Right battery? Search came up empty

[Graflex45]

Originally Posted by Red Dave

It's a crapshoot at best. I just put a new battery in my 125. Standard lead acid U1 300 CCA was in it. The install date stamped on the top was 3/2014.
That's unusual as, like you said, they usually go 2 or 3 years and die.

I don't know what made that one so long lived. I wish I did, I'd try to duplicate it on the other 4 I have around here.

One thing that I do think helps: I don't allow lead acid batteries to go dead over the winter, I keep them charged up. I use a cheap Harbor Freight battery maintainer. It seems to me that discharged batteries have short lives, especially in freezing winter storage.

Over-discharging lead acid is the number one way you reduce their lifespan, so keeping a trickle charge on a battery if its not on a machine that's used regularly is a must.
I just ordered a bunch of anderson powerpole connectors and am going to put new battery cables on both my tractors with quick disconnect battery leads on both so I can keep the battery for the one that will be stored in the unheated shed in my garage where it wont go below freezing. Also would allow me to swap batteries if one goes bad or easily pull the battery and recharge it in the garage if I need to.
I just replaced the 600 cca car battery the restorer shoehorned in my 70's battery compartment (dated 2014) with a napa tractor battery. Wildly overpowered and made it so top heavy.
A good thing to check if batteries do not last long is to check what the charged voltage of it is after running the tractor for a long time so its charged to the max. 13 to 13.2 volts is the max it should be charging it to. Overcharging leads to sulfating of the plates and reduced lifespan. If its overcharging you probably need to replace the solid state rectifier or properly adjust the mechanical regulator.

[DSarow]

A good multi meter and a battery maintainer is good to have.If you do have to put a charger on,keep it on a lower setting.Those big booster chargers damage the plates.My neighbor learned the hard way.