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The battery is key in these cars! After four seasons on the same ProStart battery, voltage was dropping, cranking was slowing, and it was a call to AAA waiting to happen. (And I let my AAA lapse...even better reason!) I picked up an Optima Red Top.
It's a side and top post battery which is actually sealed. It's taller than the OEM battery by the height of the posts, but they don't seem to touch anything above. I used those, but I could have converted it to side-post as well.
The ground cable isn't long enough to reach the top post so I ran to NAPA and got a new 28" ground cable. This was a few inches too long but I overestimated because it was 10 degrees before howling wind chill and I was outside doing this. Mine attaches to one of the trans mount bolts (16mm), I've read here recently the mount point is different on some cars.
I also cut off the positive clamp. Corrosion and clamping force made it impossible to remove and I was afraid more force would break off the post. A standard clamp was too small, I had to get a truck clamp to handle the size of the cable. Corrosion had infiltrated quite far into the wires, so I will go back and clean/solder the connections when it gets warmer. There's only enough positive wire to get away with cutting it back once, and you have to get a crimp-on ring connector to accomodate the extra smaller gauge ground wire.
Immediately, the cranking at 10 degrees was great. And two more (good) surprises:
Faster car. Somehow, either the better voltage, ground and/or ECU reset did it no end of good. That confuses me a bit because I have an MBC but there was no doubt it was off -- considering the amount of rubber my normal driving style was suddenly depositing on the road. Perhaps accumulated bogus adaptation.
Subs were back. I hadn't noticed the amp quit. Thick, chunky bass poured out of the doors once again and restored the vibro-vision to the mirrors. Again, I can't be sure if it was low voltage or ground quality that was affecting it.
Most of this had to do with the battery being new, not the battery being an Optima, I only went for that brand because I had a Pep Boys gift cert and they're excellent batteries (albeit at a high price, $109 + tax & core).
--fsik
95 900SET 145,000 mi, MBC@15, rally gauge panel, mold in the trunk :(
posted by 66.108.3...
, Sun, 9 Mar 2003 18:01:35
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