Re: The Case of the Petulant Packard

Posted by Jim L. in OR On 2012/12/30 16:29:13

OK, it's Sunday 1:10pm PST and here's the rundown so far. I didn't get to the car yesterday, too many other things came up like a dead battery in the '55. This morning at about 9:30 I put the charger on the 51's battery. No cables just posts - caps off. The reading on the charger was 6.24v. Decided to use the 2 amp setting rather than the automatic and let it cook. 11:45 am, battery charger says done with result being 6.8v. Got called away to help a neighbor at noon and got back at 12:30 hooked the charger back up to get a reading and it was 6.5v. All these readings are without any of the cables attached to the battery. Went back at 12:45 after finding my volt meter and got a reading of 6.35v. Went back in house to see what's new on the site then went back at at 12:50 and got a reading of 6.34v. Went back out at 1:10 and got a reading of 6.33v. I think I may have found my problem.

I tried to see when the battery was bought but no one punched out any numbers so I haven't a clue. Originally, the battery had 660cca so not the strongest in the world to begin with. By the time I got the car it needed to start on the first or second try as there was no third - and this was in the summer. Now its about 40 out and I guess I shouldn't be surprised at what's happened.

By the way, I checked the battery cables with an ohm meter and they are fine with 0 oms.

I looked for batterys last night on NAPA's web site and only found the 7212 but I'd like to get one with a little more cca. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Once again I'd like to that Howard and Pat for helping me out as I wouldn't have gotten this far without them.