batteries
 

I am in the process of tossing more money in the bottomless pit of electical fun. today's wallet burner included some power cable, and that led me to wonder about batteries.

the truck is a 12v. i have space for 2 group 34 batteries. they will be responsible for cranking the cummins, grid heaters and a 12k lb capacity warn as the main heavy loads.

i am currently(no pun, well maybe) considering Deka intimidator, and the Odyessy performance series. the Odyessy offers a better CCA and a bigger price tag. i dont have any personal experience with these. i do have a Deka in my yellow truck that has performed very well for me, but it is a bit of a different animal than my project truck.

so, what does everyone have to say? experience with either of the listed units, or favorites that perform well for you? i will not be running optimas. i am open to opinions on other brands, but i am looking for an AGM battery.

Thanks!

Re: batteries
 

I put replacement batteries in my 12v last year and wish I had done things differently.

If you have a Fleet pride or truck parts store that sells new semi batteries, this is the route I wish I had gone. My price on them at fleet pride is $90 a piece. They will sell to walk-in customers as well. They are 1000cca screw on top deep cycle big truck (industrial) batteries and they have the same foot print and overall size of the factory 12v cummins dodge batteries. They last longer and are deep cycle. For your application size may not be a huge issue.

They also can be taken out in the field to power up a piece of equipment with dead batteries. I work on equipment, so that would be a big plus for me.

Re: batteries
 

unless it is really cold a single battery will start your Cummins. I had an electrical draw on my 12v that I couldn't find. I just unhooked the second battery. If the primary got drained I just rehooked the second battery. I have also started the same truck in 17* weather without the grid heaters. Idled rough for a minute but pretty much fired right off. One good battery will get you what you need. When I replaced the batteries in my 5500 she got Ford batteries from Napa. Cheaper and larger than what was called for in the Dodge. 1000CCA for under $100. Those were lead acid though.

Re: batteries
 

We go thru batts in the new boats like you can't imagine. Owners are afraid to shut anything off so they constantly leave chargers on and boil em dry . I say no to optima . Have never seen one go more than 2 years . Most faults are batts with internal dead shorts . I say yes to agm for sure . Don't want any stray acid after you have done as much work as you have . We have had our service calls drop by 60 percent since switch to agm. We use east penn batts which are a deka product I believe . Looks to me like you are on the right track. Carry on.

Re: batteries
 

i dont have a local heavy truck supply store, outside of the section of napa that caters to medium and heavy duty. i think the dodge is group 27, and they are longer and taller than a 34. they wont fit in my allowed space. i am fairly sure i will be stuck in the weeny pick up truck sized battery aisle. thanks for the idea though. i may see what i can find.

the truck is built for two and will get two. i know i can usually survive on one, but that is asking for trouble. it can get well into the negative here for temps and while the truck may get a cushy inside spot at home, it will be outside all day at work. ive been around a fair share of cummins trucks in the middle winter and know that two is better. keep in mind, this is an overfueled truck that will be up timed for performance. increased timing is harder to start(damn ppump). hopefully it will fire up easy, but it may need some crank time in cold weather. i am restricted to a 34/78 in size, so i cant use much of the bigger batteries from the larger trucks. 1000 CCA sounds tasty though... i think the odyessy was 950/unit. while i dont have any real gripe with lead acid, the batteries will be buried under the truck so i want to be able to stuff em in and forget them. i know myself, if it is easy to ignore, i will... ha

i believe the east penn's are deka. i know they are sold under several names, but the batteries are all the same as far as i know. optimas used to be da bomb. johnson controls bought the company when it was owned and operated here in colorado probably 10 ish years ago. after that happened the quality took a digger. i have a friend with two blue tops from before the buy out that still work. one of them is in a truck that only gets sporadic use, and sits most of the winter. the other one was in several years of derby cars and when it wasnt doing that, it was the start battery for his boat... now you cant get two years out of them. crap

Re: batteries
 

One battery in Colorado, no freaking way. One battery is even hard on the starter at cold temps and they start decent at 18* because it's a real mild 12v and roll over maybe 1.5 times and pop off. :lol: I have a single battery in the vette, good luck starting it in January with a single battery. One thing that doesn't help your truck is the lift pump. The draw from that and the starter would be enough to kill that idea.

