Batteries

[Cincinnati Guy]

What batteries do you all recommend? During winter here it sometimes does get down to zero with a windchill,(Ohio Weather HAHA) In the summer it can get as hot as 100. Yesterday morning we had a windchill overnight at 20Degrees went to start up truck after letting GP's take there course and I got a slow crank over, I let it sit a minute tried again and still slow, but I kept cranking and it finally started! (PHEW) So I think its time for new Batteries since Ive never changed them since I owned it, and they dont match either, Ive heard Interstate was good but not to sure about price. Any opinions out there?

 

[JohnBoy1]

Ive got the interstate 750's in mine and there good, im partial to the optima's though but at $300 a set its pretty steep.

 

[Andylad13]

well, what you must consider, is a few things first.

are your terminals clean?
check the voltage when the truck is on and off, should be 12.4 ish off and on should be 14.4 if not more.
and do you have a gear reduction starter?

if you dont have a gear reduction starter, and your batteries test badly, i would suggest dumping some money in batteries like the interstates, or basically anything you can find thats big, and a new starter. if you do both, you wont be worried about not being able to start.

 

[NJGearhead666]

I have 2 Interstate 1000's in mine. today in jersey this morning it was 22 degrees with a wind chill in the low teens, started on the first crank. been using Interstate for years never have let me down

 

[LCAM-01XA]

whatever batteries you pick up, make sure they're at least 850 CCA, the higher CCAs the better obviously. I got two 850 CCA Autolites in my truck, right about 1 year old, they work great.

 

[82F100SWB]

Get yourself a pair of the highest CCA rated group 31 batteries(big rig issue) you can find, they will fit in the trays. They tend to have lots of reserve capacity and tend to last a good long while. I actually run my 6.9 truck on a single one, and have since I've had it, and it'll still start it at -30.
A new starter last winter made a huge difference on that truck too.

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

Get yourself a pair of the highest CCA rated group 31 batteries(big rig issue) you can find, they will fit in the trays.

What he said.

The absolute best two things I did to improve the starting of my trucks was to improve the cable-ends and switch to Group-31S batteries.

I get Interstate "appearance blems" right off the route-truck for around forty-bucks and they last as long as a 1st line battery.

I improved the cables by cutting away the lead end-clamps and replacing them with crimped-on copper lugs/ring-terminals and using "STUD"-type batteries that have 3/8" threaded studs, instead of soft lead posts.

I cut away that aggravating lead clamp-terminal that is midway in the HOT cable, making that cable into TWO seperate cables, with copper lugs in it's place.

I use big wing-nuts on the battery-studs and removing a battery cable for whatever reason is a five-second job, no longer the dreaded task that it had been with the lead terminals.

I have seven trucks and have had about every battery combination out there, and I have never found anything else that will crank an engine with the authority that a Group-31 battery is capable of.

By the way, Group-30 and Group-31 are the same identical battery with the difference being that the Group-30 has the posts/studs located to one side of the battery's top, whereas the Group-31 have the posts/studs located in the top-center.

The addition of the letter "S" denotes that the battery has threaded studs, instead of lead posts.

For example, Group-30 would be a battery with lead posts offset to one side of top-center; Group-31S would be a battery with threaded studs positioned top-center.


If you still have batteries too good to discard, yet wish to upgrade the cables to the copper lugs, you can attach "marine" terminals to the lead posts of your current batteries and fasten the copper lugs to those; then, when you are ready for new batteries, the cables are already fixed for the change to stud-type batteries.

If you are caught in the situation that you need batteries NOW, but your cables are still the crappy old lead-terminal type and you haven't time to mess with them, go ahead and buy the stud-type batteries PLUS get the lead post adaptors that simply screw onto the threaded studs and permit the lead-terminals to be clamped to them.

 

[typ4]

Get yourself a pair of the highest CCA rated group 31 batteries(big rig issue) you can find, they will fit in the trays. They tend to have lots of reserve capacity and tend to last a good long while. I actually run my 6.9 truck on a single one, and have since I've had it, and it'll still start it at -30.
A new starter last winter made a huge difference on that truck too.

