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I had a visitor from down south today. Mark Mich, the dude with the pickup Festiva at the St. Louis Meet stopped by to pick up his new hood. Should have taken a pic of his '89 LX efi, but wasn't thinking.
Anywho, we parked in my alley and I always throw on my emergency flashers just to be safe. We pulled the hood out of the shed and went in to drink a soda pop. When we decided to leave, I'm guessing 15 or 20 minutes later, my battery was low enough that it wouldn't turn Levistiva over. Mark jumped me and I headed to the McAutopartsStore to get new battery cables because Levistiva has universal ends and I wanted new.
While at the store, I changed my mind and bought a couple tools instead, and proceeded back to the Festiva Funny Factory. Grabbed the camera and decided to do a Battery Maintenance 101 for Supermodels Shoot, with me as the Supermodel!
Here's a few things I did and observed.
The scene of the grime!
Starting with 12.91 volts
Losing 5.51 volts through the grime on the battery case.
My new tools.
Results if you touch the wrench between the pos and the neg posts of the battery. Wakes ya right up!
Excellent results with the little puller. Can't believe I haven't gotten one sooner.
Cool reaction pic of baking soda/water mix to neutralize gunk on the outside of the battery case. Read online, 1 tablespoon baking soda to 1 pint of water. Not sure I was that exact. I put a bunch of baking soda in a plastic gallon milkjug, filled it half way up and shook the shnot outta it!
Poured the mix on everything including the wire end.
There are single drain holes in the cavities of the battery box. One was plugged and filled with mixture, so I just layed parts in the mix to clean. I cleaned the hole out later to drain.
These next 3 pics show before, during, and after using the new tool. Notice the shine on the inside of the cable end. That is what you want everything that makes connection to look like.
You can see the difference between claen and uncleaned in this pic. Wire brush works great for this.
Wiped down the battery and used the tool to clean posts.
You can see the shine difference between the cleaned post and uncleaned post.
A couple shots that show cleaning the battery case helps prevent losing volts through the battery case.
Only other thing I did was to fill a couple of the cells that were low with water. used a bottle of spring water. Probably should have used distilled. Don't think you are suppose to use tap water, though I would imagine tap water would be fine if you had the container of water sitting out for a few days, uncovered, allowing the chlorine to evaporate.
I'm not telling anybody to do this, I'm just telling you what I did. I don't want to be responsible if something gets screwed up.
Anywho, we parked in my alley and I always throw on my emergency flashers just to be safe. We pulled the hood out of the shed and went in to drink a soda pop. When we decided to leave, I'm guessing 15 or 20 minutes later, my battery was low enough that it wouldn't turn Levistiva over. Mark jumped me and I headed to the McAutopartsStore to get new battery cables because Levistiva has universal ends and I wanted new.
While at the store, I changed my mind and bought a couple tools instead, and proceeded back to the Festiva Funny Factory. Grabbed the camera and decided to do a Battery Maintenance 101 for Supermodels Shoot, with me as the Supermodel!
Here's a few things I did and observed.
The scene of the grime!
Starting with 12.91 volts
Losing 5.51 volts through the grime on the battery case.
My new tools.
Results if you touch the wrench between the pos and the neg posts of the battery. Wakes ya right up!
Excellent results with the little puller. Can't believe I haven't gotten one sooner.
Cool reaction pic of baking soda/water mix to neutralize gunk on the outside of the battery case. Read online, 1 tablespoon baking soda to 1 pint of water. Not sure I was that exact. I put a bunch of baking soda in a plastic gallon milkjug, filled it half way up and shook the shnot outta it!
Poured the mix on everything including the wire end.
There are single drain holes in the cavities of the battery box. One was plugged and filled with mixture, so I just layed parts in the mix to clean. I cleaned the hole out later to drain.
These next 3 pics show before, during, and after using the new tool. Notice the shine on the inside of the cable end. That is what you want everything that makes connection to look like.
You can see the difference between claen and uncleaned in this pic. Wire brush works great for this.
Wiped down the battery and used the tool to clean posts.
You can see the shine difference between the cleaned post and uncleaned post.
A couple shots that show cleaning the battery case helps prevent losing volts through the battery case.
Only other thing I did was to fill a couple of the cells that were low with water. used a bottle of spring water. Probably should have used distilled. Don't think you are suppose to use tap water, though I would imagine tap water would be fine if you had the container of water sitting out for a few days, uncovered, allowing the chlorine to evaporate.
I'm not telling anybody to do this, I'm just telling you what I did. I don't want to be responsible if something gets screwed up.
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