[MetroMPG]

Thanks - I seemed to recall reading something to that effect, so that's what we did/are doing. I filled to approx halfway between the plates and the filler neck and we started charging last night.

So far so good - the ones we've charged seem to be resting around 6.4 volts (I think that's good - it's half of 12.8 !)

I'd like to do some kind of load test before putting them in the car though. Holding voltage is one thing. Delivering amps is another. I don't suppose you want to recommend a cheap/effective load test method to check for duds?

I've read 2 ideas: 1) buy a load tester; 2) just connect each battery to a load for the same amount of time (eg. the car's motor) and record the voltage sag while running, and the resting voltage after running. Duds will drop voltage more compared to the non-duds.