Increased PSI resulting in engine working harder? Discovered Dent in oil pan

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Originally Posted by *************

Oh crap... OP, you majorly messed up!

Get this:http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-V...pr_product_top

and charge that car battery! You battery is obviously severely discharged and needs to be charged up again. Problem is, you added water and you should never add water to a fully discharged battery because when you charge the battery, it's going to overflow. Get that battery charger and charge that battery up because it's unreasonable to expect your car to fully charge a discharged battery. I've seen far too many cars with partially or fully discharged batteries, on the brink of not working at all, I then charge the battery and everything is well again. Your battery is probably fine, it's just that it needs to be charged.

If you get that battery charger which I highly recommend because it's a "smart" charger unlike the sears diehard garbage, charge your battery at no higher than 6a. On batteries like yours, I prefer using 2amps but that takes well over 28 hours to charge, but if you care to do everything you can to preserve your battery, I'd do the latter rather than the former. Another FYI is that MOST battery chargers won't charge a battery with a voltage less than like 7v because that causes it to think you've either got the wrong battery hooked up or that there isn't a battery hooked up at all. The solution to this is to hook up another battery with proper voltage (like 12v) in parallel to the battery needing to be charged and then charge with this setup for like 2 hours, then disconnect the battery that doesn't need to be charged and continue with charging..

I've recovered batteries with voltages as low as 0V back to perfect working order again, just be patient and it should work out. A few things to look out for is to see if the battery is bulging on the sides as you charge and on your first charge, if you hear "boiling", I'd ease up on the charge rate or continue with that charge rate for like another hour, disconnect and then come back the next day and resume charging. There will definitely be "boiling" when charging a battery that is half full and this is ok, just don't charge at too fast of a rate. These battery chargers work great, it's just that they're also working hard not to cause a fire hazard or to damage your battery.

I've charged well over 30 car batteries, about half of them with a battery voltage less than 3V. Your battery is obviously not as low as 3v but it's more than likely fully discharged (less than 11.8V).

You cannot reasonably expect your car to fully charge that battery up to 100% (this is important) unless you plan on driving for like 28hours straight. I know this because the battery in my sister's Volvo was at 11.8V and I had driven on the highway for 4 hours straight, came back, waited for the battery to cool down (this takes at least 12 hours!) then measured the voltage only for it to be 11.9V and not 12.65V for a fully charged battery. I charged that sucker up and its current voltage is around 12.3v, which while not great, is expected of a sulfated battery.

If you're interested in knowing more about batteries and charging them, check out this site as it explains a lot.
http://batteryuniversity.com/partone-13.htm


One more thing:
Make sure your battery terminals are clean and when you charge the battery, while it's ok to charge with the car still attached to the battery, this could depress the voltage slightly and not let the charger get a good idea as to the condition of the battery.

Nice read, man. We have a battery charger outside. Its not the best but it will do with what you're mentioning here. If some boils out, I may just buy 1Q of battery acid to top off the cells again, but it was filled with distilled water so the excess will have to boil out first.

Ironically, my battery is a Sears DieHard.