QuestionDick , I have a 53 F100 and it has an 8 Volt battery...positive ground. I have checked the operators manual but I can't find out if this is the correct size battery for a 53. None of my " expert " friends think it is. Pls advise.
Answer8 volt batteries are a band-aid approach to hiding a problem. No car came with an 8 volt battery new - someone came up with this bright idea to solve starting problems, or bad cable problems, or bad grounding problems- but it is not the right solution. The right solution is to track down and solve the problem, not hide it with a kludge fix like an 8 volt battery. Positive ground is right, though.
An 8 volt battery is hard on things (gauges, lights, electric motors etc.) - my advice is to get it out of there and put in a good 6 volt battery, and battery cables meant for a 6 volt vehicle (go to a golf cart battery place and ask for heavy duty battery cables). Ask for size 00 cables. If they don't have them, go to a welding supply place and get a few feet of size 00 copper welding cable and take it back to the battery place and have them make up new cables for you using those wires. Clean all the connection points on both ends of the both cables, so that everything is clean bright metal to metal contact (no paint!) and it should work just fine that way. If you are a Costco member, they have a great 6 volt battery for around $100.
You may have to replace your voltage regulator, if the one in the truck has been fiddled with to make it charge the 8 volt battery. Normally, the charging regulator is set to produce about 7.3 volts at full charge - and that wouldn't keep an 8 volt battery up, so the previous owner might have fudged the settings on the regulator, or put a special one in it.
Dick
