Possible to recondition these lead acid batteries?

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Aug 19, 2015
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I have a couple of tractor batteries that were purchased new 4-5 years ago and then the tractor was never used. They sat outside, went flat, and went through cold winters. Is it possible to recondition these to get them going? The local dealer wants about $600 for the pair, and this tractor only gets used a few weeks a year. If possible, I want to save the cost this year due to limited budget, right now I'm making some hard choices on what to keep and what to sell.
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My method of repair would be to to charge them slowly [ maybe in parallel ] for days, maybe a week, while keeping an eye on the fluid level. Use a small charger or if you only have a large charger, put an automotive light bulb in series with the charger leads to reduce the charge rate.

they might be tooo far gone....
 
My method of repair would be to to charge them slowly [ maybe in parallel ] for days, maybe a week, while keeping an eye on the fluid level. Use a small charger or if you only have a large charger, put an automotive light bulb in series with the charger leads to reduce the charge rate.
I've got a couple of old school chargers, I'll grab a picture of them today.
 
Chances are they are shot, though years ago I was able to resurrect a dead lawn tractor battery that had sat discharged for a few years and managed to get another season out of it. I had to use an old school, brute force battery charger, and after a couple days of sitting on that it slowly started taking some current and eventually recharged. You should pull the caps first and add water if necessary, but don't be surprised if they froze and the case is cracked. There's a slim chance a de-sulfator might bring them back to life, but I wouldn't hold your breath.
 
Factory batteries are spec'd to the harshest conditions likely to be encountered, like -20°F. I can start my '92 C3500 diesel at 30°F with a single group 75 battery. If you only use it a few weeks a year, it might be all you need.
 
Factory batteries are spec'd to the harshest conditions likely to be encountered, like -20°F. I can start my '92 C3500 diesel at 30°F with a single group 75 battery. If you only use it a few weeks a year, it might be all you need.
These have gotten to -35 on more than one occasion. I may try to hook up a couple of group 75s and see what happens. They are almost as much as these, only difference is I can install and remove one of those myself, so I can keep them inside and periodically hook them up to a charger, whereas these I need help.
 
Chances are they are shot, though years ago I was able to resurrect a dead lawn tractor battery that had sat discharged for a few years and managed to get another season out of it. I had to use an old school, brute force battery charger, and after a couple days of sitting on that it slowly started taking some current and eventually recharged. You should pull the caps first and add water if necessary, but don't be surprised if they froze and the case is cracked. There's a slim chance a de-sulfator might bring them back to life, but I wouldn't hold your breath.
I've got the old school battery chargers. Did you have them on a particular setting? I've seen recommendations for low power and high power charging.
 
I've got the old school battery chargers. Did you have them on a particular setting? I've seen recommendations for low power and high power charging.
Mine was just a 12 amp charger, it didn't have any settings. I did hook a 10 ohm, 10 watt power resistor in series with the battery in case the battery started taking a charge to make sure it didn't suddenly start charging at a high rate and boil away while it was unattended. It took less than 1 milliamp when I first hooked the charger up, but after a few hours it was creeping up slowly. I took the resistor out when it got up to about 10 mA, but it still took a long time before it would actually charge at more than 1 amp. In your case, I'd put it at low power, but don't be surprised if the ammeter doesn't register anything. I needed a digital multimeter to see that it was less than 1 milliamp.
 
Found out group 75s wouldn't touch this. Group 31s might, but there would be a stronger unreliability factor, and cost wise it doesn't make sense. Dealer said I'd need 2000 amps for the cummins V8.

I'm getting less optimistic and may just buy new ones, time is a little shorter than I'd like. Fortunately I learned something here, and I'm going to apply it on other tractor batteries in the same condition. Hopefully I'll have time to document and share here.
 
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