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My home repair of the battery lasted all summer, then one day, it just plain stopped working.
I know I have posted about the "professional" repair I had done on it, but I can't seem to find that post anywhere!
Anyways. What I did was call around, and I eventually found a battery shop that said to bring it in and they would look at it.
The guy took a quick look at the battery, then started working on it.
He cut the post off even with the top of the plastic. Then he took a very large drill bit (about the same diameter as the entire post) and drilled straight down into where the post was. This was only a shallow drilling, just enough to get the outside edges of the drill bit into the lead.
Then he pulled out a little metal form with a handle, and a base cover that looked like a large washer. The washer went around the hole, and then the tube-form went over the top of that.
He pulled out a lead stick and melted the end of it into the post-shaped mold. The oversized washer was apparently to protect the plastic from the heat, it may have also helped seal up the bottom edges of the mold.
He let it cool a few seconds, and then pulled the mold off.
Poof! Brand-New Battery Post! Better than new actually! He said the new post was a solid casting, and the old one was cast in two parts, which was part of my problem with the shorting in the first place!!!
The whole process of recasting the post took maybe 5 minutes. That's the advantage of having the tools and experience!
While the guy was going it, I told him about the motorcycle, electric car, and other projects I was working on. He was very interested, and really suprised I could get a forklift motor to drive a car to 45 mph!
When he was done, I asked how much I owe. He relied that there was no charge, but just come back to him when I need to buy some batteries!
PS - For my original battery repair, the battery is an AGM, so it's sealed (maintenance-free) but does have vents on it that will open in the case of extreme over charging. I had not recently charged or discharged the battery, and I was out in the open air. The battery repair guy used an acetylene torch for recasting the post and didn't seem to use any special precautions, other than just not getting too close to the plastic shell of the battery.
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