The bat-tree went dead

[Sir Henry]

I stored my van in the shop all winter. It’s been in there since October. I started it every few weeks but I must have gone too long this last time because the battery was dead. The battery is under the drivers seat and it has power seats. The seat needs to be moved all the way forward to get to the battery but with power seats how do you do that with a dead battery? Stupid design. I called the Ford service wondering if there was anywhere under the hood I could trickle charge it. They told me to look for this.

IMG_3148.jpeg (2.32 MiB) Viewed 3750 times

It’s a positive charging post. I could hook the negative ground to anywhere. Brilliant!

24 hours later the battery is fully charged.

[BrokenolMarine]

That IS brilliant, and convenient if you wanted to keep a charger on the van when not in use. That way the passenger compartment isn't open to pests. Imagine your shock going down the road at 65mph and a racoon's masked face pops over the back of your driver's seat...

"Hey, where we going?"

[Sir Henry]

That IS brilliant, and convenient if you wanted to keep a charger on the van when not in use. That way the passenger compartment isn't open to pests. Imagine your shock going down the road at 65mph and a racoon's masked face pops over the back of your driver's seat...

"Hey, where we going?"

I popped the hood last fall wanting to hook up a maintenance charger and couldn’t find the battery. It wasn’t till it died I got the owners manual out. Next winter I’ll know what to do.

[HenryFan]

I keep a BatteryMinder on both my ATV battery and my Kawasaki Mule battery when they are not in use and they seem to be effective.

I have become more attentive to battery maintenance on ATV's & such that stay in a tractor shed all winter in hopes I won't be replacing batteries as often as I have in the past. I wonder if these small trickle chargers would be effective on a battery as large as an automotive battery.

"Stuff" is expensive now-a-days.

[Hatchdog]

I keep a BatteryMinder on both my ATV battery and my Kawasaki Mule battery when they are not in use and they seem to be effective.

I have become more attentive to battery maintenance on ATV's & such that stay in a tractor shed all winter in hopes I won't be replacing batteries as often as I have in the past. I wonder if these small trickle chargers would be effective on a battery as large as an automotive battery.

"Stuff" is expensive now-a-days.

I use Battery Tender trickle chargers on my boat batteries and they do a great job of keeping them on full charge. Just pulled it out last week and needed to power tilt the outboard and all was good.

Sir Henry, that’s real interesting how Ford engineered access to the battery terminal via the hood compartment. Good for them and you too.

[Mags]

I have 3 of these.
One each on my truck, generator and riding mower.
https://www.amazon.com/Automatic-Trickl ... B074Z2NFWW

[daytime dave]

Gene, the trickle charger should keep the van battery charged all winter. They take a while to get a battery fully charged if it is not, but they keep it up very nicely in my experience.

[Sir Henry]

Gene, the trickle charger should keep the van battery charged all winter. They take a while to get a battery fully charged if it is not, but they keep it up very nicely in my experience.

It’s actually more than a battery charger. It’s designed to recover a completely dead battery and to some degree restore it. It takes about 48 hours to do a complete restore. I also have a separate 5, 15 and 45 amp trickle/jump starter that I didn’t use.

[daytime dave]

I have several automatic trickle chargers my dad used. 6v or 12v. They charge and then trickle until you unhook it.