battery help .....for what its worth By jct842 (Read 310 times)

[jct842]

my lawn tractor the last 3 times i used it to cut the grass required 3-4 hours of charging to start the engine. battery is real old. some where i read on the internet about rejuvenation. the idea is to add some epson salt to each cell. i took a syringe and sucked out each cell till the top of the plates showed, (3 syringe fulls per cell) took a big measuring cup and 1/3 warm water and disolved epson salt till a little on bottom would no longer go into solution. now it is saturated. i the replaced the missing acid with it. when i put the charger back on it was not charging very heavy, but i let it go for a 1/2 hour. TURNED THE KEY AND IT FIRED UP. i restarted it when i got it up to the garage after filling with gas. i will need it to start one more time this season to finish chopping up leaves and if it does that i will be happy. just hated to have to buy a battery this late in the year just to chop up leaves twice. i would only have tried this after i knew i was going to have to get a new battery and had nothing to loose. a battery that still works is not a canidate for this. john

[Bashan]

We used to do that all the time on the farm when I was growing up, Dad swore by it. We'd eke a little more out of the tractor battery to get through the harvest season and then worry about a new one in the spring. He had a Craftsman battery charger that weighed about a million pounds. He'd hit 'em with the salts, hook 'em up to that baby, and let 'em fizz a while. Rich

[jct842]

jeezh wish i knew about that 50 years ago, all the cars i had to get a new battery only to sell or junk it a few weeks later. even today a person could "salt" a bad battery in a scooter and be able to ride while a mail order replacement is on the way. john