OK, one more stupid question. I brought my brand new battery home, and left it on a charger at 2amps for the afternoon to make sure it had a full charge before installing it. I just got home and checked on it to see that it was fully charged, and sitting in a pool of water that it dispelled. The battery wasn't very hot, and like I said, brand new. Is this a problem I should take care of before even installing it in my car?

I love the electrolysis writeup!

If it's any consolation, I bought the battery tray repair kit from Kent Bergsma of Mercedes Source for roughly $200. I still have not started on it, but I have the "miracle paint" and a can of custom Manila Beige paint from Paintscratch. It comes with a brand new tray which is still in storage (I found a better one from the yards and used that for now) as well as some other goodies.

The new battery comes fully charged. By charging it, you could be overcharging it, which is causing the same problem on the bench. It has to drain somewhere if it's getting over charged. Same thing with the voltage reg of your old alternator. When mine was overcharging, I blew a crack in the side of a Mercedes battery and pretty much made a mess out of the engine compt. I should have known the egg smell was the acid gas.

I really hate wet cell batteries. I knew the new battery had been sitting for a long time before I picked it up, so I wanted to make sure it was good to go.

I have always just instantly replaced mine with an Optima when I would put my stereo in. I don't have my old Optima anymore, but was thinking about getting another one. Would it actually fit though, they are somewhat taller than the battery that fits in our car. I guess I could find somewhere else to put it, but that's just more trouble.

the best way to know if the battery is "good to go" is with a multimeter.
measure the voltage on the 20 V scale of your meter, it should read 12.76 if it is lower than that, it is NOT fully charged. if it's above that, it has been recently charged.

Optima = Sweetness. I don't know if they'll fit or not either.

Well, I installed the new alternator. My battery tray is doing it's magic in the electrolysis tub in the garage. It's been running (on 10 amp setting) for about 7 hours now. How long does something like that usually take?

The car is running fine, but I am a little puzzled about why I am only getting 14V. I thought it was going to be closer to 14.4. The car is running fine though, we'll see how it goes for a few days.