Diesel battery?

I think I have an issue with the batteries on my F350. I think I may have 1 or more dead cells. What is the best way to test them?

I bought the truck new 10 years ago this month. '01 model with the 7.3 The truck only has 78K miles and this will be the 3rd time to replace the batteries. Not happy with the battery life.
Factory batteries lasted a little over 3 years. Replaced them with the same Motorcraft batteries from the dealer. Got 3 yrs or a little more out of those until I left a dome light on for a week and killed em. Replaced them with a set of Motorcraft Gold from the dealer. Best they had. 100 month batteries. Free replacement to 36 months, pro-rated from 37-100 months. They are about 4 years old now.

Drove/towed to the IHRA Div 2 finals 2 weeks ago and all was well. My wife drove it a little a week ago. Fine. Yesterday I started it to hook up the trailer. Turned the engine over slow, but still started. Double checked to make sure nothing had been left on. While loading, I hooked up my big charger at 40 amps for about an hour. Finished loading, noticed that one battery had puked a few drops of acid out a vent while charging. Truck started fine then. Came back 2 hrs later to leave and it spins slow again. When leaving the track last night, slow spin. Volts show in the normal range on the idiot gauge.

Check grounds and cable ends?

Seems the motorcrafts are either good, or they are not worth a damn.....luck of the draw. If you bought them at a dealer take them up there they should have a killer Rotunda battery tester, if they are bad they should replace or prorate them. The starters can act goofy on these trucks also after awhile, also asd said make sure the terminals are good and clean. The acid coming out could be from charging the snot out of it and the acid bubbling inside. Also while your cranking the truck cold the glow plugs are also burning so if there is a connection, battery, starter issue it will be worse as the gp's take over 200 amps. Depending on the year of truck the GP system will not activate if the EOT is a certain temp, I think all the 97 and older trucks will activate them no matter what temp the engine is, there is a simple mod to fix this lol.

I check the batteries in my '00 SD two ways. First get the truck running then using a multi-meter I check the battery's positive and negative posts then check the POS & NEG cable terminals where it attaches to the posts to see if there is any voltage difference, this checks for a good contact for the terminals to battery post. If there is a difference in voltage you can figure out which terminal to battery post is loose/dirty and not allowing a sufficient connection, this test will also check the output of the alternator. The second way is to remove the cable terminals from the battery(do one battery at a time) and do a load test with a battery load tester. Check the battery with load tester to see if it holds above 10.5 to 11 volts when it is loaded, if it fails to do so try charging the battery and check it again. If the known good battery charger says the battery is fully charged and it fails this second load test I'd say you have a bad battery. I have used Motorcraft, NAPA, Advanced Auto, Interstate and others but the best batteries I have used in my SD trucks are from Autozone, the Duralast Gold. I hope this helps, Todd

Last fall, I was having trouble with the batteries in my 7.3 excursion. I have always replaced at Sears because they are never a battle with warranty. I had them tested at two different auto centers. I watched them do the testing and both times it showed that they passed the load test. I finally got fed up with it and while having my oil changed, I insisted that two new batteries be installed. Wallah, spins over like a new truck and no worries about leaving the radio on while sitting. No sure why they tested good, but they certainly were not.

aquartlow wrote:I check the batteries in my '00 SD two ways. First get the truck running then using a multi-meter I check the battery's positive and negative posts then check the POS & NEG cable terminals where it attaches to the posts to see if there is any voltage difference, this checks for a good contact for the terminals to battery post. If there is a difference in voltage you can figure out which terminal to battery post is loose/dirty and not allowing a sufficient connection, this test will also check the output of the alternator. The second way is to remove the cable terminals from the battery(do one battery at a time) and do a load test with a battery load tester. Check the battery with load tester to see if it holds above 10.5 to 11 volts when it is loaded, if it fails to do so try charging the battery and check it again. If the known good battery charger says the battery is fully charged and it fails this second load test I'd say you have a bad battery. I have used Motorcraft, NAPA, Advanced Auto, Interstate and others but the best batteries I have used in my SD trucks are from Autozone, the Duralast Gold. I hope this helps, Todd

