Re: (ET) RE: Wanted: Electric Tractor - Aloha, Oregon

["Paul L. Heinzerling" <PHEINZERLING compuserve com>]

Message text written by "David Roden (Akron OH USA)"
>Here's an old-timer's trick.  Badly sulphated batteries can be given a 
little more life this way.  

Buy a jug of fresh electrolyte from your battery dealer.  Remove battery 
cell caps and invert the battery over a plastic dishpan.  Fill the 
battery with fresh tap water, cap, agitate as well as you can for a 66 lb 
battery.  Drain again.  Repeat once or twice.  

Be sure to dispose of the drained gunk properly -- ~it contains lead~.  
You have rinsed out the lead sulphate which has shed from the plates and 
may be shorting a cell.<

This may or may not be worthwhile adding:

A long time ago I remember reading a pamphlet from Lindsay's Technical
Publications that described the same procedure.  Except he added the step
of charging the battery (I don't remember at what rate or for how long)
while it was filled with just water.   Supposedly, this allowed some of the
sulphate to return to solution to be dumped out.

Chemistry darn near blew me out of college, so I can't attest to this one
way or the other.

Paul Heinzerling
Hudson, Ohio