VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 31 charger & battery

I use trickle chargers on all of my cars without issue until now. I have tried two different chargers on my 31 and get the same occurrence. This is a new battery and does not show any signs of not holding a charge. When I connect the charger, it starts red, goes to green, one has auto shutoff, then after a period of time goes back to red and stays there. All of the connections seem good. I'm not sure what else I should look at.

Have your new battery tested at the place where you bought it. From what you describe it sounds like it might be a battery issue.

Thank you, I was afraid that was the strongest possibility. Although that could be the easiest fix.

Best Place to start based on your diagnoses

may simply be a bad battery, a dead cell, etc...

This is a condition that is common with Optima batteries. Is your battery a dry-cell or the standard lead-acid battery?

I might also ask if you are using the small charger/maintainer chargers?? If so, do they make one for the 6Volt batteries as in your 31??

Jim

It is a lead-acid battery and Both of these mini chargers are 6V.

Could you give me the brand names as I would like one for my 31.

Thanks

Jim.

I bought my battery at NAPA, it was $93.00. My issue of the chargers indicating I should check the battery are still unanswered. I took the battery out and checked it and got the same result. Then I took it back to NAPA to have them check it and it read what it was supposed to, so I guess going forward I will charge it until I get a red light then unplug it. Sure seems strange, out of all of the 20's and 30's cars I've owned I have never experienced this.

Try getting hold of a battery hydrometer to test the specific gravity of the acid/water solution in each cell to give you an accurate condition of each cell.

I had a similar problem until I discovered that the charger connector I had wired to the battery for ease of charging was from another charger and was reversing the poles.

The specific gravity does check out, all three cells in the good range. I'll double check the polarity but I haven't changed anything there. Really a curious situation.

Have you tried your charger on another battery so see what it does?

I use a BatteryTender Jr. on my 6volt 1931, and I have it plugged in for weeks with a solid green light. When I return after driving the car, I plug it in and the red light turns to green after about 2 hours. Stays green till I have to plug it in the next time. Works like a charm. (My battery is about 4 years old, and suffers the AZ summer heat, so you know it is not the heartiest).

I found that the" Battery Butler" works well, it only charges when needed.

I have the 6v Battery Tender Jr Plus version, which looks like they no longer make. they now have a High Efficiency version.

mated to my Optima Red Top 6v

I use a Battery Butler also and it works fantastic!