Hello, I am a battery tech. Nice video. Baking soda treatment works during cycle life. After cleaning with backing soda. Trickle charge battery with old acid as it was done. Remove the old acid and fill with new battery acid with correct spefic gravity. Charge with standard or negative pulse charger. It will work like new battery if there is no internal damage to seperators or plates. Every battery has a cycle life. You can't use a battery beyond it's cycle life. Lead plates will not exchange electrones beyond it's cycle life. Hope this information is useful.

It might not start a tractor but it could still be used for emergencies during a power outage for charging cell phones and running CB & Ham Radios. “You tried - my friend”.. I admire your determination…

You’ve convinced me! I sure rather pay a few hundred than go through all you’ve done to try and revive a battery.

Moral of the story, don't waste your time. More time and energy was spent than could have been saved had the process worked. Not to mention the "reliability factor" of used versus new. Thanks for this video. It proves the point.

A sincere "Thank you" for sacrificing days worth of patience and some expense, so that we don't have to. Great to see honest, non BS vids like yours. All the best from the UK.

Reconditioning an old battery only works under certain situations. First off, it will only work if the only issue is sulfation, the other one is if it's a deep-cycle battery. The plates they use on regular batteries are thin which wear out inside of the 3-5 year lifespan of the battery. For deep-cycle batteries, the plates are thicker and there is a better chance of it coming back to life once the sulfation is removed. The proper combination for the restoration is to drain the acid, do the rinsing with water like you did, then put in the epsom salt as you did. The only difference is that you want to do a few charge-discharge cycles over a few days to allow the epsom salt to fluff of the sulfates covering the plates. After this, drain out the epsom salt, then rinse out again with water. The final step is to fill it up with fresh acid. You could re-use the original acid you drained out, but you want to let it sit for a few days to allow the solids to settle, then take out the clear layer and filter it a few times. You can then re-use it in the battery and top off with distilled water. This will not bring back the battery to its original state, but should give you a few more years of use at a lower AH. You could probably redo this step after a few years when it sulfates again after regular use.

Diesels are a real test for a battery - all that compression! I dabbled in lead/acid batteries a while ago. Over a few years I attempted to revive dozens of them ranging from little 4A batts for small motorcycles up to fishing boat batteries about 300A. I realised fairly soon that if a battery was shorted then it wasn't worth any effort - unless you wanted a 10V battery for some reason - but if one cell is shorted then the rest probably won't be far away. I could go on for hours about bits I've learned about lead/acid batteries, but I'll try to be brief in the hope that some people can get some improvement in their old batteries. The death of a battery is the disintegration of the positive plates. It happens and there's nothing you can do about it except get new plates. Some manufacturers would of course have better-made plates. See if you can find the most reliable batteries in your locale and get an idea of what might be worth the effort to try to refurbish. While I'm on the subject of quality, I'd say always get batteries which have a long 'well' under the plates, as when a battery shorts-out, it's most likely from the detritus at the bottom, so batteries with little clearance underneath will be more prone to shorting. Batteries can also short from sharp sulphation deposits poking through the insulators in a cell. Small motorcycle batteries seemed to be worse when it came to keeping the lead/oxide on the positive plate grid when compared to larger batteries. If a battery has cells which are bulging then I'd be wary of it because even though it may be working at the time, it will likely short out soon. If sulphation is the only problem - say for example you left it and didn't charge it for years, or it was stuck in a back-up power supply for a computer and therefore on a constant charge for years so it eventually dried up, then it is possible to revive it to some extent. I've also tried various chemicals to 'wash' the plates or dope them - but without any real success stories - but some were much better than before. Mag sulph may keep a lower compression engine cranking longer after a dose of salts, but I don't think it is good for the battery. But if the battery's junk anyway then why not have a go? Here's the real deal with sulphation. It came to me after a lot of experimentation and I found confirmation from someone knowledgeable at a lead/acid battery factory. Here's what you do:- Just put enough demineralized water in each cell to cover the plates. The acid level will increase as the state of charge improves, so if you put too much in then it'll likely spill over. Keep the battery on a float charge of 13.1V or close to it for as LONG AS IT TAKES to clear all the sulphation. I'm talking possibly a month here. Another effective way to rid the sulphation is to put the battery on a miniscule charge of a few tens of milliamps for weeks, testing the discharge occasionally to watch the progress. I do that with tiny bike batteries with about 50% success - but bikes are quite easy to crank. Diesel's would be far less likely to be strong enough to do the job. If you leave a battery on a float charge for long enough then the sulphation WILL clear. You can also make a pulse charger. I made a half dozen or so pulse chargers from parts from inverter air-con electronics. I hit the batteries with very sharp spikes of DC. I made them with a simple multivibrator and a relay. The relay was driving an air-con transistor array which shoved up to hundreds of amps into the battery for a small fraction of a second. I chose to use a relay for two reasons. One is that I'm not very good with electronics and the second was that a relay must be just about the sharpest pulse you can get. I made those chargers with everything variable as far as pulse-width, voltage and power, and I believe they got many batteries cranking again. I use to get old batteries, then fix well-over half of them. I sold some and gave some away. The battery in my smaller motorcycle is over 20 years old and goes well. But many simply do not respond. I think if I had a diesel I'd rather pay more and get the largest battery I can get into the compartment and then I could sleep easily. I've managed to get lots of batteries for diesels working again, but they are quite hard and most failed. A pulse-charged and float charged/desulphated battery for a diesel could be better replaced by a refurbished larger battery which has been nursed back into some sort of health again. The smart chargers and so-called pulse chargers I've used have all been as good as useless and a waste of money. The old fashioned chargers with a transformer and a rectifier work best for me. It's lo-tech, but you could run a vehicle lamp of a lower wattage in series to the charger to give you a very low charging current to clear the sulphation. Just running a normal charge through a weary battery isn't going to do much (if any) good. I hope something in what I've written is of some help to someone. Wow! I've never typed so much in a reply! Scuse the typos if there are any.

