In article .com,
countybattery wrote:
Jim Yanik wrote:
"Stormin Mormon" wrote in
:

The test is to charge the battery with one or both battery cables
unhooked. Leave the battery still unhooked, overnight. If the tractor
won't start in the morning (remember to reconnect the cable) then
replace the battery.


His lead-acid battery is probably sulfated and not capable of being charged
properly.

Vector makes chargers that allegedly desulfate and recondition L-A
batteries,but I've not tried them myself.
The charger would cost more than a new battery,that is certain.

Of course,you could buy a Vector charger,try it,and sell it on Ebay as
bearely used if you aren't satisfied with its desulfating results.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

Desulphation chargers give a high voltage for a time to break down the
sulphation they should not be too expensive try www.batteryworld.co.uk

This does not always work. The sulfation can break down in only a
localized area of one or more cells, and within a cell where the sulfation
reversal gets concentrated into a "hot spot" that cell effectively becomes
a tiny repaired one connected in parallel with the sulfated remainder
that will not de-sulfate when the localized repaired region holds down the
voltage across that cell.

I have tried high voltage on sulfated lead acid batteries. This is a
well-known trick that is well-known to only sometimes work. In my
experience, this does sometimes work.
Also, batteries have limited life no matter what you do to them. If a
battery has several years of having been in existence of being a battery
or a possibly ex-battery, I would think that a repair has little value
even if it is successful - the battery is likely to croak more surely
sooner rather than later after a "repair" done when it is several years
old. I would chalk up such a battery as an ex-battery and, if it is
lead-acid, dump it onto the outgoing dead battery heap at an auto parts
store (with permission from someone who woirks there).

Another thing to keep in mind: Age of car batteries that have
warranties. Plenty gets spouted that car batteries have a high rate of
only minimally outlasting their warranties, and that some of those
warranties are pro-rated - to give small fractional remediation if the
battery expires a few months or a year before its warranty does!
So if your 6-year battery is successfully repaired from a sulfation that
occurred at 6.5 years, plan on its remaining good months to be numbered!

- Don Klipstein )