Battery charging : slacken the caps to vent or not?

[All that jazz]

Just charging up my dead battery for my Puma. Needle is off the end of the dial when I switched it on so must be proper dead, but according to the paperwork it's quite a new battery. Anyway, I've got it hooked up to my Gunson charger set to AUTO OFF and 100% charge. It has caps on it, should I be slackening them off for it to vent or is it not necessary these days?

Ta.

[Ian_sUK]

There should be a vent hole somewhere on it. In my experience if its properly dead then its dead, no amount of charging will bring it back. You may get the voltage back with no load but as soon as you put a load on the voltage drops. It all depends on how dead it is and how long its been like that.

[MiseryStreak]

I haven't the slightest idea what you just said

[RZ1]

I always take of the covers, but not sure if yo need to with modern batteries, just a habit from when my battery used to constantly die on my Nova

[tvrtim]

Yes, remove them.
Do not smoke near it.
Top up with distilled after charging it.

[All that jazz]

Thanks chaps. Have slackened off the caps now. Seems to be charging okay but will find out later if it's holding charge.