I like his honesty about the work he's done to this battery

You can restore batteries but it takes much more work and the actual casing has to be able to opened completly. The problem is the plates, which are technically not real plates but grates that contain lead-dioxide and not lead. The problem is that lead-dioxide is not a complete solid metal but more like a sticky pulver that is sticking in the grates. What happens if over time is that the pulver is leaving the plates and floats in the acid (you did try to filter it out0. Fun fact: when you fully discharge a battery the pulver is less sticky and can fall out of the plate more easy. Bumping and rocking a fully discharged battery actually is total destruction. The powder in the acid and not in the grates means 2 things. Your plate is thinner and not as effective and the stuff floating in the acid means the acidf is now conductive and causing internal draining of the electricity (old battries die sooner after charging even if hardly used). So what you should do for full restoration is 1 open the whole battery and instll fresh plates if possible. If not possible the only and best thing you can do is drain the dirty acid rinse with water but remember to rocking bumping shaking. And refill with clean acid and charge (best done with a computer charger that has deep uncharge/charge cycle program). The rinsing with all the shaking you did actually killed the battery more then it already was degraded before you did that, so now it is really toast. Also trying to clean with baking soda only made more lead-dioxide leave the grates.

I really appreciate your tenacity, thorough preparation and expert production of audio and video. I was intent on doing this myself with several batteries I hope to save. Given your tremendous efforts and unflinching courage to show results, you saved me serious heartache. Thanks so much.

I learned a great lesson from this! Battery is just like a relationship, never give up easily, you kept trying and trying until you found out that every resource you used didn’t work, then you know for certain it didn’t work! You are a man with great virtue of patience! Thank you! I really enjoyed watching your video! Thanks!

Thank you for doing what you did. You are honest, what we all wish everyone was. You saved a lot of people a lot of time and money. I am sure you will be rewarded greatly for showing your work, God bless you, and enjoy your blessed life.

Thanks for going through all of that and demonstrating things so clearly. You've surely saved a lot of people a lot of trouble.

