The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

I need to replace my battery. I have very little knowledge of the subject so I'm not sure what to get. I'd be very grateful for any advice, including an explanation of cold cranking amps and amp hours, and any other factors that are relevant. Opinions on makes would also be useful.
Many thanks.
Best, Adrian.

Hi Adrian

In my Super Six is a " Optima Red Top " very powerfull battery.
they have no problem to coldcrank a modern tractor with much bigger engine,and they are
little so no problem to fit in a fordson battery holder
L 26 cm
W 17 cm
H 24 cm
CCA 815 A (EN) CA 1000 A
here in germany i paid 150 Euro (not cheap,but good battery)

hope this info is helpfull

mbg Jan

I got an E44 Varta Silver Car Battery 77Ah for my Dexta from Tayna Ltd. Cost £70 delivered.

You might want one a bit stronger for your Major. Tayna are v efficient &cheap.

Thanks for your help, Jan and Ben.
I'll give Tayna a ring.
Best, Adrian.

Search on these pages for 'Fordson'
http://www.tayna.co.uk/644-Numax-Commer ... -3276.html
http://www.tayna.co.uk/643-Powerline-Ba ... -9403.html

My Majors all start real easy, so I allways use old batteries I take out of my working tractors.
Even the 590 E 6 Zylinder has no problem starting with an older battery. Replacement batteries for the working fleet are allways the "Optima Red Top" like Jan mentioned.

Thanks again, Ben. I don't know why, but I hadn't considered buying a battery online. Your suggestion is spot on. Tayna's prices are very good, and they have a wide range to choose from.
Matthias, thanks for your comments. You're right, these engines do start easily, but not with my current battery they don't!
Best, Adrian.

I buy mine from Central Tyres, reasonable price and local. We get good service from them in the cars and tractors unlike some more expensive ones I bought.

Try this link and read the (very) small print.

http://www.fordsontractorpages.nl/phpbb ... f=7&t=3639

The Major has the highest Ah of the lot.

Thanks Brian. The 144ah figure quoted for the Major seems hard to achieve with modern batteries that otherwise fit the criteria in terms of physical size and cold cranking hours. The batteries on the Tayna website tend to be around the 96ah with 750cca or so, again going by a battery that would physically look to be the right size for the battery tray. Could it be that battery technology has moved on since the Ford spec sheet was published, and that a lower ah figure now works, if the cca figure is high enough?
I found this explanation of batteries on a forum. I didn't appreciate the difference between a starter battery and a deep cycle battery (Tayna sells both and they look pretty similar). I think I understand the subject a bit better now.
Best, Adrian.

In most cases, the stock-size battery is correct, and that's what you should stick with.

A smaller battery is likely to fail you sooner, unless you live somewhere without a winter (Hilo?).

A larger battery is an extra expense, extra toxins, extra weight, and won't give you dramatically longer life.

CCA (cold cranking amps) is the main thing to pay attention to. This is a measure of how much current the battery can provide at 0 deg F. Batteries work better when they are warm, so the colder it gets, the less current it can provide.

Starting an engine requires a lot of current, over a very short time. Meanwhile, cold engines are harder to start, requiring more power to get them going.

As batteries age, their internal resistance increases, reducing CCA. Total capacity decreases at the same time. This is why a newer battery can start your car in any weather, even if you leave the headlights on overnight, while an old battery might only start the car when fully charged, in good weather.

Starter batteries are optimized for short-duration, high-current draws, followed immediately by recharging. They are built with thinner plates with more surface area, which speeds up the chemical reactions that release the energy. If you draw them down to 1/2 charge, and then leave them like that for a while, hard crystals will form on the plates, which won't re-desolve easily on recharging. That reduces capacity and CCA over time. So, keep your starter battery fully charged, and avoid dropping below 80% during non-starter usage.

(Deep-cycle batteries, like on golf carts, fork lifts, some boats, some RVs are able to tolerate being discharged deeper and left that way longer than starter batteries, but they really don't like a high-current draw like for starting an engine. Best to draw on them gently, and never below 50% if you can help it.)

So, a regular car battery is not a good device for running appliances for a long time, without the engine running. However, a stock car stereo doesn't draw much current, so you can probably get away with it for a while without a problem. But if you leave it on all night, you may drain your starter battery enough to damage it.

Increasing your battery size will allow you to run those appliances for a little longer, but it's still not the right technology.

In an RV or boat, you have a starter battery and a separate "house" battery, which is deep-cycle. Then use a battery isolator switch to use only the starter to start, then recharge it, then recharge the house battery from the alternator. (You can also use the house battery to assist the starter when the starter battery is low.) Some people build these in to their cars if they have really big stereos, or a small camping setup with fridge in a van or pick-up camper.

Here's my cold start link - http://youtu.be/vuElOwcH5mg

Wow. Mine does not even start in warm condition that fast.

Is that a sign for bad compression?

Peter