Well, I'm not sure where I am in relation to a cheese danish
in knowledge of electrical systems, but I do have a question. My
Die-hard is dead. During the engine swap on my TR4A my battery
sat around too long, and was then used for the electro-hydraulic
engine hoist until it could hoist no longer. When I heard about
the rumored battery sale at Sears I headed over there. Well
there is no sale on Die-Hards right now, at least not in
Cambridge, MA. But I decided to buy a battery charger which was
on sale in the hopes of resurrecting my own battery. The salesman,
however, was quite close to a cheese danish in his knowledge of
batteries and chargers, so I appeal to you.
I bought the cheapest automatic charger they have. It is
capable of charging at 12 Volts in a 2 amp mode and a 10 amp
mode. It also has a switch that has two settings: "Deep Cycle"
and "All Others."
My questions are:
1. Is my battery "deep cycle?" (for that matter what is "deep
cycle?") The instructions do not say. In Sears I saw some
batteries marked deep cycle and they were all in the marine area,
so I assume my battery is not, but I am not sure. The
instructions also say to charge any battery with an "eye" (like
the Delco Freedom) as a "deep cycle" if that helps.
2. Should I charge my battery at 10amps or 2amps? The
instructions to the charger say the 2amp setting is only for lawn
tractor and motorcycle batteries. But my Bentley manual says
that charging a battery at too high an amperage can harm it and
that it is better to "trickle charge" the battery overnight. So,
if I don't care how long it takes, will it be better for the
battery to charge at 2amps?
3. How do I know if my battery is gone? The TR4 was used
seldomly in the last year and a half (<200 miles) and now the
battery has sat around this winter mostly discharged. I read
somewhere on this list that this can allow your battery to freeze
and ruin it. How does this happen? How can I tell if it has
happened? For that matter, what causes a battery to die in
general?
Thanks for your help. I plan to go down to NY soon (where
the car lives) and finish my engine swap now that I have the bolt
to plug that oil leak in the head. Then I can put the interior
back in, the bonnet on and I will be finished!!! (until the next
project. I noticed that the front bushings and ball joints are
looking rather bad . . .)
Michael Hering
'67 TR4A IRS
|