Thank you for sharing this info. You saved me much time and heartache. Simple tasks take a lot effort for me being 80% disabled. I was just about to try to “revive” 3 deep cell marine batteries to take my kids on a very anticipated fishing adventure. Thanks again : )

I have tried all these same processes on 4 Different batteries and never had any luck either! Great video…

I admire your persistency. I'm trying to revive a 6 year old battery as we speak. Got it up to 12.5v with the stick welder. Had one cell that was dead during the cycle but came back in the end. After an hour off the stick welder the volts dropped down to 8. On the trickle charger and now reading 9v and rising. I will leave it to charge for 48hrs but I don't think it will have the cranking amps to turn over my small block V8 engine. Only a miracle will save this battery.

This video is very well done! Good lighting and camera angles. Good sound. Well organized. You did a fair test of the restoration techniques on the other videos and followed the instructions. I feel like I got useful information from this video. Thanks.

Thanks for sharing your experience so we don't have to. I noticed your acid was black which meant your plates were eaten up by the acid which means it won't hold enough charge.

Incredible amount of patience and determination. Good job....

Thanks for trying everything you could think of and showing us all the steps and testing you did.

7 year old, that battery was a legend already LOL . Mine last about 2-3years. Thanks for doing all the hard work so we don't have to go thought all that.

Thank you for taking one for the team

Two yrs ago I did the Epson salt protocol, but I my mixture had so much salt it was the consistency of a Slurpee. Then used high Amp charger like you did, But only brought the batt too a boil for about 5 min, let it rest to cool. Did this 3 or 4 times. Drained the salt mixture and filled with distilled water. Then charged. Battery worked for 2 more yrs. I got lucky I guess.

Very helpful. Saves lots of people lots of effort to accomplish nothing. Thank you.

My dad did this so many times I just sat back and learned a whole new language 😂😂😂

Used to work for what was at the time a viable car battery recycler in 1979. All we did was scrape all of the labels off, bang them on a pallet pretty hard a few times to clean the plates and then recharged them. Their policy on these reconditioned batteries was $20.00 out the door with a one year warranty. I still use that method but I leave the labels on! Simple, SAFE and efffective. I've an Everstart Maxx-T5 650/800 here dated 12/2018. It was at 1.2 Volts after sitting unused in a vehicle for about a year. It would not go past 10.4V and the charger said it was 'bad' even after a second attempt. Did the battery xchange thing, reset the charger and this morning it was auto trickle charging and is at 12.7V static. Of course, I am losing capacity but here we are ready to crank. I find pretty much zero data about this technique online. Considering a video myself since I have two more to check on. I have no reason to bs anyone

I tried 4 different batteries to desulfate them using the welder and my charger. Zero worked they looked like they would work, but no luck bought 4 new batteries and the acid made a mess on my ground cable to my welder. Thanks for doing this video now I know I didn’t screw it up.

Much thanks, I had two batteries, I was just getting ready to attempt recovery on. You have saved me a large headache.

Try one last method. Use a garden hose sprayer to wash out the battery, using the pressure to dislodge the chunks of lead sulfate that are at the bottom of the battery. Then use brand new acid. This is your only chance of revitalizing a battery. If it works, you'll get another year out of it at most. The plates in a lead acid battery cannot last forever due to the degradation effect of the charge/discharge process. Personally, I replace the battery in our cars every 4 years to avoid problems. Very well made video.

You proved that the all revival batteries on UKposts are fakes. You have done a very good job.

Thanks a lot for putting the time and effort into this project so I don’t need to 🙏🏻

It's a lead/ acid battery, baking soda, nuatraize the acid, and if you dump it out the electrolyte "acid solution" you will need to replace it! It's like trying to run your car without gas! Remember how the old soda/acid fire extinguisher worked, they had a bottle of Sulfuric acid in the top, and a baking soda water in the bottom.

Yep, we want to save money if we can - 7 years ago I got it at Walmart for $99 (group size: 51R). Now, it costs $149 - INFLATION!!! Thank you for sharing🙏

Thanks, you saved me time and energy. I just started today to try and revive an old battery.

