I purchased a new OReilly 6V battery. It was the first one they've sold, they said, perhaps had been sitting on the shelf for awhile. Anyway when I installed it I found it not charged sufficiently to turn the engine beyond the first compression stroke (i.e. it would do 1 but not 2). I could let it rest for a second and it would do another rotation stopping just before the 2nd next compression stroke. I put it on the charger to 100% and I got a really good spin maybe for 3-4 full revolutions like I would expect a new battery to be able to do. Then it was seemingly dead again only able to move to the next compression stroke. The engine was fairly easy to spin with the hand crank. It's a freshly rebuilt engine and a tiny bit stiff, but not unusually so. Charge the battery fully again, I get 3-4 full revolutions at full speed. But it takes 20 minutes to fully charge (per the "automatic" charger).
I'll also note that if I fully charged it, then disconnect the charger for say 20-30 seconds, the charge seems to start over and takes quite a long time (15-20 minutes) to get it back to 100%. I've also seen where the charger seemingly restarted mid charge...it said it was at ~80% then suddenly indicated ~13%.
So there are possibilities. The cables are brand new Steiner-recommended. There is a possibility that I need to clean off paint at the contact points (I already did that), but the behavior of getting a full speed spin just after a full recharge would seem to make that an unlikely cause (of course I will check it out before I jump to conclusions). The starter is newly rebuilt. It seems to be working very well, but I'll try measuring the resistance and the voltage drop when starting. I wire brushed the starter mounting port and the tip of the hold bolt just before installing but I'll also check that again.
My number one theory is that the battery was probably sitting on the shelf in a partial state of charge for an extended period (since they indicated they had not sold one (the store isn't that old (2021 or 2022)). It's probably sulfated. The behavior reminds me of past failed (aged) batteries. I've never had a new one behave this way though.
Other ideas?
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acd17toy wrote:
