So I have a dead as dodo battery, three days of optimate will eventually give it a green light (but it won't start the car more than once from this state).
After that initial start eg overnight or outside a supermarket. The battery will be flat again.
So what is it that is actually wrong with a dead battery?
Can I do what they do in India and refurbish the battery myself?
are all the lead plates covered in kack or what?
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"Can I do what they do in India and refurbish the battery myself?"
You could, given a lot of batteries, but there would be a row.
Around the West of Scotland fifty odd years ago some did it, either by opening and conserving cases and extracting, melting down and remaking the plates: or more radically just by sacrificing the cases; they set fire to the old batteries, using the cases as fuel to melt down the lead for new plates to go in new cases. Even then they were put down, for general stinks for a start but particularly for releasing lead fumes into the air!
I imagine such things can still happen in India, as does marginal motoring in general such as we used to know.
(Happy days!)
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You can remove the top of the battery ,drain off, remove the debris from the bottom which is causing the battery to go duff and refill with new acid .Acid is easily available and then your battery will run for another couple of years or so,and if you want to go to all that trouble to save a few quid good luck.
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Don't be tempted to do-it-yourself with an old battery. The materials are toxic, and the acid will burn you. One splash in the eye...
I contributed to a quotation for a battery recycling plant in Cairo a number of years ago. The company were recycling batteries already. This entailed breaking up the batteries by hand on the ground. The rubbish produced was fouling the environment so badly that the President personally intervened. It was a very interesting project, but unfortunately the contract was won by an Italian company which were not quite so environmentally concerned as ourselves.
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A new battery will eliminate all the heartache and provide your vehicle with its proper requirements.
Not worth even contemplating trying to rescue it...:-)
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Oh, yes. Where I live we have bozos who will sell you a "recycled" battery -- some even lever open the maintenance-free kind -- which will last about 5 minutes.
Me, I'd treat myself to a nice new sealed battery, fit and forget it, revel in the instant starting and get on with living a useful and productive life ;+)
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You can remove the top of the battery ,drain off, remove the debris from the bottom which is causing the battery to go duff and refill with new acid .Acid is easily available and then your battery will run for another couple of years or so,and if you want to go to all that trouble to save a few quid good luck.
Had this done in April of this year at works Aeron Battery charging room, the result it lasted for 3 months before started playing up again. If you've got a dead battery it's because either:
1. Its got dry cells I.E Bubbled off all the fluid battery cell problem
2. You have cells that are shorted,ineffect 0 V across them
3.Any one or more of the cells is suffering from plate sulphation.
The acid is Sulphuric acid , do not even think about flushing the battery and recharging if it goes wrong, and you get battery acid on yourself, get it in your eyes it's a trip to A&E.
Simply put the risk outweighs the cost and effectiveness, buy a new battery, it'll work when you want it to.
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Just buy a new battery, they,re quite cheap considering how important they are!
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Just buy a new battery, they,re quite cheap considering how important they are!
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When you compare the price of a car battery to that of the dry batteries you put in your torch they are a bargain !
That aside I have to tell everyone about an increcibly stupid but funny thing me and some mates did some years ago.
We all wiorked in an electronics repair lab, and we decided to find out if we could rejuvenate some old car batts by blasting them with way over the usual charge voltage to MAKE them draw current. So we hooked them up to a bank of DC power supplies all set for about 17.5v. We left the battery bubbling away while we went off for a prolonged tea break.
When we came back, the whole lab was filled with a pungent nee acid mist, the said battery being fairly hot by this stage.
Needless to say it didn't work, and a few months later all of the steel racking in the lab had developed 'by the seaside' like corrosion as a result !
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On your skin it's not a problem provided you rinse it off fairly quickly. However, as I now have a collection of jeans with interesting white spots on them, I'd advise you to buy a new battery.
If you do decide to go ahead with it, wear eye protection. As with all dangerous chemicals, read the instructions on what to do if you get it in your eye before you use it, because if you splash it in your eye, you won't be able to see a thing...
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Cracked a few batteries open myself in the past for the lead (beachcasting leads).
It`s easier to nick it off the local church roof to be honest.
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Remember, when the battery is on charge it liberates hydrogen and oxygen, a nice explosive mixture.
I once watched three mechanics tuning the engine of my car, intently watching the timing marks in the light of a strobe as one of them adjusteed the distributor. One of them had long dirty hair, which trailed across the battery terminals. I can only think that his hair was so dirty and wet that it drew a spark, igniting the gases and causing a bright flash and loud popping noise.
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