Technical The Great Battery Rejuvenation Experiment

With the cold weather, several batteries in my stuff (tractor, dump truck, Bantam) decided to die, all within a couple of weeks. So, while I kept walking by them in the core pile, and after watching a few videos, I decided to try and resurrect all three. Will it work? Who knows, all it took was an hour of my time and a bag of Epsom salt. Stay tuned for the dramatic conclusion. In the mean time:



First I washed the grunge off



Then drained the electrolyte. Black as night in all three.



Solid sediment



Then I mixed the Epson salt in a gallon of hot water, filled the batteries, shook them around, drained, filled with water and drained a couple of times until the water came out fairly clear.



I refilled with the electrolyte, using the filter leftover from my last kidney stone elimination process.



Back on the charging bench. I have hopes for the two top post batteries, one came up quickly in voltage and has held. Other is on the charger now. The side post battery I'm doubtful. It too came up to voltage (lit the green light on the charger) but has since dropped to 12.45v. That one did not drain and fill like the other two, much slower and a lot more muck. I'll try charging it again later, and try a start test on all.

 

Basically when a battery fails to hold a charge it's because plate material has flaked off and once enough floats to the bottom it shorts out the battery and drains it. As long as that stuff is in suspension it'll work. I had one I milked for several months that as long as the car was driven every day it was fine; let it sit for a day or two and it would go dead. Give it a charge to 'stir' the electrolyte, start over... but the amount of time to 'dead' kept getting shorter.

What you're doing will bring them back for a while, but you'll continue to lose plate material and the problem will come back sooner or later. The loss of plate material also reduces plate surface area and with that you'll have lower battery capacity.

 

Well, for my forklift and tractor that don’t get started very often, I’d be fine with something that can just take a charger to get them started. Used to use Bayer aspirin, but I happen to have a 10lb bag of Epsom salts handy. Seems like a worthwhile process to try!

 

Back in the late 50's, early 60's I watched my dad resurrect several of the old soft top batteries. He would cut out the bad cell, find another good one to replace it with then reseal the top. Didn't do it as a science experiment or to show off, he did because he was too cheap to buy a new battery. He did know how to fix cars & big trucks.

 

They will also get a little bit of "permanent" sulfation sometimes, if they weren't otherwise too abused.

Running them down to about a 50% charge and then charging them at a low amp rate for a day or two will often bring them up to speed, this works. It might take more than one cycle.

The best thing though is don't let a battery become dejuvenated in the first place. Keep them juvenated. Don't leave them discharged somewhere they will get hot, and don't leave them somewhere they will freeze.

 

I recall taking a load of batteries into a place in the 70’s, they had a big bench with a lead sheet wrapped over it. All the tops were cut off. In another area they had (what I know now) all the plates hanging in the air over some bathtub/vat

They sold “refurbished batteries “ for cheap.
Your post reminded me of it

 

Last year my backhoe battery died , and it was only a year-and-a-half old. it would not take a charge. I hooked 14 gauge wire from my van battery to the backhoe battery for an hour. Then it took a charge. It's been about a year now and I hooked it to a $15 Walmart battery charger and I still am using the backhoe

 

Running old batteries will cause a host of problems! I know you are trying to squeeze a few extra months out of them , but at what cost and trouble! I just buy new cheap batteries for my occasional vehicles and disconnect the battery when I get through with them. This will save you money and head aches in the long run!
I just bought two , two year batteries for $48 each at Wally World!






Bones

 

I enjoy experiments like this, win or lose. I should have been wiring a trailer, pulling the front seal on the flathead and several other things first this morning but this seemed like more fun.

Still swapping the charger around. They have been dropping back to 12.3 or 12.4, hopefully a few charges will help like Truck64 mentioned.

 

All my battery's sit at 12.3/12.4, one or two 12.6. Sitting for a bit what voltage they supposed to be?

 

12.6 is the norm.

 

A buddy gave me a charger that " rattles the plates." It has a series of lights that says what is going on, when all lights are green it's soup. I have brought back several batteries that would not take a charge. It takes a few days, low recharge at all. Some last a few years others less. Weird thing is the battery must be completely disconnected from car to work, even the ground cable.

 

Don’t think anything notable is gonna happen
That electrolyte looked horrible.
Discoloured and dirty/ contaminated acid is basically a sure indication of a pooched battery.

specific gravity should be 1.258-1.277 on a good charged battery
Clear electrolyte s a must.

sulphation and mineral build up on plates kill batteries, lack of use is a horrible death for a battery.

you can try doing a high amp charge for maybe 30-minutes to an hour to heat up the battery and possible break up some of the sulphation
Then put is on a forming charge over and extended period at low amps under 10 Amos and the lower and longer the better.
If the charge holds and the battery voltage at rest and under load seems stable.
You want to put the battery into something where it will get used , have it go through a few discharge and charge cycles and it might come back.

the big one with Batteties is cell consistency, you can’t check that on a sealed battery, but if all cells show the same voltage usually it can be brought back to some kind of useable life.

let us know how you make out.

what the reason for the Epson salts?
I use em to soak in when my back is acting up, 5 cups in a warm bath get me feeling all soft and happy....... or is that the 5 beers I drink while soaking ?

