Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Battery...Again!

I've never had a yusa battery fail under six years on any car. Don't have a ctek some times use a cheap solar charger.
This car has an immobillser , but the battery starts it after weeks of standing idle.

You may have a buying opportunity after all.
Many simple clip on ammeters may only measure a.c. A clue is that the jaws will have bare metal ends where they firmly meet when clamped. To measure D.C. you need one that works on the principle of the “Hall Effect“. With these, the cut end of the jaws are insulated so don’t fully close together. [for those who wish to know...Hall Effect is if a magnetic field is applied perpendicular to current flowing in a conductor, a voltage is produced transversely to current flow. That voltage, which may only be of the order of mV is measured by the multimeter and can be converted into a measure of amps. Edwin Hall 1879]

OK, I have charged the battery, I have a "RING" model charger.
The battery shows 13.3v on both the car display and my external meter.
Starting the engine the alternator is delivering 14.2v.

Tomorrow I'll see if the charge level has decreased and if there is any current flowing, as TMG suggested.

Peter, if you prove there is a significant static current drain and you are only concerned with radio memory, a fused feed from the main forward battery stud (live side of the 150 amp breaker) could be routed to keep alive on radio (pin 3 on power connector). This would allow you to trip breaker when car not in use for any period without loosing radio settings.

On my Roadster the same radio power also feeds the clock, so it may be worthwhile including that as well.

Better of course to find the excessive current drain if it's proven.

Richard,

thanks for the suggestions.
No clock, so not an issue....

Or I could buy a new head unit that doesn't need a continuous power supply.... !

This might be a daft idea, but could it be cheaper maybe to buy a small 12V power pack with the output connected to the head unit and the input wired to a switched live feed. That way it would keep the head unit alive when the car's parked and the power pack would be recharged when driving. So long as you had a power pack with sufficient capacity to keep the radio fed for the longest period you would leave the car without either driving it or plugging in a battery conditioner you should be fine.

That's surely trying to cure the symptoms rather than the disease.

True Dat.

After getting through several batteries bought from Halfords, I went for a Optima Red Top bought on eBay (new).

It has not let me down in 10 years.

One of the times the battery failed, I drove home from work perfectly fine. Stopped briefly at home, then when I jumped back in the car... Nothing.
Measured the battery, 2V. I suppose a cell's connection had failed.

I'm guessing that Morgans have a significantly different vibration profile to standard cars, and this causes frequent failures. So far, the spiral AGM battery has been perfect.

Update:

I disconnected the battery, so no connection to the car. After 36 hours in "Recovery Mode" on the Ring Charger It will not go above 60% charge.
So my conclusion is that the battery has developed a fault.
Back to Halfords. The only battery they stock that fits the Plus 8 is the one I have: there are no other options. I paid £71.00 in April 2019, it was replaced for the same reason a year ago.
Third time lucky?

Or should I cut my losses and get a substitute: because of the way the battery is fitted in the Aero Plus 8 there are limitations on size, in particular the Optima Red Top is too long: the maximum is 242mm, the red top is 254. The best candidate seems to be an Odyssey model.