Anyway, I've had good look with Deka batteries as well. Most of the time I use interstate. I've had really good luck with them. I have group 65s in the Longhorn and the only real reason is because I had batteries I already purchased before I got to putting them in. I agree, I haven't been inpressed with any of the Optimas yet. XS batteries are awesome, but come with a price.

Re: batteries
 

Yes, East Penn is the company that makes Dekas. Bang for the buck, very difficult to beat. From what I have seen, Odysseys are the best, readily available, AGM battery out there. Unfortunately, availability is sometimes an issue. Die Hard Platinums are re-labled Odysseys and can sometimes be found on sale--sometimes. Very good batteries though. Interstates are ok. They leak like buckshot hogs in hot environments and in your mounting configuration would be an absolute bish to try to service, so that would probably get skipped leading to premature failure.

If I had your money, I'd go with the Odyessys. Obviously I don't so I went with Dekas. I have purchased five or six for the fleet since I quit buying Optima's crap. Hell, I have three in one vehicle. No problems to speak of with any of them.

Re: batteries
 

HA. i wish i had money. says the guy that hauls three batteries around in one car and swaps eaton 10 speed transmissions into old burbs... it is nice to know there is rebrand of the Odysseys. some times easier to find stuff with a regular name brand around here. we'll see when the time comes. i know there is a local source for the Deka stuff, so i may just go with that. i also know i have a tendency to not eat for a week or two if that means getting the better part.

i haven't hear anything really about the XS stuff, but have noticed them in some stereo cars before.

Re: batteries
 

I have never delt with the Deka AGMs before but ironically the military vehicles, gensets etc I am around tend to dump the Deka lead acids for optimas. This rule applies to smaller trucks in general but I have seen MTVRs (7 ton Oshkosh) with 4 Optimas in the battery box too. Some of the LSSVs (chevy 2500 duramaxs) come with 3 Optimas in them. Not saying they are better but a lot of Optimas are around. A lot of that may be laziness in not wanting to add the acid to the Dekas and waiting 24 hours to use them. Usually repairs are needed in five minutes and not tomorrow.
I know all about the cold weather start on a 12v. The 2500 I spoke about was my daily driver for almost 7 years. It has two 6 year old blue tops in it. Right now the truck is sitting in a barn but the last 6 months of driving was on one battery as I said with the timing set at 19.5*. I can't remember if I ever fixed the grid heaters or not. The blue wire broke at the battery terminal. Normally I just plugged the truck in at night and during the day it warmed up enough to fire off within a few seconds of turning the key. I never had a start issue once I replaced the factory cables with some heavy gauge cables. The original starter went about 230k miles. Everything else electrical gave me fits though. I actually parked the truck because it needed rewired and had a weeping head gasket. Great parts truck for the K20 when I swap out the drivetrain.

Ryanroo, I have a RTO-6613 I plan to swap into my 5500 one of these days. I rebuilt it but have not figured out the transfer case yet. I either need an adapter or figure out a divorce case setup. Till then I run a 6spd with a 4spd aux trans. I just hate to loose double over in a truck with 4.44s.

Re: batteries
 

I recently had to replace all four batteries in our daily drivers (24 valve). They were Carquest Advanced generation made by East Penn. They didn't make it 5 years before I started getting bad cells. I bought these with, what I thought, was a 84 month (prorate) warranty. Carquest wouldn't honor it so I went with ACDelco AGM's. A month ago I was able to get these from amazon (no core) for $100 each.

Re: batteries
 

I can't remember if it was last year or the year before, but the gov't changed the manufacter's specs on warranties, and then the pr-rating stuff came about. There were a lot of mad customers everywhere about it.