 

12.65 for standard lead-acid batteries, the kind with filler caps, to top off with water.

12.80 for sealed batteries, maintenance free type batteries. The plate alloy and chemistry is different. 0.15 volts doesn't sound like much, 12.3 or 12.4 volts will still start the engine, but on a percentage basis is quite a lot.

What I've noticed generally is a tendency for people to shop for the "best" most expensive highest CCA Itridium-Pluthenium battery they can find, but for some reason balk at even spending 5 bucks on a yard sale Wards 2/6 amp battery charger. (These work great by the way) Keep them plussed up and they will give good service and last a LOT longer.

 

Depends a little on the specific type. Not the end of the world but a battery will read full voltage even when they "need" a charge (in terms of current capacity).

For example in a car that's just been driven, or off a battery charger, it will have what's called a surface charge. So it will measure a little high. 13.10 or 13.20 volts say. Turn the engine off, turn the headlights on for about 5 minutes and turn them off.

Then wait at least 10 minutes. If you're bored you can watch the battery voltage "bounce back" to a higher level. This will be the true state of charge, after several minutes. There is a correction factor applied depending on the ambient temperature.

It's probably quicker to hook the battery charger up than try to explain it. If they aren't charged up good they will soon sulfate up permanently and crap out about 5 years sooner than they otherwise would have.

Basically if they don't read full voltage they ... need charging, and it takes a long time for the last 10 or 15 percent. While it is possible to overcharge them it takes a determined effort.

 

Not very encouraging this morning. The side post battery, the one with all the muck, is dead, 10 volts. As I mentioned this battery was very slow to drain the flushing water and was full of sediment, way more than the other two. I'm thinking that by turning it upside down, the junk got stuck in the plates and I was not able to flush it out, so it's shorting. Curiously, this battery was in my Bantam, garaged, driven weekly and kept on a battery tender. I guess it was just it's time.

The top post I left off the charger was at 12.3, the other was still on the smart charger showing full charge. I've just switched them. Even if they will hold a charge, doesn't mean they'll crank, been there. I do have a hydrometer and load tester, if I get that far.

It may be that, if one was really interested, cutting the top off and being able to sufficiently clean, then putting in fresh electrolyte would do the trick. Too much on my plate for that. Still hoping for any success, one is a core for sure.

 

I purchased a couple NOCO "Genius" chargers, one 12/24 v, and the other 6/12v as I still had a couple 6v tractor setups at the time. These have the repair setting that shocks the battery, and they works very well. I have been able to bring back all but 3 of the batteries I have used them on, including several of the golf cart types for my Genie manlift that had been turned in as cores at my neighbor's shop. You run a regular slow charge cycle on them until green light, then run the repair setting overnight. I check the voltage in the morning, then use a load tester to bring them down a bit, then thump all four sides with a rubber hammer to stir things up a bit, and run it overnight again, and repeat until it doesn't improve any more- usually will pick up a few tenths each time. Any batteries I have on stuff that doesn't run often gets an occasional treatment, and almost always improve

 

I don't know how true it is but have heard it said and it seems to be the case, that even with regular charging or using a float charger aka tender, batteries like to get at least some use, they like to swap some electrons around.

They definitely don't like to sit unused, or maybe a better way to put it, sit around self-discharging. The soft paste that builds up on the plates is lead dioxide or lead sulfate or whatever (I'm not a chemist) and will normally dissolve right back into the electrolyte with normal charging.

But if it sits a few weeks in this condition, the soft paste turns into hard crystals, and becomes very resistant to reverting back into the battery acid. Charging a battery with permanent sulfation has been described as like trying to wash your hands wearing rubber gloves.

I've never paid too much attention to batteries until recently, when they die I go buy a new one. But I've found it's much easier to maintain them, then try these kind of contortions. They sure got spendy too.

Batteries can also explode, which hasn't happened to me personally but by all accounts isn't very fun. I think this is mostly or usually a factor with trying to charge a frozen battery, or possibly batteries that were frozen at one time over the winter, and come spring or summer ... A fully charged battery is good to go to 40 below, but as the charge level goes down the freeze point goes up. A completely dead battery will freeze at +20F or thereabouts, as the specific gravity of the electrolyte is 1.00 - water. The "acid" doesn't evaporate or go away, it is in the paste on the plates.

