It's been a while since I was on here, long enough that I don't have the e-mail address that was connected to my old account anymore and had to start a new account. JungleBiker and AlsoJungleBiker, same guy. Still in Papua New Guinea, still using that same 5 ton.
Just an update--we have two giant N200 12V batteries in our truck now (wired in series, of course for 24V)--they fill the same space as 4 "normal" batteries would take up. When out truck has been sitting for a long time, we are always able to start it by using one of those 12V battery booster packs. We just hook it up to one of the batteries and it usually starts right up. I ended up using a 12V electric wiper motor; I removed the pneumatic wiper motor and more or less bolted the electric one in it's place. I don't know for sure what this wiper motor was originally intended for, but it's small and simple and was easy to adapt. To power it I just ran 2 wires from one of the batteries to a switch and to the wiper motor, also put a fuse in the circuit and it works fine. Truth is, we don't use it that much because most of the time we have the windshields open anyway.