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Battery's - Johnboy - 01-25-2017
BATTERY'S THE ABBUSED AND FORGOTTEN.
This evening my cousin and I helped a fellow driver continue his journey home after setting on the fuel island for over 8 hours because of bad battery's don't let this be you.
I'm only posting this for the people who are learning how to work on there truck and would like to know some of the warning signs the battery's give you and please feel free to add to the list if need be.
#1- Slow cranking or hard cranking. The first thing I do is check the nuts on the battery's make sure they are tight if they are tight check the cables for corrosion green stuff and clean it off.
#2 Bad smell. If you smell something that smells like rotten eggs around your battery box chances are you have a bad battery. If you smell this once you will not forget the smell.
#3 A swollen battery case, if the casing on the battery is puffed out it won't be long and it will probably go bad if you smell the sulfur smell or rotten eggs how ever your nose works and you see a gas coming from the battery unhook the ground it could be shorted internally and could blow up yes that does happen.
Now this is a matter of personal preference, I personally do not expect to get more than a year of service from battery's I am however pleasantly surprised if I do.
This how I address battery problems I don't fool with it. Battery's are around $110-120 each from what I have found one service call for a jump start just paid for the hole set it's money wasted. As soon as the battery's show a decline in cranking power I replace the hole set. It's your money your decision send it how you will.
Another sign of a bad battery I haven't seen as often but does happen. If for some reasons an ecm or computer starts to throw off the wall codes that lead nowhere and don't make an sense . Use a good battery tester and check the batterys. I'm not talking about the load tester that looks like a cheese grater you buy at harbor freight it won't pinpoint a bad cell or something.
The reason that driver I mentioned first sat there for 8hrs is because he and the truck stop tech didn't check the first step in trouble shooting electric. The source or the battery's in this case. So long story short the driver has a new starter he didn't need and four new battery's that he did.
A side note for your safety the battery's are in my opinion the most dangerous thing on a truck for someone that does not know what that are doing and should not be taken lightly.
Batterys can and will blow up I have seen it many times.
RE: Battery's - Rawze - 01-26-2017
nice little article.
I have one of these in my dash for charging my phone ...
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SWGWILI/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li2&tag=terrynorris-20&linkId=83a40514dd9d5805f798ac33f6a34b1d&language=en_US" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00SWGWILI&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=terrynorris-20&language=en_US" ></a><img src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=terrynorris-20&language=en_US&l=li2&o=1&a=B00SWGWILI" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />
I can always tell when my batteries are getting low or weak.
RE: Battery's - RPM1 - 01-26-2017
U get what u pay for , 120 for a bat in a pice of equipment u make a living with seams like El chepo, u lucky u get a year , in my opinion, depending on how much he I use or rely in a pice of equipment determines what I use for a bat , cars pi kupz I use interstate tractors big trucks front end loaders I use cat bats John deer strong box , I have one tractor new bats in 2001 , and now just starting to give problems , knock on wood , buy good quality bats and they should last u 3 to 5 years easely, I have better thing to do then. Change bats every year, or come out expecting to use something a d not I need a boost . Just my 2 cents
RE: Battery's - Rawze - 01-26-2017
(01-26-2017 )RPM1 Wrote: U get what u pay for , 120 for a bat in a pice of equipment u make a living with seams like El chepo, u lucky u get a year , in my opinion, depending on how much he I use or rely in a pice of equipment determines what I use for a bat , cars pi kupz I use interstate tractors big trucks front end loaders I use cat bats John deer strong box , I have one tractor new bats in 2001 , and now just starting to give problems , knock on wood , buy good quality bats and they should last u 3 to 5 years easely, I have better thing to do then. Change bats every year, or come out expecting to use something a d not I need a boost . Just my 2 cents
I use good quality glass-matts. -- Cost me $180 each.
They last more than 2 years easily or more. That is a cost of $72/year on average. - Even still, i remove them BEFORE they are toast because i use them another 3 years in my internet room to keep this forum alive during power outages. == 6 years a battery = a cost of $30 a piece. I'd say i got more than my return on them.
RE: Battery's - gatow900 - 01-26-2017
In my old truck I ran 2 regular batteries and 2 deep cycle batteries for two years. Never had a problem then I sold it with the same batteries
RE: Battery's - Rawze - 01-26-2017
There are a lot of ways to check batteries, but nothing so far I have seen beats a thermal camera in checking them...
Weak plate in battery (second cell from the left shows a hot spot inside it) ...
[attachment=2393]
Alternator with diode pack going bad but not completely failed yet. Was putting slight A/C ripple into batteries, weakening them. This also causes the batteries to drain slowly when truck is shut off.
[attachment=2394]
Mis-matched cell (far left cell is hotter than the rest).
[attachment=2395]
The mounting bar was over-tightened on one side a bit and it weakened the bottom left of corner of a cell due to excess mechanical stress. The battery got weaker and weaker over time even after the bar was corrected. -- Yet another reason why a torque wrench is your friend.
[attachment=2396]
============
There are so many things that will shorten the life of batteries that it is not even funny. Just because someone says they have battery problems a lot does not mean they have cheap batteries. There could be a lot of other factors that come into play like shown above.
That is one of the reasons I like my thermal camera so much, I can spot problems like that on someones truck real fast. The sad part is that you cannot "feel" these hot spots. They are usually only a few degrees differences. Also the fact that it is not more common for shops to do this type of inspection/troubleshooting.
RE: Battery's - bazdan902 - 01-26-2017
I installed Odyssey 2150AGMs over the summer. They were extremely pricey but sounded pretty impressive and have an unheard of warranty 4 or 5 years and a supposed 8-10 year service life, not that I expect to get that but I figured the rate I was going through batteries it was win win if they last the warranty period and if they didn't warranty would offset the price and make up for my previous yearly battery replacement (if they good for it, hopefully avoid that situation altogether)... So far they have impressed me. They tested 12.9 volts out of the box and stay there pretty consistently in the summer even parked for several days. The battery monitor on my APU is set for 12.6 volts as per manufacturer for maximum discharge cycles and only kicks in when the temperature starts to drop. I was home for 2 weeks over Christmas in Eastern Canada, I had the battery disconnect switch on and I checked voltage before I left in the new year and they are all still sitting 12.9... Still early to tell but looks promising so far
RE: Battery's - in2trux - 01-26-2017
Where does he get all those wonderful toys?
https://youtu.be/GuAXcZmLNmM
RE: Battery's - Johnboy - 01-26-2017
Im glad to see that the agm battery's are working well for the heavy truck application. I have considered using them the next swap out. I bought one for my personal vehicle and it seems to be working out well.
The prices I put out there were truck stop prices where most people will end up buying there batterys. In my situation I could probably get a longer life from those battery's if I had an apu unit and didn't go off road as much.
That being said I absolutely abuse mine with all the 12v stuff I use and not idling the truck.
And of course all the battery's I'm referring to are lead acid.