From: Jim Newton (jnewton@laurel.com)
Date: Mon May 19 2003 - 11:23:38 PDT
Hi List...
I know this sounds like an advertisement, but I promise that I have
absolutely no direct or indirect financial interest in the "Battery
Equaliser" product which I am about to mention!
Over the winter and spring, my deuce's batteries were going dead very
quickly and the deuce wouldn't start even after the batteries were
charged for long periods of time. The charging system is working
fine, but even a long drive it would not charge the batteries...when
would try to start it up, the starter would just go
"RR,RRRR,RRRrrr....." and that was it.
I priced 6TLs and Napa had them for $175 each. Ugh!
After a day of charging or after a long drive, the battery acid in
each cell would only float 3 balls out of 4 on my hydrometer. All
cells were identical in the reading, so I knew there was no individual
cell failure.
So I read through old posts on this list about rejuvenating batteries
by rinsing them out, dumping out the crud, filling with fresh acid,
and using EDTL (a powder that you dissolve in water and add to the
acid, and it removes sulfation). After poking around on Google, I
repeatedly saw mention to a product called "Battery Equaliser". I
thought it was probably snake oil, but I looked into the claims and
they sounded reasonable and scientifically credible. It was supposed
to remove the sulfur deposits that come out of the sulphuric acid
electrolyte and coat the lead plates, effectively insulating them from
the electrolyte, reducing the acidity of the electrolyte, and reducing
the battery's capacity. I believe this liquid is basically EDTL, but
it ended up being cheaper than buying EDTL because the places I found
required you to buy 5 lbs minimum plus shipping. The product web site
also referred to a USMC test that found that it did indeed bring a
flat battery marked for disposal back to serviceable levels.
So I decided to try Battery Equaliser. I found the company's web site
(you can search for "battery equaliser" (note the "s" instead of a
"z") on Google and find them too...I won't shill further!) and bought
a 12 ounce bottle for $21.50 including free shipping and CA sales tax.
The label recommends 1 ounce per cell for 6TL and 6TN batteries (yes,
it mentions 6TL and 6TN batteries right on the label!) so a single 12
ounce bottle is enough for 2 6TL batteries.
So yesterday afternoon I pulled 1 ounce of acid out of each cell with
a big syringe, and replaced each with 1 ounce of Battery Equalizer in
each cell, then charged the batteries up overnight in the same manner
I did previously.
Now every cell is showing 4 balls on the hydrometer!
The directions say that it may take up to 5 charge/discharge cycles to
fully remove all the sulfation, so just for good measure I'm going to
run the batteries all the way down today and charge them back up
overnight and the batteries should be as good as new!
I just wanted to pass this on to you all so maybe you'll save money by
not having to replace your 6TL and other expensive batteries! It
really worked for me and saved me over $300!
By the way, if you have one of those large wheeled 12 volt battery
chargers with a "Start" high-amperage setting, you CAN start your 24
volt deuce with it. I didn't think the 12 volts would do it, but it
fired the deuce right up, even at 12 volts! I just connected the
positive clamp to the battery terminal that goes into the truck's
system, and the negative clamp to the frame (spanning the 12 volt
charger across 24 volts worth of batteries) and turned it on, and it
fired right up. (You will need to view the diagram below with a
monospaced font such as Courier.)
----------------
6TL 1 6TL 2 | |
--------- -------|- TO (+)
| (+)| | (+)|--TRUCK -----------
| | | | | 24v POS | 12v |
| ========= | | START |--(= AC
TO | | | | | | CHARGER |
TRUCK---|(-) | |(-) | -----------
FRAME -|------- --------- (-)
24v NEG | |
--------------------------------------
Just wanted to pass this along...might save some grief for a lister
someday!
Thanks.
--Jim "Ike" Newton
o 1984 M1007 CUCV Military Suburban 6.2 Liter (378 CID) Turbo-Diesel Engine 5/4 Ton Cargo Capacity, 4WD
o 1971 M35A2 Military Troop/Cargo Truck "Deuce and a Half" 478 CID Turbo-Diesel Multi-Fuel Engine Air Shift Front Axle 2 1/2 Ton Cargo Capacity, 6WD
See These Trucks at www.CUCV.NET Keyword Searching of 22,000 Electronic TMs at www.MILDOCS.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat May 07 2005 - 20:20:31 PDT