General non-MG related discussions. No politics here please!!
I store the MG all winter and NEVER have an issue with the battery ... I story my motorcyle all winter and the battery NEVER survives the winter ... In both instances I leave them in the vehicle which are both stored in the same unheated garage ... once a month I throw on a trickle charge. Any ideas?
Car battery has more lead and acid than an motorcycle battery?? From a chemistry standpoint, the more reactants there are, the longer a reaction takes to occur. A lead acid battery works off of a chemical reaction.
If you're storing them, why not disconnect the batteries? Or do you disconnect them--I couldn't tell from the post.
You need one of these....a battery float charger. I had a 1999 Kawasaki Concours, sold in 2006, with the original battery. It was stored every winter but I removed the battery and attached it to a battery float charger, paying attention to the electrolyte level. I have a 6 year old battery in my MG that gets the same treatment. A company called Battery Tender makes several models as well.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=42292
S. Duerr Wrote:
britcars Wrote:
chgosfs Wrote:
golf Wrote:
Steve,
By conductivity through the dirt and filth. It may not seem likely, but it does happen.
Also, you might want to check out your battery cables ~ power and ground, both.
A battery cable that has suffered from corrosion of the terminals as well as the cable inside the insulating sheath can prevent your battery from getting properly charged by the generator/alternator if it has deteriorated to a point where the contact made by the terminals themselves are badly oxidized or corroded, AND if the stranded wire in the cable itself has lost the connections of those strands and your cable is actually depending on just a few of them to carry the load and provide charging.
I have helped folks whose cables looked mostly OK by visual inspection, but which had actually had acid flow around the terminal and beneath the vinyl jacket, hiding the corrosion inside. When we finally looked at things more closely and stripped back the insulating jacket, we found in one case that only 3 strands of the inner cable were actually still making reasonably good and solid contact! That limits both current flowing out to the car's system and juice flowing back to charge the battery. A battery under those circumstances is only marginally being charged and can deteriorate as its chemistry goes to hell.
If you are continually replacing batteries, it sounds to me like a problem other than the batteries themselves, and checking out your most basic part of the wiring system, the main cables, would be a very good place to start.