My question for you fellow H.A.M.Bers is ? What advantage would I have by running a 6 volt battery with 640 amp hrs. over a 8 volt battery with 520 amp hrs. My concern is because the Mercury I'm driving now is designed for a six volt system. But came with an 8 volt battery
Amps and volts are two very different things. The 6 volt, higher amp battery will spin the starter slower, but with more power on a hard starting engine. The 8 volt, lower amp battery, will spin the starter faster, but with less power (umph) in a hard to spin engine. This combination of batteries may end up being a tossup as to which to use. If the engine starts easily / quickly, I'd go for the 8 volt. Mike
Multiply the voltage X amperage to give you Wattage and what ever number is higher is best.. That said, I would want the one with more pressure, the 8 volt.. Electric flows like water, amperage is how much and voltage is how much pressure is available to push the electrons through the wires and what ever device your trying to get to work for you.. The positive is the faucet and the ground is the drain..
The old eight volt battery trick , was used back in the day for slow starting vehicles. If your battery went bad on an older rig, you just bought the eight bolt battery and adjusted your voltage regulator. Like magic... you engine spun over faster,your engine started faster, your lights were brighter, your life was better! Lol. We had several on the ranch, back in the day! Bones
The higher voltage will also make your lamps brighter, and shorten their life by a lot. A voltage increase of 1/3 will reduce lamp life by something like 97% - if you have a bad electrical system with big voltage drop between battery and lamps that may be okay still, on the other hand changing light bulbs could be an almost daily occurance if the system is healthy. I prefer fixing the actual problems rather than just bumping up the voltage until faulty things work again.
Get the best 6v battery you can buy, good large 6v cables and clean grounds. I personally don't care for 8 volt batteries. The regulator needs to be adjusted to 8.5 to 9 volts and that's hard on generators. Do 6 volt the right way or switch to 12 volt. I won't warranty a generator rebuild if its used on a 8 volt battery. My 2 cents, although some will say its nonsense.
In my experiences in the sixties with a 1937 Ford ton and a half, we did not experience any shorting of the lights life, but I didn’t use the lights much. The truck had the old bulb, reflector system and was not very bright, even thought the reflector was in good condition at the time. The 8 volt battery did help the brightness of the lights. And untill my nephew shot out the headlights, in about 1990, the bulbs were still working. But remember those bulbs were built in the USA problaly sometime before 1955! Light bulbs today, built in X countries , with proper voltage are lucky to last a couple of months! Just my experiences. Bones
yrs ago my father/in laws t club went thru a 8 volt phase . after awhile they decided no real negatives but not worth the trouble
I think it depends upon how you intend to use the vehicle. I have used an 8-volt battery on my ‘46 GMC for over 20 years. It gets driven infrequently and might sit for 2-3 months between use. I adjusted the voltage regulator to 10 Volta. I have had no issues with the generator of the light bulbs. I keep a battery tender on it 24/7. The batteries last 6-8 years. The truck has an ammeter and I installed a quick disconnect on the hot wire that goes to the gauge cluster. The biggest benefit is the faster starter speed and less time waiting for the fuel pump to get gas up to the carb.
2 Optima batteries (6v) typically fit side by side in a battery tray. Wire them parallel. Each battery almost 1000 cranking amps! Works Great !!
I upgraded to an 8 volt battery in my old '53 F-100. Never adjusted the regulator (didn't know I was supposed to), and never had an issue with lights etc. Drove it that way for over a year...It just started better
Battery tender makes an 8-volt unit. At one time they were out of stock but they should be available now.
Just an upgrade for six volt cars. You don’t have to change anything but the voltage regulator. Bones
THIS!! It was a real common fix back then. Big issue was that light bulbs burned out a lot faster. I'd say a lot of the start issue is that most cars weren't really very well tuned in those days., You changed the plugs and points every 10,000 miles if they lasted that long but just set the points with feeler gauge if you had one, seldom checked the timing and away you went for another 10k or until it started running rough. Many guys on here have far better tune up equipment in their home shop than a lot of independent shops or gas stations that did tune ups then had. In the early 60's when I was a student in high school autoshop we used to get a lot of cars that didn't run right that had been to two or three shops around the area and were finally brought to us. We had the compression gauges, dwell meters, timing lights, vacuum gauge and distributor machine in the shop plus in my Sr year a new Allen scope that let us sort cars and their issues out an an instructor who was seriously knowledgeable. The equipment let us go way beyond guess and by golly and sort things out as long as we stuck to the by the numbers sorting out. Even then you saw a lot of rigs with 8 volt batteries to compensate for other issues.
I am the caretaker of four Packards all 6v negative cars. I converted all of them to two Red Top batteries. Made all the cables myself. A 6v battery tender will maintain both batteries full charged. Incredible increase in starting.
Nice job! Looks great! Do those cables continue through the second terminal? Or is there a short piece of cable between the batteries? Bones
in this case being a positive ground the black cable goes to the starter. The red positive cable goes to a power on off switch and then on to a ground. Thanks for kind words.
No problem! But I was wondering if the cable on the 3/18 battery ran “ through” it’s terminal or is the cables between the batteries a short piece? Bones
I would like to thank all of you for your advise. Silverplate what you have here is what I would say is the way I would like to go. But the photo you presented maybe a little different than what I have. Since my system has positive ground??
From the connector style, I would say a couple short bits added on. Either way, it's neatly done. Only thing I would add would be a strap over them both, but I'm paranoid about batteries. Phil
Boneyard51 - it is a short piece of cable, all connections are filled with solder then cable end and heat shrink. Dangerousdan - the Packard six volt system are positive ground. There is an awesome store in Fort Worth that sells all the ends and cabling as needed. Not cheap.
Kool! I too , crimp and solder my battery cables and every other electrical connection. But , I have found out I’ve been doing it wrong for forty years! Lol I’m too old to change my ways now! Nice job! Usually nothing that is good is cheap! Don’t mind paying for good stuff, but hate paying high prices, thinking I’m getting good stuff only to find out it’s reboxed cheap stuff! Bones
I bought a length of welding cable from a place that specializes in it. Then I went to my local Napa bought the end for it and had them crimp it on, they keep the tool to do it usually. Heat shrink over that to tidy it up a little, for the starter end. That saved a good number of dollars, particularly as I bumped the size up a few gauges over the standard factory wire. My battery ends are standard screw down ones but I'm not doing the double-battery bridge (12v converted). Phil
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