This is why battery acid isn't used to top off a battery, only water. (Yes, distilled is preferred but any soft water will do just fine, and even filtered Missouri river water would be better than nothing in a pinch, if the plates are exposed - see the "exploding" caution above)

 

I worked for a guy for a while that rejuvenated batteries and sold them cheap. I have not watched a u tube but what we did was put Epson Salts in them over night, then washed the crap out of them and put new acid in them.

He sold a lot of batteries. lost of poor people where we lived. Sometimes one would come back but he was a good guy and just replaced it with another.

There are things to check for. cracks and holes can be fixed with a soldering iron and a piece of old case. Loose plates cannot be fixed. But that is where you get a piece of old case to fix holes in the other ones.

 

So what is used for electrolyte/acid and where would get it?

 

back in "the day" would buy cheap "Sun Power" car batteries at the grocery store that had been redone to hold a charge and looked good - also, would buy reclaimed oil in cans - when ya ain't got any money gotta do what ya gotta do

 

If an old battery begins to warp the plates with age, it can reach a point where it internally shorts out, and then you've got huge problems! I had one literally melt down in the trunk mounted box of my car, and it wasn't even connected when it happened! I had driven it a few days before, and whenever I park it I turn the battery switch off for security. I came out to start the car, and battery was dead. Opened the trunk and saw the disaster of a total meltdown!
I'll never chance trying to mess with batteries. That one was still under warranty, and it happened, so I sure wouldn't chance screwing with old ones.





Took me two days to clean it all up, neutralize the metal that got acid on it, install a new box, paint everything, and get it back to nice shape. What a mess!

 

Reclaimed oil was some of the best... I sure miss McMillian here locally.

 

I had one blow up in a car (OT Skyhawk/Monza) in the mid 80’s. Went out one morning to go to work, turned the key nothing happened, tried again and boom, fried the clock also. Opened the hood and the top was blown off and acid everywhere. Spent some time cleaning it up. The battery must have shorted, put a new battery in and everything else was fine except for the clock.


Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

No you had a bad connection, probably at your post, created a spark and there was hydrogen gas accumulated at the top of the battery. Probably!









Bones

 

I also have a couple of Genius chargers as well as a Schumacher heavy duty charger. I also have a pulse unit that is designed to work with any standard charger. I have found that they work great for keeping a battery in good condition.
The newer batteries have much thinner plates and other changes in both material and construction. These changes in design have made them much less tolerant of internal faults. The newer chargers do make a difference, but it is a pity that battery designs have changed to the point that it doesn't matter who manufactured the battery, even with good care, it is not likely to last more than 5 years.
Bob

 

I lived in Tucson, AZ. for 10 years & Started a Business there
Auto Repair shop & found out that Batt. go Dead just as Fast
in Hot Weather as they Due in Cold Weather!
There was a shop that re did old Batteries & this Guy did a Lot of
Business.!
He would Cut the Top of the Batt. off & clean out the Box clean the
the Metal plates & Make sure there were no Shorts.
Put New electrolyte acid

in it , Charge the Batt and it was good to go.!

Just my 3.5 cents

Live Learn & Die a Fool

Just my 3.5 cents

Live Learn & Die a Fool

 

I have twice had the thrill of having a battery blow, while standing over it. The first was during cable hook up, just charged and still cooking. The second I was trying to crank an old stubborn Jeep. hooked two jump batteries together. The result woke up the neighbors.
Best ever was in 1966, my favorite customer, a little old school teacher with a '57 210. She showed up wanting to replace the Delco battery that the factory had installed. Just because.

The lesson in this was the schedule she kept; always steady, never varied, and constant. Maintenance performed by one specified mechanic. ( a master of the trade )

 

The batteries I've used over the years tend to last around seven years. I have a car made in Munich, Germany that had its original battery installed in Nov '01 (date stamped). I changed it out in Dec '17 just because I thought I was tempting fate. Didn't have any issues but I was getting a little weary. Now that is 16 years without any serious problems at all so why can't other batteries last as long?

 

In the mid 60s, I was stationed at a base in the Canadian Prairies, and as a squadron pilot, we were required to get to work, no matter what the weather, unless we were told to stand down. On one miserable -45 F morning after a blizzard had passed through, I was attempting to start my car, and even though it was plugged in, it would barely turn over. There was nothing the matter with the car, but because there had been a power failure, the battery was just too cold to turn the car over quickly enough for it to start.
So I was standing there in my winter flying suit, wondering what my next step was going to be, when a town employee was cleaning the snow from the alley in a big front end loader. He stopped and asked me if I wanted a boost, and I eagerly answered yes. He positioned the loader close enough to hook up the cables, and connected my battery to 12 volts from his machine. My car started right up, and as I got out to thank him profusely, we heard a hellacious bang. When we recovered from the shock of the explosion, we discovered that the battery on the machine had blown its top.
He had to call in to the shop to explain what happened and get the battery replaced. I made it to work just in time for the mifwics sent us home.
Bob