I was wondering about doing that single ,because I want to put an extra RV batt in the other side for the camper, I have a cpap breathing machine that I use and when we dry camp some longer rv bat life would be good.

 

[02AutoWag]

I just tried last weekend to put Napa brand Group 31 batteries in my 1989 CC SRW. The automotive posts (I didn't get the screw studs) were located centerline, just as described. With the wires connected on the driver's side, the negative was firmly resting against the hood insulation. I didn't feel comfortable with this, so I returned the batteries and settled for Group 65.

Could I have gotten away with the negative post touching the hood insulation?

 

[towcat]

I just tried last weekend to put Napa brand Group 31 batteries in my 1989 CC SRW. The automotive posts (I didn't get the screw studs) were located centerline, just as described. With the wires connected on the driver's side, the negative was firmly resting against the hood insulation. I didn't feel comfortable with this, so I returned the batteries and settled for Group 65.

Could I have gotten away with the negative post touching the hood insulation?

the neg is ok BUT imho that's a little too close for my comfort. I've seen enough car fires over the years where the battery welded itself to the hood from a collision. this is very common with the small imports with front mounted batteries. If anyone does want to do this, make sure you have a real good insulator between the terminal and the hood. oh yes, the disclaimer....87-97noses have very little battery height clearance. 80-86 have just enough to cram a 27 in and possibly a 31.

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

Could I have gotten away with the negative post touching the hood insulation?

That seems odd, as both posts of my batteries are a long way from touching the bottom side of the hood; my truck is a 1985.

The Negative post could actually be against metal somewhere and not hurt anything electrically, as the Negative cables get GROUNDED anyway.


A little trick that I have been doing for so many years that I sort of forget about it is thus :


For each HOT battery-cable, cut a piece of thick rubber about four-by-six.

In one end of this rubber, cut two lengthwise slits about 1-1/2 long terminating at punched holes (to keep the split from getting longer), such that the width of rubber between the slits almost wraps completely around the cable.

Using about three decent sized ZipTies, attach this piece of rubber to the HOT cable, such that the resulting flap of rubber completely covers the top of the HOT terminal-end.


You can get fancy by cutting the piece of rubber in sort of a ping-pong-paddle shape, with the "handle" end being ZipTied and the "paddle" end covering the terminal.


I have used everything from old used agricultural inner-tubes, truck-tubes, truck tire "flaps", old "gum" boots, whatever was free and yielded a decent piece of rubber.

Being thus protected, the HOT post can be almost against the hood and still be insulated from contact.


These little guards also protect somewhat from those times when you forget and let a wrench tip the HOT post.

 

[02AutoWag]

Oh, another problem was the smaller negative lead off the main negative cable was too short to connect to whatever it was suppose to go. I thought about lengthening it, but obviously chickened-out.

So what was this small lead to? Could I have lengthened it?

I also didn't try to install the passenger side battery, so don't know what problems if any I would have encountered.

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

I've seen enough car fires over the years where the battery welded itself to the hood from a collision.

I just had another epiphany.


I am going to screw a piece of thick plastic to the bottom of the hood such that it insulates the hood from battery contact.

I recently picked up some 1/4"-thick black plastic from out of the ditch that will do just fine.

Another idea would be to use a piece cut from a dis-carded mud-flap, or a shiny new one complete with logo if you are so minded.


This, coupled with the rubber flap I already mentioned, should protect things pretty good.

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

So what was this small lead to? Could I have lengthened it?

You can lengthen any of the wires/cables to suit; longer is usually better in this case.

Even better is to simply replace any too-short wires with longer FATTER wires.

That skinny wire is probably the body GROUND and probably attaches to a screw on the shroud close to the battery.


If it is on the NEGATIVE cable, it is a GROUND and can be grounded most anywhere.


Follow my advice in the above two posts and stick those big batteries back in there.

 

[Hoss6.9]

Interstate Batteries.....

How do you go about buying the appearence blems right off of the truck? I need 4 Group 31S right now for the big truck and was priced $130.00 each....
OUCH.... I would LOVE to get them for $40.00 each... I don't care what they look like. They are in a battery box and buried behind the side fairing.....