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Yesterday evening my battery died. I drove the car twice yesterday and didn't have any problem, and I went to start it last night to go to the store and nothing. Battery was below 11V.
So after flipping out at my car being broken after I finally got it back together again, I figured out that I'd have to of course remove the Maggie intercooler tank to get the battery out.
So this morning I went to Home Depot and bought a wet/dry shop vac and a crevice tool. I stuck the crevice tool into the tank and it took all of 10 seconds to empty the tank dry. Then I popped the hose clamps and stuck some paper towel in both hoses to keep stuff from dripping in the engine bay.
So after doing some research on the forum here and found that an Optima 35-series would work as a replacement.
(I should note, I was NOT using a stock battery. Because of all the problems I read about with people's batteries dying or being dead from the dealer, I had purchased an Optima 34/78 soon after buying the car. But beause the posts were backwards it wouldn't work with the Maggie, so I had a different battery installed with the Maggie.)
So I did some more research online to find out who would sell these things where I could get one today and finally found a place in Bakersfield, Interstate Batteries on California and K. The price wasn't super great (as compared to some places online like Remy that I'd read about on here) but they had them in stock and it was cheaper than the other Optima batteries for sale locally (none of which would have worked though). I drove my girlfriend's car out and got the battery, topped it off on the charger, cleaned off the battery tray, and got everything installed back in the car. I also decided to flush out the Maggie coolant system while I'm at it, so I filled it with distilled water for now. I figure I'll fill it and suck it out a few times to clean out the old stuff and then finally fill it 50/50 with some Prestone green coolant (I'm not concerned about freezing here yet as it is only getting down into the 60s at night right now) and some Water Wetter.
I drove it around a bit this evening after getting everything buttoned up and it was fine. I checked with my multimeter car on/off and there is a good .5-1V difference (varying) while the car is on vs. off, so the alternator is doing it's thing, which is what I was worried about. It looked like the other battery had worked it's way loose partially from the mounts (it was shaped funny on the bottom and could only be held so tight) and that might have been a contributing factor in its death.
Oh, for people who have the Interceptors, something I noticed is that the Battery Voltage display is not accurate...It's between 0.5-0.6V off to the low side from what I was seeing with my multimeter at the battery terminals (if anything, it should have been lower there than from the bus where the Inteceptors get their data, due to losses in the cables). I wonder why that is??
So anyway, it was an adventure today. But for anyone who has to remove their Maggie coolant tank...Shop vac. Works great.
Now I just have to figure out what I can do with the coolant that I sucked out.
So after flipping out at my car being broken after I finally got it back together again, I figured out that I'd have to of course remove the Maggie intercooler tank to get the battery out.
So this morning I went to Home Depot and bought a wet/dry shop vac and a crevice tool. I stuck the crevice tool into the tank and it took all of 10 seconds to empty the tank dry. Then I popped the hose clamps and stuck some paper towel in both hoses to keep stuff from dripping in the engine bay.
So after doing some research on the forum here and found that an Optima 35-series would work as a replacement.
(I should note, I was NOT using a stock battery. Because of all the problems I read about with people's batteries dying or being dead from the dealer, I had purchased an Optima 34/78 soon after buying the car. But beause the posts were backwards it wouldn't work with the Maggie, so I had a different battery installed with the Maggie.)
So I did some more research online to find out who would sell these things where I could get one today and finally found a place in Bakersfield, Interstate Batteries on California and K. The price wasn't super great (as compared to some places online like Remy that I'd read about on here) but they had them in stock and it was cheaper than the other Optima batteries for sale locally (none of which would have worked though). I drove my girlfriend's car out and got the battery, topped it off on the charger, cleaned off the battery tray, and got everything installed back in the car. I also decided to flush out the Maggie coolant system while I'm at it, so I filled it with distilled water for now. I figure I'll fill it and suck it out a few times to clean out the old stuff and then finally fill it 50/50 with some Prestone green coolant (I'm not concerned about freezing here yet as it is only getting down into the 60s at night right now) and some Water Wetter.
I drove it around a bit this evening after getting everything buttoned up and it was fine. I checked with my multimeter car on/off and there is a good .5-1V difference (varying) while the car is on vs. off, so the alternator is doing it's thing, which is what I was worried about. It looked like the other battery had worked it's way loose partially from the mounts (it was shaped funny on the bottom and could only be held so tight) and that might have been a contributing factor in its death.
Oh, for people who have the Interceptors, something I noticed is that the Battery Voltage display is not accurate...It's between 0.5-0.6V off to the low side from what I was seeing with my multimeter at the battery terminals (if anything, it should have been lower there than from the bus where the Inteceptors get their data, due to losses in the cables). I wonder why that is??
So anyway, it was an adventure today. But for anyone who has to remove their Maggie coolant tank...Shop vac. Works great.