Sneaks
Active member
I’d recommend 6V golf cart batteries or a true deep cycle 12v over a ‘Marine Deep Cycle’. ‘Deep cycles / starting batteries’ do neither job as well. Golf cart batteries keep giving and giving well beyond what a Marine battery will.
I looked at the wrong Deka batteries at first, 116lb each and I was !!!!!!!!. Realized I was being DUH and looking at solar storage batteries, not GCs
. Found the ones you are talking about, 63lb each, that's not bad. I have the space, the Bus, in all its ungainly, underpowered goofiness has a pretty robust chassis, rated just shy of a ton (1918lb) load capacity, I won't be coming close to that. Even the loaded Westfalia "deluxe" models like the Berlin have 3/4 ton left and their interiors are heavy. I had planned out the under bed storage space with the idea of possibly putting batter(ies) under there, though at L=10.50, W=7.13, H=10.88, I'll have to measure to double check but I think I could fit two in the OEM house battery spot on the passenger side of the engine bay. Thanks for the suggestion, will look into doing this. Thank you, appreciate the comment
. I have lots of respect for anyone who starts cutting up and modifying a rig they are still making payments on, I could not do it . This works for me, my investment so far is peanuts, I'm having fun, and there's something to be said about not having to work around modern technology, these things are pretty damn basic - manual steering, manual windows, manual door locks, manual transmission, manual HVAC (if you can even call it that lol), though I did replace the compressed air windshield washer system with a pump. Even the EFI is pretty rudimentary, though it is nice to have hydraulic lifters instead of the earlier solids and vacuum-assisted brakes. I thought long and hard about upgrading to an electronic ignition like Compufire, then decided to stick with the points. Regular adjustments forces me to check other things like fan belt, fuel lines, frayed wires, etc., stuff that I admit I don't always be so diligent with my DD as new vehicles are much more reliable than this old stuff. I have a second distributor already set up with proper gap, dwell, timing, clamp locked into place, and ready to drop in, plus a couple sets of points and condensers, all of it takes up less space than a large cup of coffee. Simple V-belt, clutch & accel cables, spare CV and boot, wheel cylinder, fuel pump (same as '86-up Ford Fox\Panther\F-series EFI), tire plug kit, tube of grease, a couple quarts of oil, and my spare parts box is complete . Basic metric tool kit and I'm good to go. Granted, if this was a Taco, I probably wouldn't need a spare parts kit . I work in technology as my day job, this is pretty analog. Hmmm, I have them uploaded here instead of hot linked someplace else. You can't see any of them?
