean the battery acid would be working on the car all weekend. That sounded very expensive to me.

I finally remembered seeing the release cable on my car when I had the headlights out before. I made a last ditch effort and was able to feel up between the headlight and fender and found the cable tucked up there out of sight. We were in!
(I searched rennlist for a photo of the emergency release with no results, so here is a photo to help the next person)

this picture show the release cable pulled downed for visibility


check out this battery explosion, nice carnage, pieces everywhere

looks like a factory battery too

we got the cowl area cleaned up with no damage (we pulled the udders and flushed in 10+ gallons of strong baking soda solution)


Put in a new battery, took the wheel off and reinstalled the wheel liner. Nice save for a Saturday afternoon

 

Its nice he had the help of a fellow Porsche guy and great neighbor!

 

Really glad it did not happen when he was in the frunk. Good job getting it taken care of. I just wonder if the battery was being overcharged causing an excess of hydogen gas. Was it on a charger recently? Also check the alternator and battery gauge just to be sure all is normal. Also make sure the battery is properly attached to the vent hose.

 

I'm moving to your street! Great job!

 

Usually dead batteries vent hydrogen gas. If the battery poles were loose and arced, it would blow up the battery. I've seen this once in another car. The way to clean this up is to mix baking soda with water and wash down the entire battery tray.

 

Did he have a vent hooked up to the battery?

 

a few follow up answers for you guys...
-yes, it was recently on the Porsche parts counter cigarette lighter charger
-battery terminals and mount on the exploded battery were tight and proper
-vent was and is hooked up (a shard of the vent attachment to the case of the exploded battery was still attached to the vent hose)

just one of those "you have to see it to believe it" situations, hence the photos and post

The humorous part of the whole situation was I had my friends wheel well all ripped apart and with none of us finding the emergency release, the others were giving me the "wtf is he talking about" look, so I HAD to find that cable

Car is OK and running good

 

Here are two photos of where I redirected the front and rear cables so I could release the engine and front lid without having to fish around under wheel wells and lights. The front I redirected when I had the front of the car off cleaning the radiators. I burned a hole in the passenger side plastic air scoop and sent the cable end through by the temp sensor. One pull and the hood is open. The rear I sent down by the driver side LHD rear light and wrapped it around the tail pipe. Again one pull and the engine lid is open. They can be seen if you are looking for them but WTF they work.