My little toy died on the day before I took her off the road for winter, I had a short blast and it wouldn't restart,so recharge the battery and start looking for an earth fault everything seems ok but the battery is only reading 10.2 volts could this be the problem?

Battery's knackered probably a dead cell should be around 12.6v

Edited November 8, 20178 yr by DanE

As above,sounds like a dead cell

But is that enough to cause the problems even the radio only just lights up

Yes.

Dead cell is often lead buildup in bottom of cell.

Lead is plated on and off positive plate and bits flake off, fall to the bottom of cell, build up and short out cell.

So dead cell is flat and short is fairly resistive so any load drops volts further.

My view on batteries is that the longer the guarantee the better the battery.

But is that enough to cause the problems even the radio only just lights up

Valves take a lot of current to heat the emitter!!

Valves take a lot of current to heat the emitter!!

I think you mean the "cathode" I still remember when valves were the norm in TV sets and the engineer coming round to fix the "rental" that my dad had at the time!

 

Simon.