Morris Minor Owners Club

My battery is a few years old now and has gone flat once and nearly flat several times. It's 60AH and 570CCA. It has been the best battery I have ever had. However since buying the battery I have modified the electrical system quite alot. I now have:

Heated front windscreen, halogen front headlamps, electronic ignition, an 600W 240v invertor (that hardly ever gets used) and several interior lamps etc. It is a working van that gets used in the city, but it also has short periods when it's not in use.

The biggest factor that has affected starting is the recent reconditioned 1275 engine, the compression is so good that I can barely turn it with the handle.

I did some research on the internet and found this battery to be one of the best in terms of size (biggest that will fit in the battery compartment), High AH & CCA at 75AH and 630CCA, has correct layout and it came first in the only car battery review I could find. The Exide 031TE, which comes with a 4 year guarantee.

[color=#BF00BF]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/EX ... 39[/color]

But when I showed this to my friend who's an electrical engineer , he said that it might be too powerful depending on how much the alternator charges. So can anyone shed any light on the best battery/alternator combo??

not sure which is best but i have a huge caravan battery powering my little moggy, it started the car easily in the cold, the car does have a 600watt ampp and 1200 watt sub which hasnt made it go flat yet

Hello WP,

I don't see any problem with it, a lot depends on how you use the car? That size battery would power your inverter for about an hour and a half, but I doubt that the car would start after that. The larger the battery capacity the greater charging current it will take but the usual alternator would charge that OK. I'm not sure how much a heated screen takes but usually it's not on for very long, so your extra loads, inverter excepted, are not too great so will not be a problem?

Alec

The alternator will cope - this is a common misconception, that a bigger battery needs a bigger alternator....... If the van stands idle for periods I can highly recommend a solar charger ~ £10 from Maplins which will keep the battery up nicely.

i use 038 size .

If you expect to use lights etc when standing with the engine off - better to install a second battery and run the lights from that - with a split charging system to charge up the second battery when running. It doesn't need to be anything more fancy than a diode (rated at ~ 20 amp!) really - although that will give a ~ 0.7 volt drop - it will still put plenty of power into the second battery.

038 is the standard size.

The regularly used minors in the household have 063 batteries which are cheap because they are very common (most petrol fords etc etc)