Battery Maintenance on 2005 F350 diesel

rvfulltime · 2007-01-15T03:09:18+00:00

1. Why does Ford say in the user manual that the batteryis maintenance free, when it is not?2. Why does Ford cover one of the batteries with a plastichousing that in order to be removed one has to disconnectthe battery?... These are rhetorical questions ...I wouldn't be posting this if my sense of logic didn'tcontradict information given to me by an auto mechanic.I feel a little stupid here. My F350 diesel wouldn'tstart recently due to weak batteries. That was my faultbecause I thought they were maintenance free, and so Iallowed the water levels to get low. Shame on me. SoI called the auto club to get a boost. And when he wasfinished I asked him how to properly disconnect thebatteries should I put the truck in storage. He said todisconnect the positive terminals.So next I go to add water to the batteries and discoverthe plastic housing that surrounds most of the driverside battery. To add water to any cell, the housinghas to be removed. To remove the housing the batteryhas to be disconnected. So I start to disconnect thepositive terminal and that's when I realized that something is wrong. If I were to disconnect the terminaland let the cable touch the engine or body, I'll complete a circut because the other battery is stillconnected. I then pause for a minute, look over thesituation, and decide that since I only have two handsand my arms are not 6 feet long, there is no way thatI can disconnect both positives first without insulatingthem completely so that neither one will touch the engineor body/frame before the other one is diconnected. SinceI don't have the proper insulating material at hand I decided to stop the task of adding water to the battery.Am I right in thinking that I should be disconnecting thenegative terminals (both of them) before disconnectingthe positive terminal on the driver side battery? Doesn'tthis mean the mechanic was wrong?TIA, no email please.

Jan 15, 2007 22 Replies

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My Name Is Nobody 19 years ago

These are equipped with 2 heavy duty relays and a fusible link for safety!

And this is different how?

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Montana Mike 19 years ago

Different than what? It is not at all like the Brite Box. All the harness does is put full battery voltage to the headlights and take the amperage away from the headlight switch by using the relays.

mike

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Duane Totty 19 years ago

Yes disconnect the negative. I had to replace my 2003 F-250 Batteries last year and I had the same problem you have two batteries one on each side you disconnect one but the Ground is still connected on the other so it's pretty frightening thinking that while your on the other side disconnecting the other battery that one slip and you can knock the other cables into anything so just for added protection I placed them into ZipLock bags that way your eleminating one worry.

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