Ranger Mods

Anyone had any experience installing a larger battery in an Everest / PX Ranger?

Having recently had a no morning start event in my Everest (the battery is dying!) after a nights camping & many door openings - I noticed that each time you open a door - the car lights up like a Christmas tree and the battery drain jumps from around 0.75 amps to around 8 amps, before slowly shutting down again - putting a pretty constant drain on the battery over many repeated cycles.

Hence my interest in a larger / cranking / storage combination battery.

The OEM battery is 175 mm high with European style recessed terminal posts.

The battery I'm looking at fitting is a 800CCA 80Ah AGM [Century DIN75LH - designed for cars that switch off the engine when stopped], but it is slightly higher 190 mm

Only 15 mm extra I know - but there is not much extension available in the positive wire set.

Has anyone out there had experience fitting a larger battery, with better storage functionality? If so I would be interested in your views.

BTW The front battery is really only for cranking & dealing with appears to be a reasonably heavy load when doors are repeatedly opened - I have a dual 100 Ah AGM battery in the back to run the fridge and handle other camping loads.

John

If you enabled silent mode in Forscan then monitored what happens with current draw? It should make a huge difference and will defiantly settle those current spikes down.

I'm not at a new battery stage so cannot answer your main question at this stage.

I would also recommend getting those external battery trickle chargers, charge your bat once a week or once a month.

Well I did buy that 800CCA 80Ah AGM [Century DIN75LH] - had the local Ford dealership fit it - the 190mm height went in OK - but I don't think you could possibly fit any larger battery. Ford also reset the BMS losing the dual battery fix my local auto electrician had installed [telling the BMS that the nonexistent seat heaters were on???]. Had Ford switch the BMS over to dual battery mode - This had the same effect as the prior fix - Battery voltage stays fixed at around 14.2 volts. SOC now appears to get up around 94%. All these tests have been with the second 100 Ah AGM battery connected in the rear.

netless wrote: ↑Sun Apr 01, 2018 6:17 pm Well I did buy that 800CCA 80Ah AGM [Century DIN75LH] - had the local Ford dealership fit it - the 190mm height went in OK - but I don't think you could possibly fit any larger battery. Ford also reset the BMS losing the dual battery fix my local auto electrician had installed [telling the BMS that the nonexistent seat heaters were on???]. Had Ford switch the BMS over to dual battery mode - This had the same effect as the prior fix - Battery voltage stays fixed at around 14.2 volts. SOC now appears to get up around 94%. All these tests have been with the second 100 Ah AGM battery connected in the rear.

Strange, never once had an issue after a BMS reset. Anyway glad it's sorted.

Replaced my main battery a few weeks ago (about a year old) after a few flat batteries. Put in a 80ah start/stop AGM. IN smart mode the batt would stay around 83% SoC (unless I topped it up with charger). I tried 2 weeks of dual batt mode and it would get up to 100% on a long trip. With the new batt I switched back to smart charge and the car is maintaining a 95-100% SoC. If I run the batt down it'll charge at 14.8 volts and 60-90amps to get SoC up. On the highway it'll drop to 12.7, 1 amp or sometimes lower if starting at 100%.

The only problem I'm having now is with the batt saving feature (leave the car on acc to keep the fridge running), is this based on time or voltage? It seems to be a 90min timer as I reset it and things keep going for another 90 min before I need to do it again with the SoC still high. I want to set the timeout on the ACC to longer so I can run a fridge for overnight trips (have a jumpstart batt for backup).

Yes, these is a 90 min time out on the 12volt outlet circuit but it is basec on time and battery SOC.

If you have Forscan and can change asbuilt data then change;
BCM
726-39-01 from xxxx-x1xx-xxxx to xxxx-x0xx-xxxx

This should disable the timeout period. Beware that the BCM may not shut the point down in case of low SOC (I cannot confirm that part 100%).

Let us know your outcome.

Thanks, will give it ago.

Some feedback. This seems to override the timeout on the 12V sockets even with acc off. So with the key out overnight the points stayed on (the USB ports on the radio shut off based on powerpoint time value still) and would not turn off. The battery level didn't get below 70% so I haven't tested if low SoC will cut them off yet.

So you are saying with that setting that the blue leds on the USB hub stay lit 24/7?

The blue LEDs USB turn off with the PowerPoint time out value. All the other 12v outlets/inverter stayed on 24/7.

Running 2years now on my OEM 590CCA everest trend battery. March 2016 build date.

Using silent mode and fully charging my battery every month using CTEK charger.