Your stubbornness /determination is admirable. I've watched a few other tries which didn't work either. I've spoken with battery shop employees about different means of trying to resurrect a failed battery--- they basically said "when it's done, it's done"---hope spring eternal...

Thank you for your hassles! Very informative!

Well done sir, I very much appreciate you sharing all your hard work.

I purchased a new battery charger that had a setting call "Repair Battery".For about 3 years I never gave that a second thought. When I had a battery go bad, decided to try it. I've used that battery since and for 3 seasons it's still working. It's a Schmacher charger, picked it up at Walmart and was less than $50 at the time. Saved me $ and time, and it's still going.

You said you had this battery for approx. 7 yrs. so it's been my experience that they rarely last that long and you are way ahead of the longevity for a normal life of a low to medium priced wet cell battery. Time to shop for a deal on a new one~! ✌

Maybe using fresh (new) acide could have helped as I believe the electrolytic density in the old acide would be much lower and after all the flushing and cleaning the battery plates, I would not recommend reusing the old acide . Nice video presentation .

you can add a small 12v solar panel and use them for lighting some 12v LED bulbs

Thanks for making THIS! I've been considering trying some of these methods after having to pay OVER $200 for a new battery recently. But it seems these methods may not be the answer after all! Appreciate your time.

This a one of the BEST videos I've watch in a long time very interesting and very well done! Saved me a ton of ridiculous work! SUBBED!

Thanks for posting and spending the time to “flush” out these ideas (no pun intended😑) saved us a bunch o time! Thanks dude!! You rock!

Same thing happened to me on a brand new $150 850 CCA battery. I bought a 200 amp Charger for $114(never have to buy another one) and did what you did and it worked 100% as stated on the youtube vid. My problem was I was running a 1985 with a diesel motor, gotta have those glow plugs and of course the auxiliary cooling fans always draining it down. My problem was I'm no mechanic and had to wait and wait until I finally found a good HONEST Mechanic to correct the problems with the belts, Idlers and pullies. I have three brothers that are Mechanics but their on the other side of the mountains, lol. My younger brother is a Certified Diesel Specialist but he had a Stroke and his Meds turned him into a raving maniac and I don't even like to be around him.

One thing is sure: You don't give up easily :) Thanks for sharing!

You did pretty well to get 7 years out of your lead acid battery. Also, something I would have liked to see is what was the voltage drop between the negative post and the clamped-on connector at the negative terminal during the load test. Sometimes a poor connection will cause the voltage to drop across such connections. Perhaps you removed it and cleaned the post and the inside of the clamped connector already.

Thank for doing this so i wont have to do it myself, its always nice to see other peoples results.

This folks, is a MAN! not afraid, just wants to get the job done!

Love your determination and special invisible PPE ... Personal Protection Equipment. Take care

Finally, an honest person. All this other crap that they say it doesn’t work. I wasted so much time myself. Had I seen this video, I wouldn’t have not wasted my time. Thank you for your service.

Great video! Thank you. Saved me a lot of futility and frustration.

You just saved me a whole bunch of time ....Time for a new battery Thank You for showing the honest results

Great video, I appreciate that you tried out so many things on the same battery and really showing us the process and your thoughts while doing it. It is sad that you didn't manage to revive it, but you did however share a lot of information to the rest of us. My battery just randomly died after I used it to start my car several times one day, and the next morning it is not even taking a charge enough to keep the dash board lit up. Thank you!

The Epsom salt one is the one I did, I'm glad that you did a bunch of those that way I could remember better .

😂 love your response “Oh, that’s not good.” Wonderful video. Thanks for all your efforts and work.

I found one by a creek.. I took it home. Drained the acid. Hit the bottom with a rubber hammer as I did. Then put new battery acid in it.. Worked for 3 more years...

I agree about replacing the acid. After many cycled, adding distilled water and if you didn't flush out the baking soda, that acid is nowhere near the strength it should be. A hygrometer would show that more than a surface charge. All of this is moot for a sealed and especially an AGM battery!