A few yrs back when searching for batteries for my PS,I did a consumer report search.It said that the Autozone(Duralast) was the best,and Interstate and Die Hard were rated worst.That was in 04,I bought the Duralast's and they are still in the truck.

i went with super starts from o'rillys
i did some research and it seems alot of guys in cold weather perfer
them and in minnesota cold weather is a issue
i ran them and i was very happy with them
i sold my diesel and now run them in my gas truck
the batt in my gas truck has been run dead 2-3 times
the wife likes to leave lights on
and the batt is still good and turns over like it is new

richter69 wrote:Seems the motorcrafts are either good, or they are not worth a damn.....luck of the draw. If you bought them at a dealer take them up there they should have a killer Rotunda battery tester, if they are bad they should replace or prorate them. The starters can act goofy on these trucks also after awhile, also asd said make sure the terminals are good and clean. The acid coming out could be from charging the snot out of it and the acid bubbling inside. Also while your cranking the truck cold the glow plugs are also burning so if there is a connection, battery, starter issue it will be worse as the gp's take over 200 amps. Depending on the year of truck the GP system will not activate if the EOT is a certain temp, I think all the 97 and older trucks will activate them no matter what temp the engine is, there is a simple mod to fix this lol.

Or put it on methanol.

David Get you some WHIP battery Protectant and cleaner and clean your post and put this WHIP on them it will vanish any corrosion on your post and cables. and then it will not come back on... it will help..... I use to go thru batteries and alt's now I haven't touched it in 2 years.... you still have to check it but now Cleaning is a breeze.....it also goes down into the battery cables and cleans your cables.....

I have a napa battery in my 86 it is the heavy 1000 amp battery I bought for my 69 little over 3 years ago never had a problem out of it yet.The 93 F250 7.3 I just bought has 2 new 1000amp napa batteries in it hope they last as long as mine in the 86.My golf cart battery is a napa battery that is about 4 years old been in a few different cars over the years still works good for the golf cart.The Ranger has a Autozone 1000amp deep cycle that that is the quick charging type it is 2 years old with no problems.Some like Interstate batteries but I have not ever had good luck out of them.I my self like napa batteries have to pay alittle more but seems to last longer.But most of the time on chain auto stores and others batteries are made buy GMB which make alot of battries for different ones that only last a few years if that long.

Jim

Lem Evans wrote:

richter69 wrote:Seems the motorcrafts are either good, or they are not worth a damn.....luck of the draw. If you bought them at a dealer take them up there they should have a killer Rotunda battery tester, if they are bad they should replace or prorate them. The starters can act goofy on these trucks also after awhile, also asd said make sure the terminals are good and clean. The acid coming out could be from charging the snot out of it and the acid bubbling inside. Also while your cranking the truck cold the glow plugs are also burning so if there is a connection, battery, starter issue it will be worse as the gp's take over 200 amps. Depending on the year of truck the GP system will not activate if the EOT is a certain temp, I think all the 97 and older trucks will activate them no matter what temp the engine is, there is a simple mod to fix this lol.

Or put it on methanol.

16 volt for the win........

3 years for batteries in a 7.3 is good IMO. That's what I average in mine.

I've had good luck with batteries from O'Reillys and Autozone. Have the starter checked too.

Had the batteries tested today. One showed a bad cell. Fully charged, it would only show about 11V. The other battery showed about 12.2, but the load tester pulled it down to about 9.0 easily. Ford dealer replaced them for about $50 each. 47 months gone out of a 100 month battery.

Did have an issue when they tried to charge me $42 to install them. Had a sign that said $9.95 for battery install. Should have taken my tools and did it myself. Mistakenly thought it would be no charge since the batteries were under warranty.