Eric,
I think you may have a bad cell or two
in your battery. It will accept a
charge, but each cell is worth about 1.5
volts, and if it is defective that
charge and voltage will go away very
quickly. You probably need a new
battery.
FYI: It is not a bad idea to use a
small wall mount charger rated at 12
volts, 1 Amp or a little more, and
connect it to a cigarette lighter plug
so it can be plugged into your cigarette
lighter receptacle during long periods
of storage to keep the battery from
going through chemical changes that
could cause internal damage.
Using an external power supply to keep
the battery topped off during storage is
a good idea for cars with gel-cell
batteries such as the Miata, or cars
with radios or alarm systems that are
always drawing power and will discharge
the battery in a few weeks.
Tom
69 2000 "Mr. Hyde"
Portland, Oregon
http://www.acmehomesales.com/datsun
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Corwin
[mailto:ecorwin@uchicago.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 8:41 AM
To: datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net
Subject: battery problem on '69 1600 (I
hope)
Hi,
This is my first time posting to this
list but I've been reading it for
a while and it's been very helpful. I
checked all around and couldn't
find a good answer to my problem
anywhere, so I'll ask here.
I have a '69 1600 (with electronic
distributor) that I bought last
summer. I stored it indoors over the
winter and fired it up about once
a month w/out issue. However, I let it
sit for the last two or three
months without turning it over once
(stupid). When I tried recently I
found that the battery had about 1.5 V
in it. So I jumped it and it
turned over fine, while running the
thing read about 14 V or so (I
don't remember exactly but it seemed
quite normal and ran without a
problem). So I drove around for a long
time to try to recharge the
battery (and remembered again why I
bought this car, man is it a blast
to drive) and when I parked it I'd only
charged it to about 10.5 V.
So, I thought I just needed to run it
longer. However, yesterday (two
days after driving it) when I checked it
the Voltage in the battery had
dropped to 9.5 V (which is a pretty big
drop). So here's the question,
does this sound like a battery that
won't hold a charge anymore as a
result of being drained or like a really
bad (and new, never had any
problems in the summer...) parasitic
leak? I think I'll take it into
sears to get a charging test (free), but
I'm not sure if they check for
parasitic leaks. So does this sound
like a stupidly familiar problem
to anyone?
Thanks in advance for any help or
suggestions,
--Eric
'69 1600
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