Even if you dropped the cash for a motorcycle battery, it could be a one time
investment. You could always get a Battery Tender
during your down times. When I place my motorcycle in storage for the winter,
I plug the battery into Battery Tender and it
trickle charges the battery during the winter so I have a "fresh" battery in
the spring. I also trickle charge the battery if I
leave town for a long time. The charger comes with both a "jumper cable" clamp
attachments or screw on plugs. I use the screw-on
plugs with the bike so I don't have to take it apart to get to the battery and
attach the charger. I just plug the bike to the
charger and I am good to go.
Battery Tender costs about 50 bucks. I got tired of spending $80 every time for
a new motorcycle battery every spring. I have been
using the same battery for 4 years now. Charger pays for itself!
Take care!
Kerry Z
West Linn, Oregon
1968 1600
1989 CBR600F (currently out of storage and raring to go! Just waiting for
Oregon Rain to leave town! <grin!>)
----- Original Message -----
From: "B Strachan" <bstrachan@home.com>
To: <datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net>
Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 11:24 AM
Subject: Re: small batteries
> Gary,
>
> There are always tradeoffs ;-)
>
> For one thing, this is a heavy-duty battery, and they are not cheap.
> About $140 as I recall. These things have a two-year full replacement
> warranty, and after that you're on your own, unlike the 7 year or
> whatever pro-rated warranty you normally get on a car battery. And the
> truth is, I don't use my Roadster as a daily driver. I drive it two or
> three times a week, but I don't start it 10 times a day. So maybe this
> type of battery would not hold up under heavy daily use. As I said,
> though, mine has worked fine for about two years, including some
> day-long road trips. The warranty is probably up by now, so I guess I
> ought to look out ;-)
>
> Barrie
> '66 2000
> San Diego
> ----
> Gary McCormick wrote:
> >
> > Based on what Barrie says here, my next question is - Why the heck do we
>need those big
> > batteries that normally take up so much room in the engine compartment? If
>all you need is a
> > little cranking power to start 'er up and a bit of current to generate a
>field in the
> > alternator, it sounds like Barrie's motorcycle battery installation is a
>helluva good idea. Is
> > there something I'm missing? (entirely possible - I'm not a sparky-type
>guy...)
> >
> > Gary McCormick
> > '70 2000
> > San Jose, CA
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