battery revival

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My wife"s car is a 2000 lesabre. We believe it was the original battery in the car but it puked while at wally world. Well, THEIR batteries did not fit so I called around and got a Federated for $75 vs. $125 for everyone else.

So I took the cap of (son of a bean to get it off), drained the acid out, filled with a solution of baking soda and distilled water and watched it foam. The acid solution was brown and the foamed solution was brown. I rinsed it out with a hose about 5 times and drained. Then I put 5 oz. of Alum in with distilled water and shook it up and filled the battery. After just a little charging it is up to 12.93 volts on a 2 amp charge. I will charge it overnight and then try either tonight yet or in the a.m. to see if it will start the car.

I watched youtube videos on this, including one where a guy had quite the setup with loadbanks, software on his laptop, etc., to record everything. Watched another where the guy started his pickup in the dead of winter in the north.

So, if you 6V battery goes belly up, you may want to try this. The Alum was like $5 and whatever for the distilled water. For probably $8, it is worth the chance to get the battery fixed vs. paying out the yingyang for another new one.

I will post results of the startup later.
 
sg, i heard of that one too. the tube has videos on it also i think. just checked the charge with the charger off for the last 40 mins. 12.3 volts. i put it back on to charge overnight. oh, charging at only 2 amps also.

yeah, i would think that 6v batteries would be candidates for this also.

sg, what is your epsom salt recipe?
 
It may be wasteful and foolish but when the time comes that I have a battery that didn't do as expected (goes dead once, cranks really slow, etc.) and I determine it's not artificial, as in dirty cable ends, I start looking to replace it. I have never had the experience of bringing one back to life enough that I trust it. On my daily drivers I usually get about three to four years out of a battery. I have two garden tractor batteries, one is five years old and still starts the mower it's on. The other one is only a year old and won't hold a charge. It's on a tiller, I'll jump it and run it for an hour or so and it will start back up on it's own, but over night it goes down (cables disconnected).

At our fire house we sometimes get another year or so out of a battery by draining the acid out and putting new in. Same old story though, once it's had issues it's never the same.
 
Bought a new harley in 2002 and had to replace the battery in spring of 2012. Ten years on a bike battery is pretty darn good.

The car battery is nothing more than a test. I will be putting it in the car tomorrow and testing to see if it will crank it up. If so then great. I may just need it in the future if i find myself in a pinch.
 
Pretty good ole stuff.

Years ago, we set our finger and stuck into the alum container to get a small coating. Then, put the alum around the tooth that was causing the "toothache". The alum would SHRINK the gum line around the base of a tooth.

We also use ALUM to process PICKELS in a 7 day bath recipe. They taste good over the winter.

John,PA
 
On the last 12v battery I opened up because I wanted the case for electro plating.! cell was totally destroyed 5 were in good condition.Dumping out batteries fills the plates with mud, waste of time.Used to take bad cells out of 6v batteries and replace with good cells in the 50s.Most of the plates had shed material.When the hydrometer bring up gray water the cell is on the way out.Baking soda will nuetrilize battery electrolyte making it worthless in a battery.
 
I dumped the acid to begin with then filled with distilled water and baking soda. That neutralizes it inside. Then I dumped that out.

I had the same muddy water on the bottom of mine also. I just kept a hose in the hole and kept dumping. It cleared up pretty good.

As of this a.m.(no charger on it last night)it was down to 11.7V. It's possible it didn't charge long enough but I have a feeling it won't hold a full charge for anything more than an hour. Oh well, I can still get my $10 core if it is not going to cooperate by this evening.
 
add 10 tablespoons epsoms salt to a gallon of distileld water. probbaly have to warm the water .. but don't boil.

disolve the epsoms completely. drsin bsttery down and add this mix.

put on slow charge for a couple days.

this usually helps with sulfated paltes..e tc.
 
the alum experiment did not work. with a fully charged battery it wasn"t even enough to get the starter to engage. don"t waste your time on it. soundguy"s epsom may work but that battery is going to the store for a core return. i had 12.75 volts on it too but it drops 1/100th every 4 or 5 secs.

maybe this battery had something wrong internally, plate or whatever, that prevented it from working. other batteries may differ.
 
you never know. it may have had a physical fault.

i think the 'cleaning soultion' type fixes only work on sulfated batteries. IE.. it's a electro chemical reaction .. etc.
 

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