How to Recondition an Old Car Battery

I am by no means an expert but I do know this much . If someone is selling you one then my advice is to not buy it!. If you are looking to do it yourself I'll need you to stop and think abou what your asking. A car battery works through chemical reaction on metals through the use of a powerful acid (hydrochloric acid) if I recall correctly. When a battery runs low it means one of two things. A) It is low on acid. You can replenish that by filling the individual cells with distilled water only. OR, B) It could be that the metal core that sits in each individual cell is disolved to the point that it can no longer create enough voltage to run your car. In this case the battery is permantly sealed and to open it up is to destroy it. Time to buy a new one. I can only hope you understand and don't do anything foolish. That acid is nasty stuff and it's gasses are explosive! You can get some thing called battery booster that is supposed to enhance or refresh the life in an old battery but I see that as more of a gimmic than anything else but again I can't say for sure. I hope I helped

Cjhils1950

I think you have the wrong acid is Sulphuric acid

cost of battery's over time to rebild don't add up. junk yards sell used battery's 1/2 cost of new or even less. and rebuilding one is not Essy. it can be done try giving it a good charge fist check cells see if filled you can get battery premix to put in batters but time is money, with that trade it in for a new one. you have lead aced safer in batters. unless your going to do this on hundreds of batteries time to learn not wheart the time. hope this helps

Easier said than done. If the battery has a bad cell, then you pretty much have to open up the case and replace the plates inside.

If the battery is simply weak, then you can attemp to remove the 'memory' from the battery by charging, discharging, recharging, discharging, etc. It may take several cycles to remove the memory from the battery and get good performance from the battery. It will never be like new, but you can bring these back by cycling them several times.

If it is not a matter of having to keep an original style battery in the car, such as in the case of the restoration of an old car for the purposes of show, then the cheapest way around this is to go to a junk yard and buy a used battery. These can be had for a fraction of the cost of a new battery and should still provide good life.

If you are trying to maintain the original battery, there are several suppliers of vintage batteries out there. Check Hemmings Motor News for their advertisements.

Replace? No, my friend. I have a book on practical electricity from the 1800's (Believe it or not. It's called the "Audell's guide to practical electricity" and even featured a wooden- spoked hybrid vehicle! I kid you not. They say the solution to sulfated lead acid battery cells is actually scraping them with a knife whilst the top of the battery is removed from the case, something commonaly available back then. Today, not so much, and I wonder why! Battery companies have to make money too, right? Throw away old batteries and buy a new one. Back then, batteries were made to be disassembled and cleaned. Today, one must know how to "weld" plastic after opening the battery box. Scrape off the sulfates and the battery is new again, with a slightly diminished AH capacity (Usually not noticed).

Reconditioning of car battery depends the type of battery (Lead acid non sealed)and the amount of deterioration. If only the battery is dried up then add distilled water and charge it and discharge and charge again then if the charge retains it will continue to work for more time. If the charge does not retain, or it does not get charged at all it means one or more cells are damaged. In that case normally the battery needs replacement. In case if the plates can be removed with out damage with the help of gas torch then the damaged plates can be replaced and after cleaning and refilling with electrolyte the battery can be charged. It is not economical to recondition small batteries. It is worth reconditioning larger AH batteries used for forklifts and battery trucks. In India there are battery repair workshops who undertake reconditioning of battery commercially.

wow you guys dont know anything. from what i just saw on youtube and read online, its alot cheeper to repair batterys then to replace them. by the way its due to sulfation which causes the lead to disolve into a crystal and adhear to the metal plates. simple chemicals which you can buy on ebay which will reverse the process and even turn completely dead batterys back to life again. another thing the acid doesnt go away or the plates dont corrode. you guys know nothing.

Hi Guest

You read on u tube and decide that all others do not know any thing . Please do some reconditioning of batteries yourself and tell us how many batteries you salvaged and at what cost and what is the renewed life.We have salvaged batteries worth more than $100,000 annually ,avoiding costly replacement on traction batteries. It is not kids job .A whole department had to work very hard with proper planning.

Be more civilised in making comments. If you feel you have better knowledge try to impart it to others. Do not try to insult a complete society with your comments.Some of them might have even spent years researching on these subjects to save finance of their organisation but give only few facts relating to a thread. This is only a voluntary service by sharing experience when some one has little spare time to clear simple doubts raised by members and Guests and not a paid job.

