Are batteries that won't hold charge salvageable?

I just traded for a Farmall H which came with a battery that doesn't seem to hold a charge, but maybe I'm not doing it right. I have the battery off the tractor and I put it on a 10 amp charger. After half an hour it will charge up to 12.3-12.4 and I take the charger off. Within two hours the battery will have dropped to 12.0 and overnight it will drop into the upper 11s. It seems like each time I charge it it discharges slightly less, so I am wondering if I should keep charging it every day in the hope that it will come back or if it is a lost cause. A fellow told me a way to fix batteries by taking off the top, dumping the acid in a bucket, rinsing the inside of the battery with water a few times, pouring in half a cup of bleach and leaving it outside while the chlorine gas escapes, dumping the bleach and rinsing a few more times and refilling with acid. I have never heard of this before and a little nervous to try it, so I am wondering if anyone else has done it, and if it worked. I may just need to buy a new battery, and if I do I that's okay too. Thank you very much.
Zach

With a 10 amp charger you need to to charge it for at least 24 hours to see if its going to be any good.
If after that it loses the charge in a short time then it has a bad cell and is worthless except as a trade-in.
Walt

Go back in time about 40 to 50 years and yes, you could take the top off and rebuild that battery. However, todays' batteries are all sealed up and the tops do not come off without doing irreversible damage.

Thank you both very much. Should I charge it for 24 hours continuously? Is there a risk of overcharging it? My charger is sort of primitive and does not have any kind of auto shutoff provision.
Zach

Sounds like who ever told you to rejuvenate your battery was trying to cause serious damage to you or your health.... Go to Wally-World and buy you a cheapy and you will be better off than all of the screwing around and taking a chance of hurting yourself....JB

Depends how old, how bad. 5 years is a good life for a battery with moderate work load. If the plates are just "Hardened" it can be recoverable if they are heavily sulphated, probably not. Like Walt says, charge for UP TO 24hrs at 5A or so with the tops LOOSE to let out the gas but not the splashes, check regularly, see if you can hear or see it "fizzing" enthusiastically, if so that"s it charged. See what happens then. See if it"s the same on all cells. DONT get your eyes in the way of splashes goes without saying. If it looks not too bad and you want to go for a bit of reconditioning, empty out, flush with water (Distilled/de-ionised NOT tap)get rid of any sludge ( that can be shorting the plates at the bottom of the cells). Refill with sulphuric acid at about 1250/1280 SG. Recharge till it fizzes. If you have/can get a hydrometer, a charged reading of 1250 or better is what you are looking for. Usual health & safety warnings. Hydrogen gas is what is fizzing, makes some good bangs !

NO

There may be some ways to prolong the enivitable but sooner or later it will need trashed but first of all I would put it on a slow charge (lowest amp rating you can achieve) for at least 24 hours or more and make sure the water level is where it needs to be after that I would do a hydrometer check with a tester that has a specific gravity chart on it and not terribly expensive at an auto parts store that will tell you the acid % in the battery. Here are the options you can buy battery acid to add to each cell to get the % where it needs to be which does not guarantee a good battery because you may have a bad cell and its toast. I use the next option and that would be to put it on charge for a couple days then take it to an auto parts store and have them do a load test with what I call a toaster and it will tell you it is bad its pretty accurate in fact that tester system is over 100years old. The rule of thumb is each cell generates 2 volts per cell which is normally per fill cap and the way DC works if you have one bad cell it will drain the battery down fast. Industrial batteries have connection terminals at each cell to check this but non commercial batteries don't. My preference is the toaster and you're good besides that they can dispose of the old battery no charge. My two cents CT. PS if you want to preserve your new battery and have to add water always use distilled water.

You can try giving it a hard charge for a day or so, but I doubt you'll save it.

Rod

You can try giving it a hard charge for a day or so, but I doubt you'll save it.

Rod

Only way to recover the use of a failed battery is to melt the lead plates. Refine the lead and re-pour the plates.

A charger that doesn't hold a constant voltage or that doesn't have an automatic shut off can be as bad for a battery as no charger at all. Overcharging can hurt a battery. Your battery might like a bit of overcharging, that's called equalizing when one cell is a bit weak, sometimes it gets the cells to to same capacity, but often the battery is over the hill and anything you try to do to it will lead to more damage and more potential for hurting you with spilled acid or an explosion.

Gerald J.

When I was about 15 I worked for a berry farmer.
He had an older Chrysler and the battery went bad. If I remember right he emptied the acid out and put in a mixture of Epson salt and water and let it sit for a time. Then drain and flush, add new acid and charge it. He was proud of the fact that he could get a couple more years out of a battery that way. I helped him put the battery back in the car so I know it started it again.
Dunno.
Maybe someone ought to google it.
He had a 135 Massey. I spent a bunch of time on it rototilling between the rows of raspberrys.

I have a battery that was installed 5 years ago and tractor was never used afterwards....Anywat I charged it for 24 to 36 hours--10/2 amp charger.It came up just fine and has been working even in the cold..
So you never know till you try.

unless you have it installed in a vehicle let it sit a few hours after charging to bleed off any fumes it may have produced...I have had a battery explode hooking up jumper cables in the past.Not fun at all.

