Carrier staring question/problem

[David Dunlop]

Just a thought because I had a bad battery in my car once.

See if you can pull the battery completely from the carrier and apply a heavy load to it. If your positive terminal heats up, you very likely have a bad connection for it inside the battery: i.e. the battery is toast.

David

[rob love]

With regard to batteries, there are a only a few test tools you need. A hydrometer (I prefer the glass tube type with the floating bulb over the plastic antifreeze tester type) and one of those $30 load testers that are everywhere these days. But usually, if the hydrometer reads OK, the battery is fine.

Check the strength of each cell with the hydrometer. If all are equal, and in the yellow or the green, you are good. If, any one cell is more than 20 points out from the rest, the battery is toast and will not give good service. Make an allowance if you just added a bunch of water and have not mixed it up with the acid. You can do this by pumping the hydrometer in and out a few times to mix the fluid.

If you have a dead battery, take some readings periodically while charging the battery. Same deal, as the cells come up they should not be more than 20 points apart from each other.

I also prefer slowly charging a battery, with less than 7 amps......2 amps is even better. A quick charge can really damage a battery if the temperatures are not controlled.

As for other battery tools, I have the old "exide" case type battery tool carrier, which is made of the bakelite material the battery cases were made out of. In it is a battery carrying strap, a battery brush, battery terminal spreader pliers, and the round nose battery pliers, and the battery post puller. The spreader pliers are especially great. They allow you to evenly spread the terminals so you can get them all the way onto the posts.
As well, the carrier has a bulb type syringe, like you use for basting turkeys (for putting water into the cells) and the hydrometer.

The battery carriers are hard to find here in the west, because they also had an area for water. Guys would leave the water in them and they would crack in the winter.

[Hans Mulder]

As an aside, for the modern sealed batteries, Canadian Tire has a nice computerized tester that will run a 20 min diagnostic and tell you down the the cell what the problem is.

[Jim Burrill]

Copied Rob's plan and used the 12v Wireless battery to just spin the starter from a new 6V solenoid. Worked like a champ in all three carriers we did this with.

And having 12v int he Wireless box is sorta authentic!

[rob love]

I think to be truly authentic, you need to use the hand crank after the battery doesn't cut it. After that handle whacks your elbow a few times, and you finish the happy dance, you will be happy to do whatever it takes not to have to use the crank handle again.

Personally, after I finished swearing and dancing around, and waited for the pain to subside enough to decide if I had broken my elbow or not, I would look at my Ford KL and it would be happily purring there waiting for me.

[Jordan Baker]

I've had the same hard starting issues with my Carrier this year as well. So far I have the problem narrowed down to a bad connection at the starter bolt to power cable. My copper bolt is only half as long as it should be (top half broken off at some point). The threads were also chewed up and it has since been re-tapped down to 1/4"-20nc. Nowy cable is loose again and it's time to replace the special bolt.

Rob I've also used the hand crank a few times. The first time I sliced all my caluses off of both hands and said quite a few words. Other times I've hardly moved it and it fired right up.

Bruce I'm all for keeping it stock 6 volt like you.

[Ron Pier]

I have to fess up! After years of criticising others and refusing to join their ranks of converting my Jeep to 12 volt. I have got a 12 volt carrier. It has a 12 volt starter. It still charges through it's original dynamo but with a period 12 volt regulator. I swapped the bulbs and a wizard friend has put resistors on the gauges........I've never had a working fuel gauge though?? I've put a little black period starter button on the dash and hidden a solanoid near the starter. Blimey does it whiz over. Ron