Posted by Polar Pilot on November 19, 2000 at 00:12:46:
In Reply to: Keeping Savage battery up in the winter? posted by Rick on November 18, 2000 at 22:56:20:
Your question will undoubtedly ignite the fires of opinions which have been damped so low of late!
Everyone has their own method and approach.
Because of my odd living situation my bikes go into winter storage for up to 14 months. Years in the past I used to fiddle around, once I bought and linked a tiny trickle charger to them all and dutifully I used to remove them from the various bikes and cars
After 20 years of that routine one year I got lazy I guess and simply pulled the ground (neutral) cable off the battery. If there is any thought that the battery might freeze I pull it out and leave it on a wooden work bench. But that is the full extent of my winter" storage" technique.
When I am ready to get the bikes out - I stick a charger on over night or for a few hours or for whatever time I feel like and the bikes have always started without any issue about the "charge" in the battery.
We do the same thing with our plane - it sits without starting from November through March with temps down as low as -44 without being "charged". In the spring the plane has always happily started without a recharge. With the plane we don't even pull the neutral cable.
There is a huge amount of mythology about batteries and I expect we will explore some of it here in the next few days - most of that mythology comes from battery designs and "needs" from the 1930-1970 time period.
Yup a battery will last a year or two more if it is given kid glove treatment ---- maybe.
Nope in my experience - modern batteries don't seem to require as much fiddling
I would never ever start a bike and let it run in a garage for 20 minutes - there is a huge cooling issue - and idling for that long in my opinion would have tremendous potential for an overheating situation.
Well - have at it WD, HGRD, Apache, Jim, Blacksmith and Intru' et al
What ARE folks doing about batteries and winter storage these days?
Keep the rubber side down
Polar Pilot