Hello All,
A few weeks ago the batteries in my Deuce decided to commit suicide while I was 40 miles away from home at a shooting competition. Luckily there was a guy there with a dually that pulled me up a bit so i could get her running. (in fact he did it twice because i wanted to stop and have a beer w/ the guys... Thanks Dale).
So I've spent a good bit of time digging around for replacement batteries and info on the swap. It seems there is a lot of conversation all around about the different batteries and switching to Civis from the parts store, but no concrete info. I work on cars for a living so, due to experience, I'll NEVER put an Optima in anything but my worst enemies car. I also don't like the price of the easily attainable batteries, or the wait it would take me to get the correct battery for cheap. On top of all that, the warranties for all the normal options are terrible. They range from the "tail light" warranty -to- "one year, limited".
Goal:
Fix truck inexpensively w/ parts of o.k. quality or an awesome warranty to combat the lack there of, and do it WITHOUT having to get crazy w/ bracket or cable modifications.
Batteries:
I ended up at Advanced Autoparts because it was the closest to my house, AND I will never buy anything from Twilight Zone. I got two AutoCraft batteries w/ 700 CCA and 130 Reserve for ~$225 after tax and core WITH a 3 year NO B.S. warranty + several months of Pro-rating after that. I'm sure there are a lot of people that won't agree w/ my choice for one reason or another, but i'm not here to argue so stuff it. I live in South Texas where we see below 40 degrees 2 or 3 days out of the year, and I don't run any equipment on the truck so the Reserve doesn't come in to play at all. I also drive it about 4 days a week between work and the range, so she ain't sittin much.
I picked them out by sight and ended up getting lucky. They are the exact same height + Length as the Exide 6TMF that i took out, AND conveniently the same width as the notched out area in the battery hold down. They also work great for the length of intermediate battery cable that came w/ my truck (the little one in the middle). I ended up putting the Intermediate cable towards the inside of the battery box, and stretching the main B+ and B- to the outside of the box.
Install:
Before putting the batteries in I checked the Electrolyte level and topped them off w/ Distilled water. Sure they say "Maintenance Free" but i treat that as if the government wrote it. Every battery ends up in a Hot 18 wheeler and then in a Hot warehouse, so some water is going to be lost. I own a Midtronics battery tester so i gave them both a check before putting them in. I ended up w/ 756CCA on one and 809CCA on the other. I put the weaker one on a slow charge for about 90 minutes to bring as close to the other as possible before install.
Once i was happy w/ the charge I put them in the box and pushed the hold down bracket around the edges. The fit is GREAT! The bottom of the box holds them from sliding side to side, the notches in the bracket prevent fore and aft movement, and a few feet long piece of .250" x .5" mild steel slid through the center of the battery caps holds them down perfectly. This piece of steel is the only "modification" needed since the little cable fits fine. I just eyeballed it so i can't give you an exact length, but i can tell you i paid less than $5 for a 21 foot piece of .25 X .5 steel so its not going to brake the bank. There is a partial ridge on both sides of the hold down bracket that i wedged the piece under, and then snugged the J-bolt nuts down until nothing was able to move.
Finish:
Everything looked great once the box was back in the truck. Bringing the positive cable to the outside of the box was no big deal at all. Just had to pull some slack out of it under the frame rail. I did have to flip the bolt that holds the two cables on the Negative connection around. The threaded ends of the bolt were hitting the battery cap. Once flipped, all was gravy.
I added a good number of pictures so you can see the different steps of the install, and the results of my tester. Also pay attention to the orientation of the + and - connections if you plan on doing the same thing w/ different batteries. I will also post up a video of it starting once finished. The truck had been sitting for about 2 weeks so i let the fuel pump run for a while, but she busted right off. This is also an opportunity to post pictures of the truck and spread some good ole RON PAUL 2012 Love
Hope this helps someone, and good day to all
A few weeks ago the batteries in my Deuce decided to commit suicide while I was 40 miles away from home at a shooting competition. Luckily there was a guy there with a dually that pulled me up a bit so i could get her running. (in fact he did it twice because i wanted to stop and have a beer w/ the guys... Thanks Dale).
So I've spent a good bit of time digging around for replacement batteries and info on the swap. It seems there is a lot of conversation all around about the different batteries and switching to Civis from the parts store, but no concrete info. I work on cars for a living so, due to experience, I'll NEVER put an Optima in anything but my worst enemies car. I also don't like the price of the easily attainable batteries, or the wait it would take me to get the correct battery for cheap. On top of all that, the warranties for all the normal options are terrible. They range from the "tail light" warranty -to- "one year, limited".
Goal:
Fix truck inexpensively w/ parts of o.k. quality or an awesome warranty to combat the lack there of, and do it WITHOUT having to get crazy w/ bracket or cable modifications.
Batteries:
I ended up at Advanced Autoparts because it was the closest to my house, AND I will never buy anything from Twilight Zone. I got two AutoCraft batteries w/ 700 CCA and 130 Reserve for ~$225 after tax and core WITH a 3 year NO B.S. warranty + several months of Pro-rating after that. I'm sure there are a lot of people that won't agree w/ my choice for one reason or another, but i'm not here to argue so stuff it. I live in South Texas where we see below 40 degrees 2 or 3 days out of the year, and I don't run any equipment on the truck so the Reserve doesn't come in to play at all. I also drive it about 4 days a week between work and the range, so she ain't sittin much.
I picked them out by sight and ended up getting lucky. They are the exact same height + Length as the Exide 6TMF that i took out, AND conveniently the same width as the notched out area in the battery hold down. They also work great for the length of intermediate battery cable that came w/ my truck (the little one in the middle). I ended up putting the Intermediate cable towards the inside of the battery box, and stretching the main B+ and B- to the outside of the box.
Install:
Before putting the batteries in I checked the Electrolyte level and topped them off w/ Distilled water. Sure they say "Maintenance Free" but i treat that as if the government wrote it. Every battery ends up in a Hot 18 wheeler and then in a Hot warehouse, so some water is going to be lost. I own a Midtronics battery tester so i gave them both a check before putting them in. I ended up w/ 756CCA on one and 809CCA on the other. I put the weaker one on a slow charge for about 90 minutes to bring as close to the other as possible before install.
Once i was happy w/ the charge I put them in the box and pushed the hold down bracket around the edges. The fit is GREAT! The bottom of the box holds them from sliding side to side, the notches in the bracket prevent fore and aft movement, and a few feet long piece of .250" x .5" mild steel slid through the center of the battery caps holds them down perfectly. This piece of steel is the only "modification" needed since the little cable fits fine. I just eyeballed it so i can't give you an exact length, but i can tell you i paid less than $5 for a 21 foot piece of .25 X .5 steel so its not going to brake the bank. There is a partial ridge on both sides of the hold down bracket that i wedged the piece under, and then snugged the J-bolt nuts down until nothing was able to move.
Finish:
Everything looked great once the box was back in the truck. Bringing the positive cable to the outside of the box was no big deal at all. Just had to pull some slack out of it under the frame rail. I did have to flip the bolt that holds the two cables on the Negative connection around. The threaded ends of the bolt were hitting the battery cap. Once flipped, all was gravy.
I added a good number of pictures so you can see the different steps of the install, and the results of my tester. Also pay attention to the orientation of the + and - connections if you plan on doing the same thing w/ different batteries. I will also post up a video of it starting once finished. The truck had been sitting for about 2 weeks so i let the fuel pump run for a while, but she busted right off. This is also an opportunity to post pictures of the truck and spread some good ole RON PAUL 2012 Love
Hope this helps someone, and good day to all
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(yet i only see the broken ones)
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