Regards.

Hi everyone,

Some people just dont know the time and effort taken to do research on a subject that does the job properly. Please everyone just appreciate all the help that is given and remember that it is all free stuff and every job has a different method. I get very annoyed with people running down others idea instead of shedding more light on the subject.Learn to be a better person.-----thanks

Top man and top advice, I've been trying to get an idea across, I'm not very litrate bur try, some of us some of us can't it's that simple, some are good at maths .......... Pink Floyd have covered it !!

what is the name of the chemical you use to reverse the sulfation process.

One site I saw said to first drain the liquid sulfuric acid from the battery, then boil 250g of epsom salts in 500ml of distilled water. Then add that to the cells (once it cools?) plug the holes and shake it up. Put the battery just like that on a trickle charger for 24 hours and it will be charged good enough to put in your car and start it!

Sounds like a neat science experiement to me.

That is very strange, i was reading all the comments telling the one person, that he should have more concideration for those who give there time, so forth and so on then i see the post that tells how to do it, i look down after that no more posts, ummm me thinks this might be the secret that those experts didn't want anyone else to know, I'm trying it, epson salt is very cheap, nothing ventured nothing lost

OK close but dont drain sulfuric acid it is needed for the chemical reaction! if you would like you could replace the acid it is sold at most auto parts stores im mot sue if its the shaking or the epson salts that do it but is does seem to work again SUFURIC ACID IS NEEDED TO MAKE THE BATTERY WORK!!! DONT DRAIN IT UNLESS YOU PLAN ON REPLACING IT!! also dont put it on the charger with plain distilled water and salt in it well not sure if it would hurt it but make sure the acid is in there

I cant tell how long it was since you posted this but thanks. I am looking for the ch on e-bay

for a person with his time is worth $20.00 an hour, spent 4 hour on try fixing a battery, buy those chemical from ebay. remember there will be no warranty. you do the math.

Do it in your spare time, not on your working time

1 dump out acid

2 run water in each cell then dump agian

3 fill with meridic acid 5 min max(you can see the plates they come very clean)

4 rinse each cell out very well (i use a small funnel so the clean water pushes out the dirty)

5 refill all cells with new acid .........i have saved a few batteries this way,good luck be careful.

There's no such thing as meridic acid

Are you trying to spell out muriatic acid or otherwise known as hydrochloric acid?

Hi guys!

I stumbled across this forum when looking on how to restore car battery. I've a 220Ah battery and it loses charge pretty quickly, even with just the door open for 5 mins and battery doesn't have enough power to turn engine over.

I measured the battery terminals and it read 12.5 volt. Not convinced so I peeled off the cover off to reveal the big six plastic screws and opened them. I used multimeter to check each cells. All except one reads approx 2 volts (give or take 0.1 volt) and one cell appears dead - approx. 0.3 volt. It's the last cell i.e. between last hole and the negative terminal. It looks like I've a dead cell.

I have 5 amp power supply. I'm wondering if I force a current across the dead cell by sticking in a '+' wire from power supply into the last hole and the '-' wire to neg terminal - would that revive the dead cell?

From what I have read so far it would appear that a cell goes dead from excessive sulphation in that cell(lead breaking down or rusting). Probably due to the inconsistant lead density when it was manufactured.

Therefore electrically charging a sulphated cell would not revive it Only de-sulphating that cell chemically or with an electronic desulphator ( available on ebay) called a battery desulphator

hi !

the cells which arent much damaged by shedded lead from plates, can be desulphated using a chemical called EDTA.

i did it to my 3 year old car batt and have used it for another 2.5 years and again am gonna do it soon to get a total life of 7-8 years from a normal automotive lead acid battery

thanks

sandeep kapoor (gurgaon)

I had a career in medical technology. EDTA is/was a type of anticoagulant used to keep blod from clotting that was to be tested using various methodologies on various components of said anticoagulated whole blood specimens. Is this the same type of EDTA or is it commercially available and in what form does it come in and where may it be purchased? Thanks

The battery in my 02 F-150 just died. 8 years is not too bad for a stock Ford battery. I'll try using the procedure at http://www.ehow.com/how_4855050_recondition-car-battery-home.html.

