Bob's Component Resto, Part 26: The Battery

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cruiser

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Good evening Mopar guys and gals. Are you itching to get your A-Body Mopar back on the road once spring arrives? Up here in the northland, we have to wait for the snow and salt to go away before we can get out on the roads, and this provided the perfect opportunity to dive into a winter project that I had been putting off. So prepare to fall asleep with tonight's somnolent installment: The Battery. How many of you have been at a car show admiring the engine compartment of a beautifully restored Mopar, only to see an off the shelf battery from Auto Zone? Yuck. Talk about a buzz kill! Everything in there was perfect right until he installed the modern battery. Yes, modern batteries are great and I use one in my 69 Charger, so I'm as guilty as the rest. But a correct repro battery is truly the finishing touch in a beautifully restored engine compartment. When I bought my 74 Duster in 2019, it had a typical parts store battery in it. I can't really blame the owner back then, as he really didn't know much about cars. So restoring the correct battery to my engine bay became a priority to me, and here's what I'm recommending if you're going for this look under the hood. First, pull out all the junk, including the battery, starter relay and both cables. Once I did this, I removed the corroded battery tray and the gallon sized Ziploc bag that was residing under the existing cheapo battery in the bottom of the tray. Needless to say, the Ziploc bag didn't do much to prevent the tray from rusting. I then bead blasted the tray and hit it with three coats of self etching primer, followed by three coats of JY9 Tahitian Gold Metallic paint that I had a body shop mix up in a rattle can for me (see before and after photos of the battery tray below). Once the tray was back in, I bought a new Group 24 repro Mopar OEM style battery from The Antique Auto Battery Co. in Youngstown OH. I believe that since I bought the battery (in 2016) this company has been bought out by someone else. In any case, this is a absorptive glass mat (AGM) battery, not a lead acid battery like your father's Mopar. And since it contains no liquid or acid, it can never leak and ruin the paint under your hood. I also opted for the date code of 3K (September of 1973, correct for my Duster's October of 1973 build month) to be stamped on top of the negative terminal. So in went the correctly green capped battery, fastened with a repro hold down strap. The hold down that came with the car was severely corroded from battery acid, and the repop straps are virtually identical to the factory originals. Being a stickler for detail, I found a really nice set of the original cone top hold down J-bolts with their correct captive washer nuts. They were a bit rusty, but an overnight soak in Evapo-Rust cleaned them up and now they look like new. I then turned my attention to the cables and the starter relay. The existing non-original relay wasn't working very well, so I installed a new one from NAPA (Echlin SR-5) that looks exactly like the original and works perfectly (see photo below of the old and new relays side by side). Next came the cables. I bought a repro positive cable and spent the extra money for the one that has the correct starter end terminals. It was very easy to install and works great. Unfortunately, nobody repops the negative cable so I had to use the closest thing that I could find: A 32" black negative cable from NAPA. It'll have to do until someone comes out with a correct repro negative cable. In any case, it all went in and looks and works great. I love the AGM battery which briskly cranks over the little slant six even on the coldest days up here in Minnesota. One recommendation: If you do go for the AGM repro battery, purchase the specialized charger/maintainer that they sell along with the battery. Regular off the shelf chargers are incompatible with AGM batteries so its best to invest in the charger up front. As I mentioned earlier, I bought this battery in 2016 and it has run flawlessly since then so I can give it my strong recommendation. So there you have it: My engine bay now has the correct cabling, starter relay, and battery in a nicely refurbished tray. I can sleep at night, and so can you now that you've read this. Please feel free to weigh in with your questions or experiences with the AGM batteries. So why are you still in the living room? Get your milk and cookies, go upstairs and dream of riding in that lovely Mopar with your best girl sitting next to you on some beautiful evening. Night night!

