VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Electrical - 6 volt The 48 aero just died

TonyW,

Wasn't that battery on concrete thing back when the batteries were made out of rubber. How doe the plastic cases of nowaday batteries leak juice to the concrete? Huh?

Charlie

I've heard the same...That's now an old wives tale: "Keep battery's off the concrete floors."

If you don't keep batteries off the concrete floor, you will be able to see where they sat for years to come.

The plastic case does save it a bit but not a complete fix.
Tony

Charlie, I had a battery in my 48 that was so weak that I had to charge it every time it sat for a few days. I put a maintainer/charger on it and it lasted 2 more years so I am a believer in them.
As far as the wood verses concrete thing, it may be an old wives tale, but I still put them on a piece of wood.

Circa 1950, all our batteries were stored in a rack with a trickle charger. The boss says no batteries sitting on the floor, they discharge. True! I don't know but I have always stored my batteries off the floor.

Perhaps the non believers would like to perform a little experiment and let us know the results.....

Oh, I've heard it was true at one time...( discharging by being close to the ground ) Like way back in the '50's... I leave mine on a piece of wood to keep from "etching" the floor...

Tom and Ray (click'n clack) the Tappet Bros. talked about it on a show a while back...Thought it had something to do with the case material and/or the electro-lite on the outside of the battery grounding it out or something...Anyway, they said it was now an old wives tale...You got a problem, take it up with them...I'm just the messenger...

Convert to 8V? BS!
Converting is putting in an 8V battery and tweaking the regulator to put out about 10V when running with the battery reasonably charged. Great, except you'll soon ruin your radio and experience short headlamp life! Unless you have a three brush generator, there's nothing you can do to affect the max current output. Regulators have a current limit relay and it can be tweaked to raise the max output, but too much of that will melt the solder in the armature and throw it out, rendering the generator inop for good! And, of course, it only helps at fairly high throttle. VERY few people are left who can properly tune an electromechanical regulator!

There's a lot to be said for converting to an alternator!

I used to use a good size ham rig in my '53 chevy and I know all about such matters. I once had a generator bearing freeze up as I was leaving MA to come home to NC from school one winter. I loosened the fanbelt so it would slip on the generator but still turn the fan and kept on trucking. I turned the radio on every hour or so to let people know where I was but otherwise ran blacked out behind semis. About dawn the battery was sagging, as seen on my voltmeter in the dash, so I stopped at a restaurant with a filling station next door. We put their charger on while I ate and that carried me the last couple hundred miles. That trip included the Mass Pike, Ct Turnpike, Jersey Turnpike, Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, and on down through VA to NC. Wasn't it great to be young!

Great story...But, no one here recommends going with an 8 volt battery/system...You must have been in a hurry to run at night, just on the battery...Problem is when the rigs stop...You have to, too. I've run hundreds of miles on just the battery...You do what you have to do...Re-charge...Go some more...Re-charge, again...Go some more...And that was just last week...

Last year at the international car show located in Kalispell MT a Fellow enthusiast from north of the border told me about the problems he had on the trip down. All related to the installation of an 8 volt battery and attempts to get the voltage regulator adjusted. I got the distinct feeling that upon arrival back north the vehicle was going to return to 6 volt and the problems that were to be cured with the 8 volts would be properly addressed.

Wilson:

I figured the PO of my car didn't have a clue when I saw the 6V battery in the car. Just to be sure, I read the voltage across the battery terminals with the engine running to make sure everything was OK. I have no idea what generator is in my car, because there's no tag on it. I have noticed that it seems to recharge the battery after a start pretty quickly.

Regards:
Oldengineer

It normally only takes a few miles of driving to recharge the battery. I was surprised it took so short a time. I have a generator with electronic regulator that I use on my '28 and '31 when touring. I can watch the ammeter to tell when the starting charge is restored.

I read years and years ago that each time the car is started it takes about seven miles of driving to recharge the battery.

I read the same thing way back when. Found out that it doesn't take that much driving. Might be due to the low compression of the early six vs. later engines that take more power to crank over the engines. So it takes more charging time. But on the other hand the 12 amp output from a '31 generator vs. 20-30 amp output from later ones should make the time/distance about the same????

I have read the same. Generally speaking, I think that is still a good rule of thumb.

Charlie

I think JYD's comment could be very close to the mark for a totally flat battery.
Tony

I also wondered if some of the recharging time might depend on the condition of the battery...? I have a brand new battery ( some what ) and I'm not really surprised when I see the needle back to straight up after just a minute or probably two...

Kevin:

That's what I'm seeing with my 48 as well. Its got a new battery in it, and, I think the extra ground wire I added helped as well.


Regards:
Oldengineer

A totally flat battery will need a lot longer than seven minutes to recharge. To properly recharge a totally flat battery it will need to be first charged at a high rate and then charged at a lower rate for a lengthy time to rebuild the plates back to their best possible condition-perhaps 8-12 hours.I've sold many 6 volt batteries in my 46 years in the truck parts business and one of the complaints on returned batteries was they wouldn't hold a charge. Most customers would only charge them on high for an hour or so. We would place that same battery on a low charge for 12-24 hours and return it to the customer and most 6 volt batteries (if maintained) would last 4-6 years.

Did you mean seven miles instead of seven minutes? At any rate, the old rule of thumb was that each time the car was started it would take seven miles of driving to recharge the battery to the point that it was previously before starting the car. However, a totally flat battery is something different and it would take hours to charge the battery from flat to full capacity.

Yes seven miles, but it could depend on how fast you drive and what rpm the generator would max out at.

Right. The seven miles is just a general rule of thumb thing, but there are certainly a lot of variables to that rule.