Conscious its been a little quiet on here for a good few months now, the reality being that with the endless rain the car hast been out much at all. There was also the small issue of an Appendectomy that kept me out of the driving seat for a couple of months!
However with Christmas and hopefully the worst of the winter behind us I finally managed to get to the garage to start the winter tinkering today. First up is the battery. When I bought the car it was fitted with a standard size (and weight) car battery. Every winder it starts to loose its charge and struggles to start the car. I’m not sure of its age but it looked pretty scruffy and old and so has been on the list of things to address for a while.
A January sale had £45 off a lighter weight race battery from Odyssey so I ordered that and a new battery and mounting bracket.
What should have been an easy job turned into a 4 hour faff with several problems resulting from screws and bolts that clearly hadn’t been touched since the car was built. Undeterred I did get the old battery and carrier out of the car, and onto the scales to see what the weight saving might be – the old battery (and the carrier) came in at 11.9Kg.
The next problem was that the new battery is designed to lay flat, but the water pipes for the heater and expansion tank were in the way by about 10mm. I had to slacken off the pipework and wriggle it about to get the space I needed. Lastly the earth and starter cables were looking a bit tatty so I replaced those too (with more stubborn bolts).
Last job was to confirm the weight of the new battery & bracket before bolting them in – replacement weight was 6.8kg, so a saving of 5.1kg. Once everything was connected up and fastened in, a quick test drive was done to make sure it was all ok. Sadly the rain returned and cut short the fun so I headed home to watch the 6 Nations on TV.
shropshirewestie 