I bought a forklift with a "bad" battery about 5 years ago. I'm still
using the original "bad" battery.
Do exactly as Cor said:
Charge it up, then measure the voltage on each cell, then fill each
cell with distilled to the proper level, then run the forklift until the
battery is dead, .... recharge and repeat.
Do this about three or four times. I did and the "bad" battery came back
to about 30% capacity. Fine for my use.
Typically, forklift batteries are treated _terribly_, and typically just
need a few full cycles and then they work OK.
You _might_ find that you have a dead cell or extremely weak cell. If
one, (or two,) cells just refuse to revive after a few cycles, you might
have to strap across these bad cells. Your folklift won't miss one (or
two) cells out of 18 total. Just be sure to discharge those cells
_completely_ before you strap them across.
I give my forklift a small top up charge (maybe 20 amp-hrs) once per
week and fill the water about twice per year.
Bill D.
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