Econoline battery group 65 "conversion"?

[Nero]

The factory mounted Ford box on my dad's rv is very robust, but it does make it a pain to replace the battery. Worth it in my opinion.

 

[yARIC008]

I have a '94 UHaul 7.3 that gives me same prob. IIRC, without going to look, pass side is a Group 51 or 31 or something, lots smaller. And both need changing out as we speak. Have to charge up to crank it now.
Not much room on pass side to redo my battery box..... but some day I'm going to somehow.

Stock is not group 31. Group 31 is a much larger battery. The optima group 31 though is narrower than a normal group 31 due to the offset spiracells therefore fits.

 

[CDX825]

Never understood why they did this. Anytime you hook batteries in parallel you want them to be the same size and capacity.

 

[Booyah45828]

I agree, but I imagine they did what they had to do. It needed 2 batteries, 2 group 65's wouldn't fit, so they went with the largest that would. On the vans with the 1 battery frame mounted, a lot of van owners and mechanics don't know 2nd one is there. I had a COA van come in with a constant dead battery issue. Checking parasitic draw revealed the 10+ year old frame mounted battery and it's shorted cell.

Someone on here mounted 2 group 31 agm's on their frame, I forget who it was, but they had them mounted with the studs facing out for easy cable connecting and it looked pretty slick. The 2 problems I have with frame batteries is dirt/corrosion from being under the truck, and hoisting the heavy b@stards up there and then getting them connected.

 

[Danielle]

Started the new cables to run one on the frame. This will hopefully get me running so it can get itself out of the way of my used tire racks. I'm drowning in junk tires but they can't get to them with this bus haha.