Thank you for saving me a weeks worth of anxiety... Sometimes we just gotta bite the bullet and be done with it.. Thank you very much! Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Such an Excellent post! You have made a complete waste of time, for yourself, completely useful for others 💪🏾 📜 You are a natural man in proper standing 🏆 Many thanks for your patience and work 🤠

This man had a battery named after him!!!... epic video. Thank you!!!

I have found that the new style digital chargers help revive old batteries by using pulse charge instead of just adding amps now I have nothing against manual chargers I have a couple to use with a generator since pulse chargers are sensitive to Hz fluctuations But like one other commenter said is do a gravity test first each cell should produce about 2.4 volts each Charge the battery with the cells at the level they are, after the charge top off the cell levels then recharge check cells for voltage or perform load test 100amps for ten seconds it should maintain CA for at least that period of seconds if so recharge and place in operation I have used this method for years

Baking soda is the most well-known most widely used common household item for neutralizing acid so intuitively I would think not the thing you'd want to put in a lead acid battery but let's see where this takes us because I would have thought any number of other things would have been a much better choice with of course battery acid being at the top of the list and baking soda at the very bottom of the list and things like Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) and many others in between the two extremes as there are multiple options available

I liked and subscribed simply because you put effort in mate! Seen a vid where a mechanic uses a stick welder as a power supply to de sulphate a battery, it was more about getting each cell to boil.. This was done in short bursts several times so the battery could cool down. first one cell boiled then the next until all the cells where boiling for five minutes then the battery worked fine. Dangerous tho. Must wear face visor and gloves. Better luck next time eh?! 😎

Great video... You could try one other thing... Put back the acid in the cells, discharge the battery completely. Reverse terminal polarity when charging. Reversing polarity should remove sulfation from the positive plates... But the big question is if you have enough lead on those plates. As well you could measure resistance in between cells to determine which cell is actually bad.

If CCA (cold crank amps) is low even if voltage is high, it will not be of any use. A hydrometer can tell which cells a low in acid ratio n a voltage test between terminal n plate can tell U which plates r either 1) low in acid or high sulfation.

Good video and you have just confirmed to me that the test I did years ago was also a waste of epsom salts.. Better used for a good soak in the bath to ease the back pain.

hi,whats the deference between the food salt and the epsam salt that u used it to recovery our battery ?

I only revive deep cycle batteries. Like golf cart or marine grade. I don't even bother with car batteries unless they have just recently gotten weak. Then I can usually get another year or maybe 18 months out of one.

I thought that I was the only one to try all 3 methods....LoL Ended up buying a new battery, too.

I thought I was the only one who didn't have any luck with these great fix it solutions I see and try from UKposts videos!

That spark next too the open battery cell made my heart jump.

Once tried the Epsom salt in a new big lawn tractor battery that sulfated over a 7 year period after getting lost in my messy garage. Was using a 2 amp charger and most of the sulfate disappeared until the lead bridging connecting the cells began to shell off with one developing a crack that broke the connection.

Good Video! I enjoyed watching it. Thanks for your efforts and honesty!

Got a car 4 yrs old- 35,000 miles & battery is dead. Jumped it 2x. What the heck? No lights being left on to drain battery. Batteries are made so crappie now- just to keep trying to drain our $. Thank you for this. Batteries use to last a lot longer years ago.

Thanks much for doing this. It’s so easy to post what people want to hear. But you have put in all effort and to no avail. Yup!

did you try cycling the battery ?Put a load on the battery until voltage is drained then charge the battery again .Repeat a couple times, this worked for me .I didi this after the cleaning and epsom salt . Good luck

For many years I tried reviving batteries. I always failed beacause the batteries were dead+dead. For the headache and heartache, I give up and went to dry gell batteries. I learnt to have them recycled when all life in them is gone. 7 years life out of a battery is awesome. To extend battery life, maintenance is crucial; charge/discharge. I am still learning.

