skryla

I have a 1973 battery that has never been used and has the wax in the holes. How so I get that out without it entering the cells?

Hairy Olds

You don't - just put the caps on and push down and the wax plugs will go to the bottom of the cell. They will hot harm the battery in any way.

rocketraider

I generally work them out with a pick of some description, but Hairy is correct. The electrolyte will dissolve the wax and it won't harm anything.

Now, if you could just get the shipping company gorillas to take a little care with them... The last one I bought came in with a busted box corner and a large chunk out of the $$$ Energizer. I wanted to take a chunk out of the UPS guy, but no one could ever determine when during the trip it happened. Then it took forever to get them to settle the claim. They tried to say it wasn't packed properly- the thing came in with 3" of styrofoam panels all around it, one corner of which was shattered.

When I've paid $400 plus the ride for an NOS, dry Delco 60K battery, I kinda expect it to arrive intact.

skryla

I used a hooked pic and got them out without too much effort.

Filled it up with fresh acid she came up 75% charged.

Put it on the charger for about 2 hours and she was fully charged.

Took it off the charger last night, then put it on again this evening. She was at 85% and came up to 100% in about 10 minutes.

Sounds like it'll be fine. I know it took me a heck of a lot of time to find a reasonably priced R91....

Anything I should look out for when using an almost 40 year old battery?

stellar

Look out for drivers on cell phones. Enjoy the ride.

stevengerard

wow you guys are crazy but that's very cool, I'm just too cheap to even buy the repo but I did find this one just for fun - isn't this what goes into a 70 442 - always seems like there is a lot of confusion with the 70 style battery

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1967-1968-19...sories&vxp=mtr

rocketraider

Stan, if it was stored sealed and dry, you effectively have a new battery.

Hard to say how long an older lead-acid will last, because most didn't last more than three or four years. You'll have to remember to check water level every so often, and to use distilled or deionized water for best life. I highly recommend a Battery Tender for this type battery.

Is this push-in or screw-in cell caps? Sometimes you can find NOS Delco Eyes for these batteries if it didn't come with one, and the Eyes came both ways.

rocketraider

God help. Trouble is some Chevy fool will turn loose the $1500 for that Energizer and then brag about it. The repop works fine for me, thank you.

You can see the Eye in the lower left corner of the pic, right under the word "Energizer". Worthwhile addition to any open-top Delco Energizer.