Vehicle battery question

You only need one to drive it out. Fat chance getting a dried out battery back to life.

Actually, I have had some success rinsing out the battery with lots of water and agitation, and then refilling with electrolyte. Or, Steve could just pick up a junk yard battery. I assume this doesn't have to work for very long.

We use services of a business that exchanges dead car batteries for "reconditioned" batteries, at the cost of $20 per battery. They have some procedure of reconditioning them to usable condition.

i

By the way, the guy who brings the batteries to us on an old flatbed pickup truck, is a banker. A former banker. This is his new job.

i

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"Get rid of" as in junk it or "get rid of" as in try to find a sucker???

If it's the former, given scrap prices these days there should be no shortage of takers to just come and haul it off w/o you doing anything whatever to it (and give you something for it besides).

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"Ignoramus25088" wrote in message >>

Bank officer or bank employee?

After the mid-80's stock market crash this joke went around:

I spoke to my broker at lunch the other day. I said, "Waiter!"

jsw

Water may evaporate but the acid doesn't. You could fill it barely above the plates with distilled water and see if it accepts current from a 'dumb' non-computerized charger that doesn't just give up on it. If it does charge the liquid level will rise. Generally you'd need an adjustable laboratory power supply to coax a little more life from them.

If the water could somehow get out (it froze and cracked?) it's likely that the exposed plates have oxidized and are ruined. Can't you borrow a battery from another vehicle?

jsw

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Given propensity of banks to hand out titles instead of paychecks, they're generally one and the same... :)

The new layers of bureaucracy and reqm'ts on reserves have certainly hit small, local banks very hard, though...even though they weren't ever part of the problem to start with. Several rural ones here have closed leaving no local presence; not a good thing... :(

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If he has good (or even decent) jumper cables he might just need to jump start it and drive it off.

You only need the one battery at the front for the starter and engine to run it, and if you're going to sell the coach off for restoration or scrap go find a good used one and toss it in.

Disconnect the other Deep Cycle batteries for the Coach systems and tape off the cables - or the alternator might try to charge them through an isolator diode block or charging relay, with potentially bad results.

Once they've run dry the exposed areas of the cell plates sulfate, and even if "restored" or refilled with distilled water or mixed Electrolyte they won't last long or hold much of a charge.

But they are 100% recyclable - When you turn them in, they break them up and recover all the lead and almost all the plastic for reuse, and some of the acid.

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If they dried out in just 3 years, they must have run down, cracked the cases and DRAINED out. Probably left big holes in whatever is below them.

Jon

How does the voltage regulator work? Unless it limits the peak voltage, there's likely gonna be some stress applied to the electrical system. Another problem is that when the RPM drops below the voltage level sufficient to make spark, it's all over.

I talked to him, I like to talk to people, he is a former banker, more specifically, loan officer at Wells Fargo bank. Laid off a few years ago. Delivering reconditioned batteries to customers is his current job.

i

'Some" stress, you say?

I built GM a test stand that generated a rapid series of alternator load dumps, as though driving on a bumpy road with a loose battery cable. In Flint MI (lovely place) they checked and approved it, then hooked up their pre-production Seville fuel injection computer and let it rip. On about the third or fourth dump the lead wire solder joint melted and it sprung off the big protection Zener, and the next pulse blasted the module before any of the engineers crowded around it could dive in to shut it off.

The voltage pulse comes from the energy stored in the alternator rotor winding, like a spark or Tesla coil.

jsw

"Ignoramus25088" wrote in message news:vrOdnUj-

During high tech slowdowns I've fixed wheelchairs, built theater scenery and repaired the caterer's medieval-surplus kitchen equipment (in costume) at a Renaissance Festival. Anyone need wrought-iron refrigerator door hinges?

jsw

Crazy Ray now pays $400 for any car, any condition.

You need to find a better scrap yard.

i

The cars are first stripped of gasoline, Freon & platium; then sit in the yard for "n" weeks while folks like moi pick them over.

They they are crunched and carted off. At $187/ton; the 4400#'s of steel Mercedes 450 SEL I saw musta been a steal..

Apparently the wholesale price for shredded scrap is in the $335-350/LT range right now, and dropping somewhat (along with other commodities).

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany