Battery alchemy?

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pishta

pishta

I know I'm right....
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Wifes 2012 Grand Caravan starts to crank slow, been doing that for about 2 weeks. Well today, no go. Half a crank and then the ticks...Its a 3 year battery (2 months left) but we got it with the van and Advance Auto wont honor the manufacturer 3y warranty without a receipt, its a 'non transfer' warranty. Bummer. So im poking around while its on the charger, drawing 2A only (guy said it was good, just a little low on charge which was BS as it wouldnt even crank the van) and I pop the vent cap and find the #1 cell almost empty! So I check the other full cells with my hydrometer and they all test green, but the small bit of acid in the #1 cell wasnt enough to float the needle so I took a little out of each cell and filled the #1, and with all that good acid from the other cells, it still measured 'red' bad. I had some acid from a motorcycle battery so I added it but that cell is still red. Will charging the battery bring that acid back to spec, do I drain that bad cell and add distilled water? I dont know how distilled water turns to acid in a battery....Darn battery is $180 if I need to replace it....I grab the 5 year old reman battery out of the beater mazda and it kicks the van right over. Safe for now, will slow charge the bad battery overnight.
 
what kills a cell is partical of corrosion gets hung up between the plates touching both plates, the plates alternate between positive and negative. ant this where ya drop a aspirin in your bad cell for ya charge it?
 
heard epsom salt works too, glass of wine..... Its all BS.....
 
Or you could get a hydrometer tester and do it the real way. You can buy acid at better auto part stores. Distilled water is at the supermarket, or your dehumidifier.
 
Demonic said:
Or you could get a hydrometer tester and do it the real way.
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Like I did.....Question was does distilled water eventually dilute to an acid from the chemical reaction of charging the battery? Or maybe when do you add acid, and when do you add distilled water? I know moto batteries are shipped dry and include the acid so maybe the acid is the original fill and water is to top off?
 
Pista, I was a auto battery technician in my former life. I am now a chemist and have had experience in aerospace batteries.
The lead acid batteries have lead metal plates with sulfuric acid acting as the electrolyte. The surfaces of the lead plates are converted to lead sulfate during discharge. The sulfate comes from the electrolyte and leaves a molecule of water for each sulfate ion that transfers to the lead metal. Charging the battery reverses the process and coverts the lead sulfate back into lead metal and the sulfate is released back into the electrolyte and becomes associated with the water molecule again.
The dry cell probably shorted between the plates, overheated, and boiled the water out of the electrolyte. The plates in that cell are probably ruined and unrecoverable because all of the lead was sulfated. Adding water to the dry cell and charging it might bring it back enough to produce 2 volts but likely it will not hold the amperage that it normally would.
It would be best to spend the money on a new battery and save yourself the trouble of wrestling with a shorted cell.
 
Just a note. Digital load testers are crap. Have tested “good” batteries with a carbon pile testers and found them to be junk. Same other way,batteries tested bad,that i recharged and used for years after.

One bad cell is one bad cell. It wont come back. Hope you are wearing protecive equipment while you are experimenting.if you have never experienced an exploding battery, keep screwing with it-you will.
 
Tooljunkie said:
Just a note. Digital load testers are crap. Have tested “good” batteries with a carbon pile testers and found them to be junk. Same other way,batteries tested bad,that i recharged and used for years after.

One bad cell is one bad cell. It wont come back. Hope you are wearing protecive equipment while you are experimenting.if you have never experienced an exploding battery, keep screwing with it-you will.
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Yes, face shield on...the guy at Advance used a digital tester and tested it 3 times, finally telling me it was "good but a little low on charge" When I know a big old carbon pile heater would have dropped that batteries voltage like 7th period French. I have had 2 batteries explode on 2 different friends but not me. One blew in a 67 Mustang while the guy had the hood up and it knocked him back on his heels, but he was 5 feet from a water hose that was already turned on so he was able to rinse off his arm and shirt that took the hit. He was wearing sun glasses too and still has them with spatter on the lenses. The other blew under the hood of a 66 Comet and put a dent in the hood and showered a brand new shiny Edelbrock carb as well as 1 chrome valve cover. IF the cell was shorted, can I test it with a VOM probing the plates in the cell? I thought I saw someone do that.
 
Charge the battery before testing. Fill to proper level with distilled water, trickle charge over-nite and check with your hydrometer the next day. Now load test. Load test will now show you the true condition of battery. If it passes, then you simply had a low cell and it needed re-charging. If it fails the load test- you have a bad battery.
 
I still believe in carbon piles PERIOD

Unless the battery has been spilled you should not need to add acid. So far as I know only time you add acid is with a healthy battery, a minor amount to correct some imbalance which will usually be all the cells.

I haven't tried, but I don't believe in the epson salts/ other "rejuvination" stuff. You likely got one bad cell, and it bubbled / gassed the acid away, and it is done "I bet."
 
And now, for a "true" story.................

Guy goes out, HIS BATTERY IS GONE!!!

Next day, note on the door, says "I'm sorry I took your battery, it was an emergency. Here's money for a new battery, and some tickets to a concert you might like."

