Rewire D2 TD5 Aux Battery

**John_D4** · 25th September 2018, 07:32 AM

Originally Posted by trout1105

As your aux battery is only 55/60ah the best upgrade would be to a larger aux battery, Maybe a 110ah would give you more capacity to run your fridge/lights and also to start your truck if you need to.
I am running an 80ah with a 120w solar panel on my boat to run a 38l Engle fridge But it is only running the fridge and nothing else.
On my 79 series cruiser I run 2 batteries connected via a marine isolator as starting batteries and 2x 110ah deep cell house batteries that run a 120l fridge/freezer and camp lights that are powered by a 150w roof mounted solar panell.

For your setup i would hardwire a bigger aux battery in with a marine grade isolator so that you can use the aux as a starter battery if needed and also be able to isolate the cranking battery from your fridge/lights when parked up.
Both batteries can be easily charged via your alternator and still run your fridge when traveling.
Roof mounted solar panels are conveniant But they are not as effective as a mobile panel that you can move around to take full advantage of the sunlight available.
A 110ah battery should run your fridge and a couple of camp lights for a couple of days without being charged But if you use your solar panel when parked up you should be able to run everything indefinitely.
A 55/60ah battery will struggle with running what you want to run.

Agreed. However, this is where I’m putting my aux battery:

Because 1)used to be next to the turbo and I ‘melted’ one, 2)I have an SLS compressor, 3)I’ve been told by my wife that I can’t put a big battery in the rear for reasons that are too long to explain here, and 4)there’s nowhere else to put a bigger battery!

**AK83** · 25th September 2018, 08:57 AM

Originally Posted by John_D2

Thanks for the replies Guys. DeanoH, ur post was too long to quote my reply in! So...

Emergency start: Currently only get 1 attempt at starting my TD5. I don’t know why, it just is. So if I muck up my start I pull out my jumper leads and connect them and start the car. ....

What battery U using for the starter?

I did a similar dual battery on brother's Td5, 2x optima's; red top for starter and yellow for the Aux.
I currently have bros Td5 here at my place whilst he's on holidays for a couple of weeks, and he brought it here on a Thursday week before. I first started it up 7 days later(ie. last thursday), moved it about a foot forward(it was making it hard to get in/pit of my driveway in my D1).
I went too far and made it hard for neighbour's drive access, so had to start it up 10sec later again. Started no probs.
FWIW too, bro had a Bosch branded >100A/h 780CCA 70ZZ type battery, which I now have as a spare, and the red top definitely feels a bit more speedy in the way it cranks the TD5 now.

Before you do anything, I'd be looking into why you have start issues, whether it's the battery or some other issue, such as failing starter, or old worn wiring or whatever.
Is the issue slower cranking after a first attempt? or motor not firing up quickly(ie. long crank times).
I've been using bro's TD5 the last few days, and it sparks up in less than a sec with the turn of the key. Sounds barely like a couple of full revolutions of the motor before it fires.

by comparison my Tdi needs more crank time, and cranks much more slowly with a 'similarly' sized battery.
Red tops apparently have 800CCA, and my (disappointing) Century supposedly has 720CCA, but the difference in the way they start feels like the Century has more like 400CCA.

Which reminds me .. I should do a battery check on them today.

**John_D4** · 25th September 2018, 09:09 AM

Originally Posted by AK83

What battery U using for the starter?

I did a similar dual battery on brother's Td5, 2x optima's; red top for starter and yellow for the Aux.
I currently have bros Td5 here at my place whilst he's on holidays for a couple of weeks, and he brought it here on a Thursday week before. I first started it up 7 days later(ie. last thursday), moved it about a foot forward(it was making it hard to get in/pit of my driveway in my D1).
I went too far and made it hard for neighbour's drive access, so had to start it up 10sec later again. Started no probs.
FWIW too, bro had a Bosch branded >100A/h 780CCA 70ZZ type battery, which I now have as a spare, and the red top definitely feels a bit more speedy in the way it cranks the TD5 now.

Before you do anything, I'd be looking into why you have start issues, whether it's the battery or some other issue, such as failing starter, or old worn wiring or whatever.
Is the issue slower cranking after a first attempt? or motor not firing up quickly(ie. long crank times).
I've been using bro's TD5 the last few days, and it sparks up in less than a sec with the turn of the key. Sounds barely like a couple of full revolutions of the motor before it fires.

by comparison my Tdi needs more crank time, and cranks much more slowly with a 'similarly' sized battery.
Red tops apparently have 800CCA, and my (disappointing) Century supposedly has 720CCA, but the difference in the way they start feels like the Century has more like 400CCA.

Which reminds me .. I should do a battery check on them today.

Re starting: not sure what’s happening. I rebuilt the starter a couple of years ago, new optima red top :

I’m happy to leave this issue for another thread, but basic rundown is: I try to start the car and muck up every so often. Try to start again and it cranks but doesn’t catch. So I connect the jumper leads to the aux and it always starts.

The aux isn’t an optima, but an SSB dry cell that’s the same size.

**AK83** · 25th September 2018, 09:26 AM

Originally Posted by John_D2

....
I’m happy to leave this issue for another thread, but basic rundown is: I try to start the car and muck up every so often. Try to start again and it cranks but doesn’t catch. So I connect the jumper leads to the aux and it always starts.

The aux isn’t an optima, but an SSB dry cell that’s the same size.

Ah! ok.
So it's cranking with good speed, just not firing up instantly if the initial start is messed.
So less likely a battery/electrical issue .. more likely a fuel issue of some sort(better for another thread)

But back to the topic at hand.
If you can justify the expense, I highly recommend the Redarc setup for it's simplicity/feature set.

Over the really colder times in winter(less than 5°C mornings), I've used the jump start feature to get the Tdi fired up.
When the battery was new(back in Jan) it seemed to be perfectly fine, and held up so until the cold mornings started about April/May.
Now it seems to crank a lot slower than just a few months ago, and on cold mornings I tend to use the jump start to pre-empt slow cranking, which = more crank time.
With the jump start switch pushed, crank speed sounds doubled, and engine firing is instant by comparison.

As we're now coming into warmer period, it's not going to be a problem(unless this replacement Century dies like the original one did).
But for next year when the cold comes, I reckon I'm just going to dump this Century and get myself a SSB, or maybe a red top.

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