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Good evening Mopar guys and gals. Are you itching to get your A-Body Mopar back on the road once spring arrives? Up here in the northland, we have to wait for the snow and salt to go away before we can get out on the roads, and this provided the perfect opportunity to dive into a winter project that I had been putting off. So prepare to fall asleep with tonight's somnolent installment: The Battery. How many of you have been at a car show admiring the engine compartment of a beautifully restored Mopar, only to see an off the shelf battery from Auto Zone? Yuck. Talk about a buzz kill! Everything in there was perfect right until he installed the modern battery. Yes, modern batteries are great and I use one in my 69 Charger, so I'm as guilty as the rest. But a correct repro battery is truly the finishing touch in a beautifully restored engine compartment. When I bought my 74 Duster in 2019, it had a typical parts store battery in it. I can't really blame the owner back then, as he really didn't know much about cars. So restoring the correct battery to my engine bay became a priority to me, and here's what I'm recommending if you're going for this look under the hood. First, pull out all the junk, including the battery, starter relay and both cables. Once I did this, I removed the corroded battery tray and the gallon sized Ziploc bag that was residing under the existing cheapo battery in the bottom of the tray. Needless to say, the Ziploc bag didn't do much to prevent the tray from rusting. I then bead blasted the tray and hit it with three coats of self etching primer, followed by three coats of JY9 Tahitian Gold Metallic paint that I had a body shop mix up in a rattle can for me (see before and after photos of the battery tray below). Once the tray was back in, I bought a new Group 24 repro Mopar OEM style battery from The Antique Auto Battery Co. in Youngstown OH. I believe that since I bought the battery (in 2016) this company has been bought out by someone else. In any case, this is a absorptive glass mat (AGM) battery, not a lead acid battery like your father's Mopar. And since it contains no liquid or acid, it can never leak and ruin the paint under your hood. I also opted for the date code of 3K (September of 1973, correct for my Duster's October of 1973 build month) to be stamped on top of the negative terminal. So in went the correctly green capped battery and I then turned my attention to the cables and the starter relay. The existing non-original relay wasn't working very well, so I installed a new one from NAPA (Echlin SR-5) that looks exactly like the original and works perfectly. Next came the cables. I bought a repro positive cable and spent the extra money for the one that has the correct starter end terminals. It was very easy to install and works great. Unfortunately, nobody repops the negative cable so I had to use the closest thing that I could find: A 32" black negative cable from NAPA. It'll have to do until someone comes out with a correct repro negative cable. In any case, it all went in and looks and works great. I love the AGM battery which briskly cranks over the little slant six even on the coldest days up here in Minnesota. One recommendation: If you do go for the AGM repro battery, purchase the specialized charger/maintainer that they sell along with the battery. Regular off the shelf chargers are incompatible with AGM batteries so its best to invest in the charger up front. As I mentioned earlier, I bought this battery in 2016 and it has run flawlessly since then so I can give it my strong recommendation. So there you have it: My engine bay now has the correct cabling, starter relay, and battery in a nicely refurbished tray. I can sleep at night, and so can you now that you've read this. Please feel free to weigh in with your questions or experiences with the AGM batteries. So why are you still in the living room? Go upstairs and dream of riding in that lovely Mopar with your best girl sitting next to you on some beautiful evening. Night night!

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Looks great! All cars were painted with the battery tray in place except when the assembly line had problems. In that case the workers threw in a battery tray inside the car. Those battery trays were sometimes painted body color hanging in the car or installed with the primer paint on the assembly line.
 
Looks great! All cars were painted with the battery tray in place except when the assembly line had problems. In that case the workers threw in a battery tray inside the car. Those battery trays were sometimes painted body color hanging in the car or installed with the primer paint on the assembly line.
Yeah, I could tell that the battery tray had been painted in place at the factory. When I removed the tray to refinish it, only the top side had body paint on it. The bottom side was still in its black primer with no body paint (see photos). BTW, I looked into replacing the tray but the repop ones are slightly different than the original. So I opted to stay with originality and I'm glad I did.
 
Looks great
Thank you. For what its worth, I find the bead blasting process oddly satisfying. The bottom of the battery tray was full of rust, crud and black primer. To watch all that stuff fly off and reveal the virgin steel underneath is amazingly satisfying to me. Shows how sick I am!
 
Looks great
The date code 3K is for September of 1973, which is correct for my car because it was built in mid-October of 1973 (for the 1974 model year). Battery dating back then was based on a letter of the alphabet representing the month of manufacture, and the number after the letter was the last digit of the year of manufacture. The letter sequencing began with the month of October, represented by the letter "A". September is eleven months after October from the previous year, and the letter "K" is the eleventh number of the alphabet. That's how you get a date code of 3K. Hope this helps.
 
If October is the first month and starting with “A” wouldn’t September be the 12th month ? “L” ??
 
If October is the first month and starting with “A” wouldn’t September be the 12th month ? “L” ??
Yes, you are correct. November would be the first month starting with"A". My mistake. This is how it was explained to me by the people who manufactured the battery. I should have listened better.
 
Yes, you are correct. November would be the first month starting with"A". My mistake. This is how it was explained to me by the people who manufactured the battery. I should have listened better.
Ok. Makes sense now. Thanks
 
I love your attention to detail when you do a project on your car. Looks great!
 
Yes. I just came across Bob’s posts and so far they’re all very interesting and good information.
It's crazy man. I'm sure some people would say "it's a slant 6 car, don't waste your time", but I'm lovin every minute of it.
 
It's crazy man. I'm sure some people would say "it's a slant 6 car, don't waste your time", but I'm lovin every minute of it.
Point well taken, Rusty. And thanks for your continued support and encouragement. Everyone has his or her own reason for appreciating their cars. My Duster (as I've previously mentioned) is a re-creation of my very first car that I bought in 1977. It recalls a happy time in my life for me, and I love the challenge of getting everything on it back to stock. For example, yesterday I found a factory original, never replaced PCV valve on a donor 1974 Valiant. This valve is the exact correct part number and still has its factory blue paint on it. I pulled it, reconditioned it and installed it on my Duster - and it works perfectly (see first two photos below). Here was a cruddy old part that sat cold and dead on a rusty hulk for years, now reborn and happily sucking oil fumes through my engine as it was designed to do. And I like the idea of having some factory original paint in my engine compartment, installed on my freshly repainted motor. I realize that I'm one of the few people in the hobby who restore their cars this way, so I suppose that shows how sick I am. Anyhow, I believe that as time goes by the A body cars will become more valuable. I also believe that people will begin to appreciate the slant six engine more. I still have the opposite end of the Mopar spectrum with my 440 powered 1969 Charger RT/SE (see photos), but I just love driving that stout little slant six!

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