On Sun, 28 Mar 2021 13:01:58 +0100, Harry Bloomfield, Esq.
wrote:

Max Demian pretended :
I bought a "dry charged" battery from Halfords once, with the acid in
separate plastic bottles. Filled it up, fitted it, started the engine and
went for a spin to refresh the charge. Job done.

They are (almost) all sealed these days, you cannot top them up.

Strangely, motorcycle batteries and especially some brands, often
(still) come dry charged and with a (joined) bank of bottles, each
containing the right quantity of acid for the cell.

You remove the cover strip over the filling holes, invert the bank of
bottles and press them down into the cells where their individual foil
'lids' are perorated by special spikes in the top of each cell and the
cells slowly filled.

Once complete, you are supposed to leave the battery for some time
till the initial excess gassing has reduced and most the bubbles
dispersed. It is recommended (in the instructions) you apply a bench
charge before finally fitting the sealing strip / cover (or individual
cell caps (less often these days)) and fitting / using the battery.

In many cases the bike shop will do all this for you (especially if
they are also fitting the battery) and they may be prohibited in
selling the kits for d-i-y filling due to restrictions of the carrying
of sulphuric acid in any case?

In the old days they would have a carboy of the right SG sulphuric
acid for dry-charged batteries with a rubber hose and tap on the end
and fill the batteries from that (and I have, many times over the
years at my local bike shop). ;-)

Cheers, T i m