4cruzer
Adventurer
Hey,
My brother and I are heading down to Panama if not further down this winter. I've decided that my 1985 4runner is too small to hold 2 fishing kayaks, a bunch of surfboards and ~8 months worth of gear for two dudes and a dog. Also, it's the perfect trail / expo rig and I wanna keep it that way.
So I bought a 1989 diesel suburban. It has the 6.2 motor. I've researched, and I know this motor has a bad rep, especially for towing, but this truck has been maintained and has low miles, so we're rolling with it...
This truck, for me at least, just needs to last through this trip, after which I'll be back in my trusty crawler. That said, please spare the countless bad experiences you may have had with the motor, I've heard tons!
Anyway, this truck has been fairly well equipped and has a 12,500lb winch already. It has two new red tops under the hood. These two batteries are connected without any sort of isolating switch like I have in the other truck. My question is this: Does that truck, because of a diesel motor's higher compression, need the two batteries just to crank the motor, or might the second battery have been installed to help the winch? I was planning on 'borrowing' the yellow top and the Engel from my 4runner for this trip. Should I run the yellow top as a THIRD battery or just replace one of the red tops with it and run an isolator? And will one battery be enough to crank that motor? I hope this all makes sense. I know there are some diesel gurus on here that might have some insight.
Sorry for the essay, any help is appreciated.
Cheers
Garen
My brother and I are heading down to Panama if not further down this winter. I've decided that my 1985 4runner is too small to hold 2 fishing kayaks, a bunch of surfboards and ~8 months worth of gear for two dudes and a dog. Also, it's the perfect trail / expo rig and I wanna keep it that way.
So I bought a 1989 diesel suburban. It has the 6.2 motor. I've researched, and I know this motor has a bad rep, especially for towing, but this truck has been maintained and has low miles, so we're rolling with it...
This truck, for me at least, just needs to last through this trip, after which I'll be back in my trusty crawler. That said, please spare the countless bad experiences you may have had with the motor, I've heard tons!
Anyway, this truck has been fairly well equipped and has a 12,500lb winch already. It has two new red tops under the hood. These two batteries are connected without any sort of isolating switch like I have in the other truck. My question is this: Does that truck, because of a diesel motor's higher compression, need the two batteries just to crank the motor, or might the second battery have been installed to help the winch? I was planning on 'borrowing' the yellow top and the Engel from my 4runner for this trip. Should I run the yellow top as a THIRD battery or just replace one of the red tops with it and run an isolator? And will one battery be enough to crank that motor? I hope this all makes sense. I know there are some diesel gurus on here that might have some insight.
Sorry for the essay, any help is appreciated.
Cheers
Garen