OUTFITTING YOUR AUTOMOTIVE WORKSHOP

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Often, severe cold will reduce a battery's efficiency; when I need to start a vehicle in sub-zero weather, I routinely hook up jumpers and a fully charged spare battery carried out from the warmth of the house.

A good-enough spare battery will cost $10 used from a junkyard and $30 new from the auto section of any discount mall store. Or better, get a fresh, new, top-quality battery for the truck. Clean up its existing old but-still-good battery for emergency use.

To spark your vehicles, get Exide, Delco, or another brand name you recognize, or buy from a local retailer you trust. Like tires, conventional lead acid batteries are still relatively low-tech and easy to make, so fly-by-nighters can cobble them together. But they aren't easy to make with consistent reliability, and poorly built connectors inside el cheapos can develop shorts between cells.

Get a five year-warrantied battery and plan to replace it after four years. Be sure the purchase date is punched into the tag on the battery, and put the sales slip/warranty in a safe place so you can get a prorated refund if the battery fails prematurely.

Jumpers and Chargers

Don't waste money on a set of mall store-cheap jumper cables with thin six-gauge or even "heavy-duty" four-gauge copper cable. They will waste much of the starting battery's power through electrical resistance, and can heat up and possibly harm your vehicles. Go to an auto parts supplier like NAPA, or look in a mail order catalog and invest as much as $65 in 15- to 25-foot, really thick, two-gauge cables with rust-resistant, zinc-plated, even jawed 500 amp-clamps at each end.

A charger is a simple 120VAC-to-12VDC transformer that has no moving parts, and it needn't be fancy; a little $20 mall store version will slow-charge any battery overnight. Be sure it is designed for large auto size 12-volt batteries, not little motorcycle or snowmobile batteries. However, a better charger for about $50 will shut off automatically to prevent overcharge and can develop a good 7.5- or 10amp surge to perk up a battery that is not completely run down in just a few minutes. With a quick top-charge you can often be on your way and let the alternator finish the battery-charging job while you are on the road. To keep stored batteries charged, you can get plug-in or solar-powered trickle chargers for about $15.

Tire Care

Third essential is a tire-changing/repair kit: a good jack and wheel-lug wrench, a tire-repair kit, and an air compressor. Country roads and drives are loaded with nails, glass, and "sharps" of all kinds-all of 'em yearning to puncture a tire. As often as you find a dead battery in the morning, you'll find a dead-flat tire-or more often, one that's half down from a slow leak: a small puncture or one still partly sealed by the object that did the damage.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print