P400 in the Burb install

[MrMarty51]

And have them load tested before buying. I have rejected a lot of batteries.

Yup, charged up, surface charge pulled, then, load test.
When the batteries in My truck failed, the LS battery crashed instantly. The RS battery I load tested and it was a little low. Let it set to regain for a phew minutes then hit the test switch once more. It fell flat on its face. Immediately.
But, even if one battery tests good when pairs are involved, replace them both at the same time, unless they both were brand new very recently, within about six months or some such.

 

[dbrannon79]

I've always been a supporter of battery maintainers or trickle chargers. one thing I have been wanting to do for my rig is install a solar cell over the top of the cab that powered a 1/2 to 1 amp charger. I have seen those little garden lawnmower batteries last close to 6 years using a trickle charger on them year round. as long as it never puts enough amperage into the battery to make it "bubble" the acid, but allow a slight positive feed to the battery the lead plates won't oxidize. many cases when the plates go completely oxidized that's when they go bad and start shorting cells. Especially when the oxidation flakes off and falls to the bottom of the cell compacting or expands making the battery case budge creating shorts internally.

think of it as how things are electroplated. inside the led acid battery the same thing happens every time you put a load on it or charge it. when you see the bubbles forming in a cell. this is what happens and slowly degrades the battery over time.

 

[dbrannon79]

at work we found out that the more batteries you have in the rig, the longer they last as long as they are maintained properly. they had attempted to pull all but two batteries out to save weight on the trucks. we found that we were replacing batteries more often this way. reason being is with only two batteries, the starter was pulling lots of amps out to crank and then the alternator was pushing it all back at high amps. with a truck that had 4 batteries this didn't happen as fast. the combined strength of the 4 batts when the truck cranked over it still pulled the same amp load but didn't put so much of a strain on the set, the alternator also didn't work as hard to put what the starter took during startup.

 

[MrMarty51]

I got one of those solar powered battery maintainer devices that I keep hooked to the four wheeler.
Seemed I was going through batteries quite rapidly, stupid keep it alive draw, then sometimes be a year before I would fire it up for use. Seemed every time I needed to use it, dead battery.
The spec sheet said the unit I got is a true battery maintainer.
There is only one LED light that flashes red when charging and it changes to green when the battery is charged up.
I just recently replaced the battery with a glass acid unit. I had been using just the lead acid batteries. See how this works out.
So far it is working wonderfully.

 

[MrMarty51]

https://www.amazon.com/Upgraded-Waterproof-Battery-Charger-Maintainer/dp/B08K2JG9MK?pd_rd_w=konzh&content-id=amzn1.sym.c4ee1111-7381-4c98-b5f0-82f9cae37cc4&pf_rd_p=c4ee1111-7381-4c98-b5f0-82f9cae37cc4&pf_rd_r=2PZWAFHT2FH8NYNX5HR3&pd_rd_wg=fHvnJ&pd_rd_r=8a3d3686-b280-4a36-82f6-99578e8fbffb&pd_rd_i=B08K2JG9MK&psc=1&ref_=pd_bap_m_rp_1_t

 

[dbrannon79]

the trick is on these solar maintainers as with other plug in ones is to measure the draw first that the vehicle is pulling to keep things alive. then make sure the maintainer puts out this amount + the extra to keep a positive feed on the battery. on solar maintainers, when they rate them at say 10 watts. that's at max peak 100% operation in full sun. you rarely get 100% out of them. I would go with one that had at least 25 watts if there is no draw on the battery for small batteries. and at east 100 watts for a car or truck battery.

 

[spdgofast]

@spdgofast I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier, but I recently smoked an OEM style starter, but the solenoid was still working ok. If you want to send me some money to cover shipping, I’ll pull the solenoid off that starter and ship it down to you.

So just to update on this issue, so I installed the heat shield blanket and it didn't change the no start when hot issue. I then was able to find the little bracket that holds the factory heat shield to the bell housing bolt. So I then dropped the starter and installed the OEM solenoid that Nate was kind enough to send me along with the OEM heat shield and it appears to to have solved the problem. I believe it was the cheap solenoid that I got from the local starter/alternator repair shop causing the problem but the heatshield could of had something to do with it. My thanks go out to Nate for donating the solenoid to me.

 

[spdgofast]

Does anyone know at what temp does the Duramax fan clutch kicks in? I would have to dig through this thread or my loads of receipts for when I bought my fan for a part number but I can't get my engine to run over 190* period, even with the grill totally covered with card board. I think it's kicking in at 190* yet I have 195* Stewart thermostats.