VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1912-1928 My Battery - HELP!!

Gidday fellas,

Last weekend I acidentally left the battery connected and the on/off switch in the on position after I stopped the motor for about 4 hours and yes i got a flat battery, easy to do with no body on the car just a rolling chassis and it is "hot wired" and nothing is label on the dash and I probably got side tracked with the kids, so I'll blame the kids for this :)

Anyway I jump started the car with a new spare 12volt battery off jumper leads through the 6volt that was hooked up and it fired up nice and quick and the 12volt was connected for no more than 20 seconds......

That night I hooked up my old (very old) 6volt battery charger to the battery and left it over night, normally charges great but next morning I went out to the shed to inspect and "turned the key" but only a little was charged back up, after inspecting the battery charger I found that it is now blowing fuses as soon as I connect it back up to the battery, 5amp and also 10amps, I tried at many times with about 8 fuses.....

So now I ordered a new modern 6volt - 12volt wizz bang charger and it is in the post so yesterday I went around to a friends house to borrow his new charger, I hooked it up with the digital gauge showing 6volt 6amp - green light working and indicator showing battery level very flat but in charging mode....All good to go so I leave it for about 6 hours, when I returned to inspect the battery level indicator is still the same, nothing has risen??

Is my battery stuffed???

How long to fully charge and or show some rise in the charge??

Do I need to find a stronger - powerfull charger??

Me and electrics do not mix at all :) might have something to do with me being shocked-kicked off a ladder when installing a sign lightbox many years ago, I hate the stuff....

Grant, make sure the battery is isolated so you are not powering anything while charging. At 6 amps it can take a while to charge also some times a dead battery will not take a charge at first but it sould be taking a charge after a hour. I have never found the meters and lights on the charger too be a good gauge as to charge of battery use a volt meter and a hydrometer and check each cell if the are not even or if all dead after that time of charging then time for new battery.
Hope this helps you, Doug's 27

Gidday fellas,

BATTERY UPDATE - NOW REALLY CONFUSED!!!

Yep battery was isolated, out of the car is not powering anything while charging and sitting on the work bench while I work away at happily making up 2 new cowl timber posts for my car.

So all morning and afternoon I have been constantly watching the charger show zero charge on the 6 volt battery, green light on as normal but ZERO CHARGE, so I remove the 6 volt and put on my 12 volt spare car battery and the automatic charger resets itself and charges up the 12 volt battery quickly over a few hours and the digital battery indicator gauage worked fine and slowly filled up the battery on the screen.

So the chager is working fine and the 6 volt battery must be stuffed, " AH BUGGER IT!! ".......I then put the 6 volt battery back in the chev, wire it back up then hit the starter button and it has full charge and it winding over the motor as good as new....... WTF!!!

Car starts, I let it run, shut it down, remove the battery, bang it back on the charger, and guess what, zero battery level on the indicator.

Can anyone explain this!!!.

If the battery is fully charged you will get zero charge rate. If the battery cable connections are not good it will act like the battery is dead.

Too much modern technology Monty, Its confusereing!!!!

Gidday fellas,

Sorry to confuse you all, I thought it sounded simple.

On the digital charger gauge when a battery is fully charged the little image of a battery shows full, this was the case with the 12 volt battery.

BUT when I hooked up the 6 volt battery to the charger the digital gauge with the little battery image was showing empty, there are 4 bars one on top of the other going up the battery image and as the battery charges up each bar lights up, 1,2,3 and then fully charged means 4 bars lit up....to simple?

So me thinking the 6 volt battery is stuffed because it was showing no lit bars over a 6 hour period so when I installed it back in the car just to clarify if it was dead and I hit the starter button and the motor turned over quickly and started, I was confused....

HOW CAN THIS BE - THE CHARGER IS NOT FAULTY - BATTERY MISTERY!!

So back on the charger the battery appears dead (no bars filled)again but it is actually fully charged going by the rate at which it turns over the motor...

Scratch ya head with that one as ya sit back in ya rock'in chair, trimming ya festy toe nails and enjoying a lovely ole malt whiskey by the roaring log fire tonight while watching "ICE ROAD TRUCKERS or "SWAMP PEOPLE".

My fav is actually.............."Antique Pickers"

they may not have worried about whether it shows the charge on 6 volt cause nobody uses 6 volt anymore. they just don't know we are still out there. like I said I don't trust the meters on the chargers I use a volt meter and try it in the car.

Doug's 27

Many of the chargers that have automatic features for 12v only have a manual mode for 6v. If that is the case then the battery condition mode may not indicate true condition. If you still have the instructions you can check to see if that is the case with your charger.

Here is an inexpensive but very good battery tester for 6 & 12 volt. I've had mine for about 40 years and it's still working fine.


http://www.autozone.com/autozone/ac...and-Battery-Tester/_/N-25cl?pageNumber=2

Gidday Fellas

many thanks for the info and links, will do some looking into buying one of those testers ASAP

I don't know how you feel about Harbor Freight stuff but they have this one (6v, 12 v 100 Amp.)for $19.95 plus shipping of $5.95 to Texas.
And I don't know about shipping to down under.

Hey Grant have you checked the acid level in the battery? and was the 6V battery more than 12 months old more than 3 years old? RAY

Gidday Raycycled,

Battery level was good and battery is 10ths old...

All a little odd but it is charged and working now, I drove Monty again last night

Grant
I've found (the hard way) that those 6 v home chargers will NOT charge a battery that is dead flat. A mate of mine who has a 28 Chev truck is an auto elec and he has a massive big 6 volt charger which is what you need to 'kick start it again. Worked for me and may work for you if you can find one
Chris

Gidday Chris,

My new 6volt charger arrived today in the post, hooked it up and it was showing 50% charge so I will now leave it and see what happens, I will give it 24 hours and then take it over to the autolec and get him to give it a boot with his big banger!!

Gidday fellas,

New charger works a treat, left in on over night and battery is now fully charged this morning..

Grant. That's great news. And... we ALL got a "charge" out of following your discussion.


--Bill