Hello,

I just looked at the eHow link and am concerned that the information is incomplete. The "Battery Flush" sounds reasonable (I'm no chemist), but the link does not say to drain the Epsom salt solution after step (4). I wonder if the Epsom salt "Flush" should be drained then well rinsed and the proper solution and volume of sulfuric acid (battery acid) be replaced in the battery cells before recharging ???

I've tried to leave a comment on the eHow link/thread, but haven't yet figured out how to do it.

Gonna try some (Epsom salt) Flush and refill experiments both ways.

Hope to have some good results to post - geoff

I think that there is no need to put the acid back to the battery, because the magnesium sulfate turns into some kind of acid after the battery is recharged with the solution in it.

at least guest knows something more than some of the other people on here that have absolutely no idea about how to reco an old battery. anyone can reco an old or dead battery with a bit of common sence and a box of epsom salts or a product called batterylite

My friend and I have tried the methid using epsom salt to recondition batteries,, we have done appx 25 - 30 batteries and have had about a 90% success rate. newer lighter weight batteries dont seem to respond as well as older heavier batteries...about 70% of the revived batteries have lasted one year so far, but are beginning to drop out....we did not ever empty the epsom solution out of the battery once it was put in...my understanding is that the magnesium sulfate helps by increasing the conductivity of the water/acid and by lowering the resistance as well....I dont know if it cleans the sulfation off the plates or not, but i assure you that it is a highly effective method of getting another year out of a battery...at very little effort or cost. it will not work if battery has a bad cell, but weve pulled batteries that were sitting for at least 2-3 years in the dirt and they have worked... thanks for all the info on this sight,,,=)

Mtdewcougar

Dear Sir, We are using UPS ( un-interrupted power supply) with two batteries 140AH as there is heavy power failure in our area. We use UPS for fans and lights in power failure time. My batteries got week as the UPS was not tripped and keep on charging. The full charging volts are 28 V at which the UPS shows that the batteries are full. But now the voltage is 26 and the UPS not showing the full condition and continuously charging the batteries. I followed your advice and put the Epsom Solution in one of the batteries as a trial but I did not get the results. still the volts are same as 26. Is it possible to get 28 volts. I am ready to change the current water by Epsom solution. Kindly advise

Dear Mr Ahmad,

Regarding the epsom salts,we understand that it is working as a desulfating chemical for a long time among the curious researchers.Epsom salts is working but less effective and taking a quite a long process. Our chemical is more effective than Epsom salts. Our checmical is a mixture of three different materials. We named it as ECO2.ECO2 was invented for the professional reconditioning industry. Now it is used for mass scale business in restoration of any lead acid abattery.

ECO2 is used as an additive for desulfation. After refilling distilled water( when it is short because of evaporation) you put our ECO2 to the cells. Proper dosage is 10cc for the cell of 2volt/100Ah. If you are using 140 Ah 28Volt, we recommend you to put 14cc to each cell. Total rrequirement will be 14 x14= 196cc for 14 cells.

ECO2 is good for SULFATED weak batteries of lead acid type. When the lead plate is sulfated heavily usually it does not "take charge" and its capacity seems very low and quick to discharge. Assuming that your battery has sulfation,we recommend you to use our ECO2 instead of epsom salts.You can find more information on www.eco2.co.kr or www.snpenergy.co.kr

If you need more details about our ECO2, you can send inquiry to my email. davd@chol.com or send fax to 082-2-543-2705 .I am working as a salesman for the producer of ECO2 and electrical desulfator.

Kim.

i have used plain baking powders not baking soda meny times and it works

HI, ITS SHAHRUKHSAAB, epsom salt is ionized in mg and so4 ions .mg+ ions tend towards cathode and find sulfates ions attached with lead electrode. it reacts with so4 and again ionized thus on passing current,slowly sulfation is reversed and gravity of the battery is restored 1250-1300.

thats great guys xd. But where can i find the old abandond batterys?

I was thinking that reconditioning batteries is a big lie , after reading many online reviews I figured out it is real .

I read about EZ ( http://pharazone.com/reviews/best-seller-ez-battery-reconditioning-program-review-2017/ ) and purchased the pdf guide , I managed to restore an old battery thrown for more than 2 years ( spent 10$ ) and I got it working like charm again !