When our gel cell 8D batteries died in Honduras, there were no gel cells available to replace them. The only batteries we could get that we thought had a prayer of lasting longer than a year were Trojan T-105 golf cart batteries. We ordered six Trojan T-105’s as well as a wet cell starting battery & windlass battery. What a PITA to change out every battery – if we had it to do over again, I think we would have started with the Trojan T-105’s rather than gel cells just because of the difficulty of finding gels – or AGM’s for that matter – out cruising. Note — it IS possible these days to have Marine Warehouse in Miami ship them in, but it’s a hassle, more expensive and can take forever.
But that’s not the topic of this post … coincidentally, we also have the exact same battery bank in our gazillion years old golf cart here at the lake. Unfortunately, they don’t receive the same routine monthly maintenance care that the batteries aboard Winterlude are treated to on the first of every month. So we shouldn’t have been surprised when the golf cart quit running. 🙁 Turns out one of the battery cables rusted completely in half — and every post was covered with creeping green crud AND there were several cells with no water — duh!!!
While we were diligently brushing away all the green crud (better known as corrosion), a neighbor stopped by and said — why are you doing it the hard way, don’t you have a battery post cleaning brush? Huh? A couple minutes later, he reappears with his battery post cleaning brush.
Now I realize that there are special tools for special jobs, but a battery post cleaning tool? 🙂 We used his to clean up the golf cart mess, replaced the broken cable and refilled all the battery cells with distilled water and now the golf cart hums along just like new.
This probably isn’t a must have on the boat, but we’re getting one just because it was so handy … plus it’s only $1.99 at Amazon! 🙂 Click the link to order one for your battery posts! Disclaimer – if you use the Commuter Cruiser Amazon link, Commuter Cruiser gets a few cents, it doesn’t cost you anything extra and maybe soon I’ll have enough saved to redesign this site so information is easier to find! 🙂
Do you have battery maintenance tips? Please leave a comment and share! Cheers! Jan
