While I was clearing out one of my Sheds at 'Orange Blossom Towers' I came across a Brand New Battery that I bought for an XJS many years ago that was Guaranteed for life and which had gone dead and so I would have got a new one, were if not for the fact that I had somehow lost the Guarantee Card

In the event the Garage that I bought it from offered to try and bring it back to life by Charging it for 3 days except no dice that didn't work, although I didn't scrap the Battery just in case I found the Guarantee Card, which I haven't done yet and so does anyone know if there is a way to bring this battery back to life?

 

OB,

2 things I have tried with success:

Use a battery conditioner that has a de-sulphation cycle. Its probably the reason the battery has failed is buildup on the plates.

Or try slamming in a very high current load load from a high output standard charger or booster starter for a while to have the same desulphation effect. Then.let it rest for a few hours, then try it again, and again.

You may be able to recover it doing this.

Hope all well at your end in these difficult times.

Cheers

Paul

 

Hi Paul

That is ringing a Bell, as I do remember reading about the Battery Slamming Technique some years ago

Where you give it 200 Amps for 15 Minutes and then let it rest for a while, where I don't think the Garage that tried to recharge it were using that kind of Voltage and though I don't have a Battery Charger that chucks out those sort of Amps

I do have a 180 AMP Stick Welder, so do you think that this might do the Trick or should I make my Will out now? (which one do you want 'Cherry' or '50 Shades'?)

As you probably know they no longer sell these Batteries Guaranteed for life as this was not the best idea that they ever had for obvious reasons and I had 3 New Batteries out of them before I went and lost the Guarantee Card

So I guess you could say that I played my part in their downfall

 

I would not use a welder, as the voltage will be too high. The last thing you want is to boil the battery and get a face full of sulphuric acid. If you have an "RV" style charger, without fancy electronics that may be able to get a charge into it, at least enough that one of the fancy chargers can then recognize it as a battery and start the reconditioning process.

The Ctek chargers are excellent for charging and reconditioning, but there has to be some charge in the battery to begin with.

 

Hi Jagboi

Maybe if I try the Welder on about 50 Amps while standing well out of the way, as long as it gets the bubbles going that may be enough before returning to a Trickle Charge

 

OB,

lf you get the current down to about 20-30 amps, I'd feel more comfortable leaving it on charge for a few hours and see if that can kickstart it.

I've seen a number of the "intelligent" chargers that struggle to start the cycle if they think they are seeing a completely dead battery. They just lock out rather than port any current at all.

My charger / jump-starter has a high current setting that will pull about 30 amps. And then another setting for starting that will pull about 140 amps. I tend to use the 30 amp setting for initially reconditioning batteries.

Cheers

Paul

 

all reasonable tries!
but i'm bettin the battery will never be like new condition, like leave you stranded on a lonely road in the night!

 

Hi Paul

Good Point, I'll experiment with some lower amps first

 

Hi Ron

You could well be right but if I can get it charging again, then I can use it on my generator and then use the generator battery which is known to be good and hold its charge on the XJS

 

I used to be a pro at getting life out of dead batteries. You must realize, I did all this years ago when motorcycle batteries were more then car batteries. And I was to young to care if one let me down, there was always another old battery around somewhere. So, this will work on all but the most stubborn of batteries. Get a wooden board 3/4 plywood, a little larger then the battery. Take the battery and slam it down several times, onto the board fairly roughly. Then flop it on it's side, and slam it down several more times on that side, then flopping it over, repeat many more times, on all sides. The idea is to shake all the sulfation loose, then drain all the battery fluid (mostly water if it's dead) out of it along with the flakes of the sulfation. I've flushed them, and repeated the slamming cycle again with distilled water, if there seemed to be a lot of sulfation. Then I filled the battery with fresh sulfuric acid, and charged the heck out of it for 3 or 4 days with a 12amp charger. I put paper towels over the cells while charging to catch any residue. After that I topped the cells off with a little more acid, and Viola I had a usable battery. ,I've done this on countless batteries, for cars, trucks, motorcycles, you name it. I'd say about a 95+% success rate of the batteries I was able to bring back from the dead. I made the original 12N-12a-4a-1 Yuasa Battery on my 1977 - 550 Honda last over seven years!
The only issue I see now is where to get rid of the used acid, as I'm a little more eco conscience, then I was back then. Otherwise I know it works.

Jack

 

The way batteries are made has changed since then, now instead of plates of lead, the best way to describe it is a window screen of lead. Impacting the the battery like that is likely to cause the screen to sag or break, and will internally short. A common failure method now is the lead shakes off due to vibration and collects in the bottom of the cells and shorts out the plates. I think hard impact will do more damage than good to a modern designed battery.

 

Put a good battery in parallel with the dead one and put the charger on them. Chargers need to see a voltage (the good battery) before they will work.

 

I had a similar experience, not with two old unused batteries, but two that were old and just lying around.
I was surprised that my Battery Tender wouldn't do the job.
What I did was couple my rechargeable power pack to give it a boost.
I don't recall how long it took but the Battery Tender thought it was just charging a weak battery.

 

Hi Guys

Not Sure if it would make any difference but this was a Brand New Battery that has never been put on a Car, as I bought it as a Spare and never used it and unfortunately never Charged it either!