Bless your heart.....I don't have the time or energy to messs with this fix. Happy New Year!

the video i watched.. he took the caps off.. topped it off with distilled water, cause they were a bit low. He put 2 teaspoons of epson salt in each hole..put it on the big charger for quite a bit of time.. a few of the cells bubbled out some stuff.. and when he was done it read good on both meters Was a great video.. loved watching it

Great job. Glad you had "success" .. LOL. During the initial reviving process, it looked like you had one, maybe two, cells that were not bubbling as much as the others. All cells need to be bubbling equally hard. This may take many more cycles than one may think, especially with a very old battery with a lot of sulfation.

I've never been able to do anything with an old discharged battery. Now I have fitted Lithium Ion batteries to all 3 of my Motorbikes !!!! They really are fantastic !!! I've bought 2 deep cycle Marine Batteries in Case of Power Cuts. I'll just have to make sure I keep them charged up !!!!!

No new battery acid? I was waiting for you to replace the old battery acid with new, that would have covered everything and would have de-bunked the whole battery revival theory. Great video BTW, well done.

I did something similar with a Walmart battery that I had and it worked and the battery is still working, like I said something similar not exactly what you did. There are a lot of great ideas on UKposts!

I wonder what if a fellow just emptied the battary, and filled it up with seven up or coke to clean up all the oxidation, then filled up with reasonably fresh acid. Would it work. I have been using seven up to clean the posts of batteries on equipment, and it works slicker than snot! Just my ¢2.🤯. Great video, to debunk any BS out there.

When a cell deteriorates small particles fall to the bottom and shorts out the cells....Removing those particles will not restore the deteriorated cells so the battery still needs to be replaced....A car battery will usually last about three years and the first time the starter begins to turn over slow save yourself being stranded by replacing the battery....It will usually leave you stranded in cold winter weather when you had no trouble during the past summer....

Thanks for showing several ways not to revive a battery....I was kinda looking for ways to revive one.

I got a cheep battery to last 13 years. I have a charger with a revive mode n did a couple times. It was still good when the car pooped. Only thing was psyche as didn’t know how long it would last but sure did. Never did anything else to it over the time period. Even started the car well at below zero temperatures best $5 I ever spent !!

Great video. Did you try to charge the battery with a welding unit that has been used on some videos? I would love you to try that, since all the other methods have been so much better than previous videos. Did you ever try new acid in the battery? I will be watching and hope to see more good things from your efforts. Thanks so much.

I've already had a lot of experience reviving batteries. I think the desulfation worked well. the main problem is that you lost too much lead. this is known as Active Mass. Deshakb was also so black because of the battery acid. The less active mass, the worse the performance. You can do whatever you want if the acid is so dark then the battery is usually already lost

Thanks for a UKposts that is fair and honest!

Thank for your persistent presentation and days of work that you did so thousands of people won't waste their time learning it the hard way. I seems you presentation was not sponsored and paid for by promoting and selling any particular product.I give you thumbs up and follow your videos. 😃

Generally electrolyte works if you got good electrolyte but sometimes even put a new electrolyte may not work try putting new electrolyte in but be careful how much electrolyte and then try charging it with the Caps off and then come back and shut it down put the Caps back on and see if you get some capacity to start the tractor .

Thanks for saving me a lot of time and frustration.

🗣️ If there was an award for the best utube video, this would take top honors 🏆. Thank you!!!

Those popular videos didn't save you $130, but you saved the rest of us several hours of hopeful work with a disappointment at the end, thank you-

I am wondering if the problem might be the used acid, maybe after the desalinating and then cleaning with baking soda then the epsom salt, My last effort would have been fresh acid.

You should use hydrometer to check acid density.

Watching this goes to show sometimes all manufactured goods have a life expectancy and would you really waste your time doing this so well done for the exercise

I have a question. Instead of filtering the old acid and pouring it back into the battery, what if you used fresh battery acid that you bought from an auto store and poured that into the battery instead? I did this and it restored a battery. A separate comment is I used a cheap load tester purchased from Harbor Freight and it used it on a different battery after recharging the battery. The load testor stated that the battery was bad. I then took that battery to OReilly’s and had them test it on their tester which they stated was a good battery with 82% of it’s original lifespan left. Not sure I could trust my load tester; so I am glad you tried to start the tractor even though your load tester showed the battery to be weak.