I seem to recall some discussion a while back about "desulfating" a battery as a way to rejuvenate it.

Can't remember if that was a valid idea or a buncha bull exhaust. Might be worth a google.

A battery that has been sitting in a discharged state could well take 100 hours to fully recharge. Charge it at a slow rate keeping the voltage about 13.5. Charging at too high a rate will only cause the battery to get hat and boil out water. When fully charged, after removing the surface charge the voltage should be 12.6.

If after a day or so the voltage is at 10.5 you have a shorted cell. If the cell is shorted because of build up of material on the bottom of the case they can sometimes be restored by flushing out the debris. If the short is caused by a buckled or broken plate there is not much you can do about it unless you cut the battery apart to do a physical repair.

When I worked at an IH dealership we had several cases where kids had played in the tractors or combines and left all the lights on. They might sit that way for a month so the batteries were completely discharged. IH policy was to recharge them at a slow rate for at least 100 hours before testing them. Some would fail the load test even then but after sitting on the shelf foe 30 days they would pass. I used one of those "failed" batteries in my tractor for almost 10 years before I had to replace it.

Thank you all very much for your advice. The battery is a wal-mart brand and has a mfg date of December 05. I think I'll just look for a new one, probably at NAPA. My charger is a sorry thing, and it only has a 10 amp setting. I could buy a trickle charger and try it but since it was a cheap one to begin with I think it is probably not worth it.
Zach

When a battery discharges it makes lead sulfate. If its left discharged the sulfate accumulates in large crystals. Desulfation techniques are supposed to break down those large sulfate crystals. Sometimes one of them works. The other rub is that sulfate crystals are larger than the material they replace so they tend to break active material from the plate which falls to the bottom of the battery. For that there's no recovery.

Take it back to walmart. They have a 3 yr free replacement but prorate for 9 years. You can still probably get about half off a new one. Last one I took back, I had to remind the guy about the prorated replacement and he scanned it and I got $30 off a new one. No receipt required now.

I guess I should say this as some others have mentioned doing it.
NEVER, NEVER drain a battery out and replace it with new Acid.
You are looking at either doing a lot of damage to your shop vehicle or self.
Walt

Yes years ago batteries could be repaired or rebuilt but it is very dangerous to do at home. You will be well served to buy new for say $50 and enjoy your tractor. I have seen two people nearly killed by tinkering with batteries. The hospital cost could be $50,000 so your not saving much if you fail. Also Those additives etc to repair it are not cheap and are usally short live. I worked on batteries and dc power in the past.

Wet cell batteries, like for instance in tractors, cars, and trucks are not in theory considered toxic waste, because in theory, when one goes bad, the core gets shipped back to a smeltery where the acid or electrolyte is drained, and then the lead plates melted down, waste removed and good lead reused.

As a kid growing up through some tough economic times decades back for many, I recall a few times during the winter months when some down and out folks would bring their failed batteries into the parts store that I worked at with whatever pennies they could scrape together that still didn't add up to the cost of a lower end battery, and a few times I was able to find a core in similar shape to what it sounds like your battery is in already setting in the back waiting for return, and drain the electrolyte, filled with distilled water and dish soap like Dawn or the sort, and then toss on a charger until was bubbling up, drian that, refill with distilled water to rinse that off the plates, drain that and fill with new electrolyte, charge, and then trade them their core for that core and get them through at least the winter for the cost of new electrolyte, which was pennies until they could scrape together the cost of a replacement. That process seemed to adequately nuetralize whatever buildup was on the plates in the jar and I never had one blowup.

Then again, a year or so ago, I had a battery low on electrolyte and added new electrolyte to the existing electrolyte and smoked that battery. That wasn't a smart thing to do. It wasn't in a piece of equipment, but got so hot to the touch just setting idle that it was toast. Do not add new electrolyte to old discharged electrolyte or directly to an empty battery just setting, they don't mix. I had a fella from a large battery manufacturer, one of the largest tell a class that I sat in, that the proper way to store a wet cell battery is to first charge the battery, then drain its electrolyte into a clean glass jar, and then refill it for use with that same exact electrolyte that was removed from it when going to place it into service, not to mix the electrolyte with any other, and not to put the wrong electrolyte into a battery that it did NOT come from. I proved him correct on putting electrolyte into a battery that it didn't come from when I did and smoked it.

Its entirely possible and probable that your electrolyte went into a reversal whereas it will never hold a charge and will continuously discharge forever. If you can afford a replacement battery, that's the way that I would go. If you can't, well...

Good luck.

Mark

Play it safe and buy a new one. But DO check around for the best deal. I just brought one for a tractor and the price varied from 49bucks to 109 bucks for the same battery. Sams Club usually is the best deal in my area.

I am experimenting with a battery now which is flat, have a book which says to put caustic soda in to clean the plates which I have done, steady charge going in but not much action at the moment,

A further thought, don't use chlorine [bleach] without first checking whether it is compatible with the acid, what someone says is not really worth the paper it is written on.