What?!

[86VickyLX]

Tried to start my car tonight. Wouldn't start, lights went really dim. And the starter just clicked. Looked at the volt meter after I tried to start it... 12 volts. Jump started it and it cranked slowly and finally turned over. What happened? Just earlier today I had it running and the car started just fine. So I shut the car off and tried to start it again, same thing. So what the hell?

[marquisman]

battery might be toast, putting a volt meter on it wont tell you the cranking amps, need a load tester. i had the same prob in the merc and my bro had the same problem in his town car once. sometimes they boil, short out or a cell plate will come loose and short out if you hit a bump or somethin...get the battery load tested.

[86VickyLX]

ok

[CheeseSteakJim]

battery might be toast, putting a volt meter on it wont tell you the cranking amps, need a load tester. i had the same prob in the merc and my bro had the same problem in his town car once. sometimes they boil, short out or a cell plate will come loose and short out if you hit a bump or somethin...get the battery load tested.

Jeez, if a cell plate comes loose from hitting a bump then I don't want to buy any batteries at the same place as you. At work we've taken batteries that sat too long and went bad, and dropped them on the ground from several feet up in order to loosen up the calcium build up inside in sometimes successful attempts to get them usable again. Those cells are supposed to be firmly secured inside.

[marquisman]

i dunno, but all i know is that batteries today are shit

[86VickyLX]

i dunno, but all i know is that batteries today are shit

Not my Deka. Turns out, dirty terminals caused the problem. Cleaned the terminals, started right up. Whatever.

[marquisman]

lol good to hear it was somethin stupid, its always stupid things that happens. at least it was a quick fix.

[Lincolnmania]

replace them 22 year old battery cables

[86VickyLX]

Yeah, I actually have a spare positive cable. brany new. I'll swap them out after the holidays

[CheeseSteakJim]

i dunno, but all i know is that batteries today are shit

Well I dunno what kind of batteries they have up there in Canada, but I've never heard of a cell banging loose in a battery before... I also had a battery that sat in my Town Car for two years, then was used for eight months, then got in a head on and was left outside in the snow and mud all winter. When I brought it to work to throw the tester on it, it didn't even need to be charged. I used that battery for another four or five months before finally replacing it. By the time I actually had to replace it, it was eight years old. That's DAMN impressive IMO.

It was a Group 65 Interstate battery in case anyone's wondering. My job is supplied by Exide and IMO they suck compared to Interstate. When it came time to replace that Interstate I almost went to my store's competition just to buy a new one. If it wasn't for my massive employee discount you can bet your ass I would've.

[85crownHPP]

I brought an interstate back to life like that...after 6 years I retired it, it sat in my basment for a year, then it went in the 91 lol

[gadget73]

you can get plates to come apart by banging the battery around enough but you usually really have to abuse the hell out of it. Stuff on trailers with no suspension might do it after a while, or car batteries in boats. one thing that will short batteries faster is letting the battery go flat dead, then banging it around. The sulpher will build up on the bottom of the battery case and can short the plates out. Charging the battery before banging it around usually is all it takes to prevent that, or just keeping it from going flat in the first place.

[CheeseSteakJim]

you can get plates to come apart by banging the battery around enough but you usually really have to abuse the hell out of it. Stuff on trailers with no suspension might do it after a while, or car batteries in boats. one thing that will short batteries faster is letting the battery go flat dead, then banging it around. The sulpher will build up on the bottom of the battery case and can short the plates out. Charging the battery before banging it around usually is all it takes to prevent that, or just keeping it from going flat in the first place.

Sulfur? Do you mean calcium?

Pretty much the best way to prolong a battery's life is to consistently run a charge through it, either through a trickle charger or through a car's charging system. That'll prevent calcium from building and shorting the plates. When two plates short, they no longer are able to hold a charge and that's less charge overall that the battery can hold. Sometimes you can give a battery a couple good whacks, run a charge through it, give it some more whacks, and then run another through it, and it'll bring it back to life for a while. Sometimes if you're lucky you can open up the top and crack off some of the calcium between the cells with a screwdriver.

The worst thing to do to a battery is to leave it sitting on a cold cement floor for long amounts of time. For some reason cement/concrete makes batteries lose their charge quicker when they sit. At work all the batteries are kept off the floor and set upon wooden palettes to prevent such a thing from happening.

I've never seen a battery get so beaten around that the cells actually come loose though. I'd imagine that'd require quite a bit of abuse, or just a monumentally shitty battery...

[gadget73]

Sulfur? Do you mean calcium?

Pretty much the best way to prolong a battery's life is to consistently run a charge through it, either through a trickle charger or through a car's charging system. That'll prevent calcium from building and shorting the plates. When two plates short, they no longer are able to hold a charge and that's less charge overall that the battery can hold. Sometimes you can give a battery a couple good whacks, run a charge through it, give it some more whacks, and then run another through it, and it'll bring it back to life for a while. Sometimes if you're lucky you can open up the top and crack off some of the calcium between the cells with a screwdriver.

The worst thing to do to a battery is to leave it sitting on a cold cement floor for long amounts of time. For some reason cement/concrete makes batteries lose their charge quicker when they sit. At work all the batteries are kept off the floor and set upon wooden palettes to prevent such a thing from happening.

I've never seen a battery get so beaten around that the cells actually come loose though. I'd imagine that'd require quite a bit of abuse, or just a monumentally shitty battery...

technically it's lead sulphate, PbSO4. there's no calcium in a lead acid battery. Just lead (Pb), lead oxide (PbO2) and sulphuric acid (H2SO4). Any componds formed within the battery would have to be some combination of those parts. When the battery sulphates, the acid basically is converted to water, and the sulpher and oxygen components bind to the lead.


Also, you should never open the top of a battery and chisel off the sulphate as it can damage the battery. No need to physically dislodge it either, just slow charge it, and it'll re-combine the lead sulphate into sulphuric acid. the problem is that if its left on there for too long, it goes from powder to a hard crust, and it won't convert back. thats why batteries go bad, there is not as much surface area to the lead plates, so they don't produce the same current capacity any more. Keeping them charged goes a long way toward preventing this.

[CheeseSteakJim]

technically it's lead sulphate, PbSO4. there's no calcium in a lead acid battery. Just lead (Pb), lead oxide (PbO2) and sulphuric acid (H2SO4). Any componds formed within the battery would have to be some combination of those parts. When the battery sulphates, the acid basically is converted to water, and the sulpher and oxygen components bind to the lead.

Ah, I wasn't sure on the science of it... that's why I made sure not to correct you, but to just ask instead. :p

Also, you should never open the top of a battery and chisel off the sulphate as it can damage the battery. No need to physically dislodge it either, just slow charge it, and it'll re-combine the lead sulphate into sulphuric acid. the problem is that if its left on there for too long, it goes from powder to a hard crust, and it won't convert back. thats why batteries go bad, there is not as much surface area to the lead plates, so they don't produce the same current capacity any more. Keeping them charged goes a long way toward preventing this.

I'm talking about when it becomes a hard crust. That's when you start trying to chisel it off. If you can then there's a possibility you can get the battery to hold a charge again. I've done it on multiple occasions for customers at work who for some reason or another want us to attempt to revive their 7-8 year old battery instead of dropping the $50-60 on one that'll work much better. If you can't dislodge anything, or if you damage the battery... it was junk at that point anyway, so it doesn't really make a difference.

It's a pretty satisfying feeling if you can actually get the thing working again... almost like bringing someone back from the dead.