New Battery Install Question

[SocalHodaka]

Right now our couch has two 12 volt Interstate battery's, they are not holding a charge. They are almost 4 years old. I will go through a full check out on them to make sure if they are bad.

I have looking at replacing them with Interstate U2200 series 6 volt. My main question is, can I just put them in? or should I put them on a charger before I put them in?

Thanks.

[Dr4Film]

I replaced my four U2200 6 volt batteries a few years back. I went out to the local RV service shop, bought four making sure of the date code so they hadn't been sitting around for a long time, brought them home, turned both chassis and coach disconnects off, disconnected the fuse for the solar panel, and proceeded to remove the four old ones and installed the new ones. Make sure to top off the water in each cell with distilled water. I also sprayed the terminals with a sealer to protect them from corrosion. You might want to clean up the tray and other stuff with a battery neutralizer and also repaint the tray before installing the new batteries.

If the new batteries need to be charged, that means that they have been sitting too long somewhere, steer clear of those. The new ones you get will not have quite a full charge but they shouldn't be depleted more than 5-10%.

Also, since you are replacing 2-12 volt batteries with 4-6 volt batteries, you will need a few extra short lengths of 2-4 gauge cables to connect a pair of 6 volt batteries together in series. Then using your existing cables, you can connect the 2 pairs of 6 volt batteries to the coach using the parallel method.

Make sure you have enough space to place the four batteries together.

Sorry for the long post and you were just asking if they needed to be charged.

Dr4Film ----- Richard.

[Ray,IN]

This wiring diagram may be useful: http://www.trojanbattery.com/Tech-Su...nsDiagram.aspx