So the guy gets a new battery, gets his girl, cleans up, goes to the concert. Comes home, his ENTIRE HOUSE HAS BEEN CLEANED OUT BY THE SAME PEOPLE!!
 
bad battery...:-(

trickle charged all night, 5 cells read good, #1 cell read marginal. load test failed.
 
Can trickle for a couple hours and do a voltage test. 10 or less is a bad cell. Age doesent matter. Not only alchemy, but metallurgy as well, the lead can fracture.
 
The difference between a cheap battery and a expensive battery is the use of recycled lead vs virgin lead, Hopefully. Recycled lead has a shorter life span in a battery.
 
retroron said:
Dig up that coffee can of $20's you buried in your back yard and go buy a new battery.
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I dug that **** up 10 years ago....:icon_fU:

H8 battery is 1 inch longer but is 30 cheaper? Whatever. Interesting, even online everything ends up being +-$10 for A $150 lead acid 94RH7 battery? F it, ill just buy a +1 inch H8 for $119. There are Wallymarts everywhere for a replacement on the road.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/EverStart-Maxx-Lead-Acid-Automotive-Battery-Group-H8/16782659
 
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Trickle charging won’t do it.

You need to buy a good quality charger that will DESULFATE the battery. Read @DFX 340 Duster ’s post again. You are getting a low reading for that cell, because it’s sulfated. Desulfating it will help, but it will never return back to full amperage. I desulfate my batteries any time I rotate my tires, keeps em happy
 
Well, H7 it had to be due to the battery tray in the can, it couldnt take another inch of the cheaper and bigger H8. Wife's happy, what else matters?
 
pishta said:
I dug that **** up 10 years ago....:icon_fU:

H8 battery is 1 inch longer but is 30 cheaper? Whatever. Interesting, even online everything ends up being +-$10 for A $150 lead acid 94RH7 battery? F it, ill just buy a +1 inch H8 for $119. There are Wallymarts everywhere for a replacement on the road.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/EverStart-Maxx-Lead-Acid-Automotive-Battery-Group-H8/16782659
Click to expand...
If you buy a NeverStart from Wal-Mart you will need their "everywhere" warranty. I had nothing but problems with their batteries.
 
brian6pac said:
The difference between a cheap battery and a expensive battery is the use of recycled lead vs virgin lead, Hopefully. Recycled lead has a shorter life span in a battery.
Click to expand...

There's is truth in this, and falsehood. When you go to any chain store, the difference in the GOOD battery versus the BAD battery by warranty, is the sticker. That's it. They're all black and the sticker governs the warranty and price. The guts are the same.

If the cca changes, then the battery changes.

That said, STOP going to Wal-Mart, Advance, Oreilly, etc.

If you want a battery go to the battery place: Interstate. They can't afford a **** reputation, and the cost difference is minimal.

If you get the industrial/heavy duty green top, you'll probably see better results. My local Kansas City, Kansas Interstate store sells refurbs that have been returned or otherwise needed some attention. Thirty or ninety day warranty, and in my beater cars they last a couple years, easy, but they're like fifty or sixty bucks.

The interstate MEGATRON in my grandpa's Cummins Ram was old in '04 when he died, and the truck sat till the flood in '13. Completely submerged for three days, and that battery had enough *** to start that truck on the first turn after I drained the water out.

My last o'really battery died on THE day it went out of warranty. I'm an Interstate man, now.
 
The battery that kicked the minivan over was out of my beater truck and was a huge 700CCA $50 refurb from a one man shop in a strip mall. I bought that thing 6 years ago! I start the old truck about once every 3 months, and throw a charge on it if it cranks slow (but it always has juice for a start: new carb + choke on that beater is awesome as well as the electric fuel pump, take about 2 seconds for that truck to start from dead cold, pump it once, turn key, Vroom!) I had a white interstate with a green top on it and the beast would not die. I turned that in for $15 when I bought the $50 battery as it finally would not take a charge. There is a shop here that sells refurb Optima Yellow tops for $69. Worth it? I hear they take a special charger or you have to run another battery in parallel to trick the automatic charger circuit of the new chargers. I think old ones still work in manual mode.
 
And as far as the acid thing goes, the water evaporates (or boils) out of the acid, increasing the acidic 'concentration', if you will.

The hydrometer measures this concentration, which is actually more correctly called specific gravity (which simply rates the density of the acid compared to pure water.

The acid only goes away when the cell is discharged. Add distilled water to restore the fluid level, charge to restore the acidity. Charging literally converts it back to acid.

A shorted cell is doa. I've literally pulled in the driveway, ran inside, ran back out, and the starter wouldn't do a thing. The tricky thing about shorted cells, the battery might have enough juice to light all the lights, radio, etc. ... but smack it with a load and the voltage drops like Chevy dumping the hummer during a gas crisis. Usually four to five volts or less when hitting the starter tells you a cell dropped.

The last half dozen batteries I've replaced have died in such a fashion.

My dad has has amazing luck with optima, but he's the only one I know running them. His has lasted eight or nine years
 
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