Screwdriver
Member
- Messages
- 10,154
I'm going to give it a go. It's a relatively new battery in my book (i.e. fitted within the last few years) and I have nothing to lose so...
First clean it up just to stop bits dropping in it. Look at the terminal posts though. There is something under there pushing up the plastic.
Plenty of juice in there.
Epsom salts and distilled water. There's so much nonsense on the web, if this works I'll do a video on some big leisure batteries I've been hoarding.
Max concentration is 300g per litre so I crudely measured with a milk bottle, dumped in 270g of Epsom salts and warmed it in a pan to dissolve quickly.
It wasn't a "dead" battery. There are a few volts in there but hardly any amps. Not enough to cold crank the old VW.
It's on charge now with the caps off and I'll keep an eye on the rate. Currently it's drawing 4 amps @ 12.9v.
What I did NOT do.
I did NOT empty out any acid. There was enough room for the best part of a litre of salts. The acid does not disappear but is converted into sulphates which (I understand) conver back into acid as the battery is charged.
I did NOT flush it out with bicarbonate. Sounds like nonsense to me unless you really know what you're doing and I really don't. If you did I wonder how you get the original specific gravity back without a very good flush and some new acid.
Anyhow it's a test. I have nothing to lose and the salts are cheap enough. We'll see how it goes.
First clean it up just to stop bits dropping in it. Look at the terminal posts though. There is something under there pushing up the plastic.
Plenty of juice in there.
Epsom salts and distilled water. There's so much nonsense on the web, if this works I'll do a video on some big leisure batteries I've been hoarding.
Max concentration is 300g per litre so I crudely measured with a milk bottle, dumped in 270g of Epsom salts and warmed it in a pan to dissolve quickly.
It wasn't a "dead" battery. There are a few volts in there but hardly any amps. Not enough to cold crank the old VW.
It's on charge now with the caps off and I'll keep an eye on the rate. Currently it's drawing 4 amps @ 12.9v.
What I did NOT do.
I did NOT empty out any acid. There was enough room for the best part of a litre of salts. The acid does not disappear but is converted into sulphates which (I understand) conver back into acid as the battery is charged.
I did NOT flush it out with bicarbonate. Sounds like nonsense to me unless you really know what you're doing and I really don't. If you did I wonder how you get the original specific gravity back without a very good flush and some new acid.
Anyhow it's a test. I have nothing to lose and the salts are cheap enough. We'll see how it goes.