Last week, I purchased a used battery from an electric forklift. It's 24 volt, and I cut the middle lug so I have two 12 volt batteries. Unfortunately, it seems I have 4 dead cells. The voltage in those cells was about 0.5. All the other cells were around 1.8V. I was told it has been sitting, uncharged, to go to the recycler since New Year. I charged each half for a full day, and the same cells dropped back to 0.5 volts as soon as I removed the charger. The other cells came up to 2 volts.
Since I have 2 dead cells on each half, and not next to each other in those halves, now I'm thinking I'll just make one 12 volt battery, but not in the metal case. I thought I could remove the dead cells from the metal case, but I have had no success. And searching the internet has yielded no information. (Which really surprises me, because I found a couple threads on here talking about combining a couple used fork lift batteries to make one good one) Am I wrong in thinking it's a bank of individual cells? I thought it was 12, 2 volt, individual cells. And that they could be pulled out of the metal case. But is it actually one plastic housing inside the metal case? Or is every battery made different and I need to figure out exactly what I have? The only reason I would like to get rid of the dead cells and the case is for room, since I will only be using 6 of the cells now. But if they do not come apart, I'll just leave them in there and make jumpers.