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Which Battery For A 2L Pinto?


Guest dieselnut

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Guest dieselnut

Just bought a 2B from eBay, came with a 340CCA 34Ah battery in it. When cold it cranks fine and fires up no problem (once I figured out the electric pump was stuck!) Once hot however it's a right pain to start, turns at roughly 60rpm and drags the battery voltage so far down that the digidash clock resets, however it does start after 2-3 turns of the crank.

What size battery would you recommend? I'm tempted to go for something pretty sizeable and relocate it to the rear of the car to free off the bulkhead space for a heater. Just need some chunky cable to wire it up and the additional weight in the rear passenger side might offset some of the weight in the driver's seat :-p

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Cold start easier than hot start is not typical of battery problems although 340CCA would not be my first choice. Decent quality 450 should do it easily.

Poor hot start/60 rpm sounds like there is another problem. Perhaps poor starter motor or more likely ignition timing is over advanced. Check with a strobe or if you don't have one just loosen the distributor clamp and turn the distributor body about 3mm clockwise looking down on it. Then see if the hot start is easier. (Strobe is better, about 10deg advance is a good initial figure.) Battery is still being pushed to the limit.

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Guest dieselnut

Cheers guys! I think the distributor may have been tinkered with in the past as it's got the vacuum advance disconnected and blocked off at the inlet manifold.

 

Got a friend with a strobe who's back mid-week so I'll nip over and give it a try. Standard is about 10degrees static advance with a max of 38 at 3500rpm I've read, does that sound reasonable?

 

Will grab a new battery too just to be sure with a bit more get up and go to it :)

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It would be worth having the battery tested. I had similar problems with my Superspec for a couple of years. It would crank and start fine from cold, but when hot the starter motor would barely crank or just click. Went through all sorts of fixes with thicker battery cables and thinking the starter motor was overheating. But in the end I had the battery tested (free at Halfords) and found it only had half the cranking amps. A replacement solved all my problems.

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Guest dieselnut

I didn't know they did battery tests, will have to pop down, do you have to do anything special like fully charge and then not drive with it, or can I literally drive down and pop the bonnet for them to test in situ?

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Slight correction - it's the Halfords Autocentres that do battery tests, not the normal shops. I removed the battery from my car and took it in separately, where they put it on a test machine and gave me a performance printout. I presume you could just drive in and they'd have to remove the battery from your car to test it. BTW, they will advise and quote on a replacement if needed, but no obligation to buy.

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Guest dieselnut

I can imagine the amusement when I pull up at the local Halfords in the Hood, they're used to seeing body kitted Corsas and wide boy exhausts round by us!

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Guest dieselnut
Just wanted to give everyone an update (and leave a hint here if anyone's googling it later!) - had the battery tested, all fine, it was about 90% of where it should be on the CCA test, but apparently that's "just how it is sometimes" when they test them?!


I connected up a jump start pack just incase - no difference.


I was just about to adjust the timing to see if that helped as suggested I noticed a loose wire hanging near the electronic ignition module. As luck would have it a quick google returned a wiring diagram - "The white one is a live +12V during starting which delays the ignition timing by 10 degrees to enable better starting."


Connected that up and it was like night and day, one quick flick of the key, started straight up even though it had just been out for a 20 minute drive!


Now onto the next challenge - what the two miscellaneous and unlabelled switches on my dash do!


Thanks to everyone for your suggestions!


Matthew

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Guest dieselnut

I tried flicking them at random, nothing happened. I assume one must be the rear fog light, but it's not working, time to start chasing wires through the car :)

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