Yes, taking out the electrolyte works. There are industrial (and military) applications that do that. The battery will have the same charge level when the electrolyte is poured back in as when it was taken out. I seem to remember they would last dozens of years like that.

Thanks for all the responses so far. Guess will be dumping the batteries electrolyte and labeling the container for each battery. This will save myself and my friend several hundred dollars a year on average. Unfortunatly we do not have autozone here and a good type 49 battery is about 150.00 canadian plus the 15 % consumption tax of course. Part of the way we pay for our "free" medical program needless to say. If it was much cheaper I would probably go broke. Oh yes one other thing the old timers may remember I will be doing. That is coating my terminals with vasoline and sticking a penny on each terminal as a sacrificial anode. Worked well years ago and a penny is worth substantially less today although terminal corrosion does not seem so pervasive as it once was. I almost typed apply vasoline to my terminal instead of terminals but caught it. If not possibly one of the younger guys might have jumped on it. At times they have no mercy.