Battery choices...

[NOTRIGHTNIT]

A technical inquiry that some of you may have an idea about. I have a 1982 Wide Glide (FXWG). I will soon be attaching a home built 'Sport' sidecar to it, nothing fancy or different about the entire subject at all, but.. instead of the rather pathetic, renew it every year battery, of the correct dimensional size for a Glide etc etc, I thought I might have a rather more decent car battery inside the 'boot' of the chair. Plenty of room there, secure and safe and everything. What I would like to know is what size does anybody recommend. I used to have another outfit many years back with a weird car alternator fitted on frame I made, and belt driven from the sidecar wheel, plus various electrical doo-dads to make it all work alright. I had a rather fetching Bosch battery back then of almost aircraft battery size bolted into the chair behind the rear seat. More modern batteries are far more complex, so any help would be appreciated, thank you.....

[Smitty901]

Not a bad idea. Example , My ATV 500 Polaris use it to plow snow at home. The up and down of the electric winch and lights ran the battery dead. I had enough.

Tossed the ATV battery and put a small Car battery in the rear box. Have never had an issue sense.

The only thing you really need to be concerned about is making sure you get the battery charged up by riding.

Best way to help with that is make sure it is kept charged up when parked.



I have always planned to put a small car battery in the sidecar on my current rig. But have had no issues yet so keep putting it off.

[rhino 2]

A technical inquiry that some of you may have an idea about. I have a 1982 Wide Glide (FXWG). I will soon be attaching a home built 'Sport' sidecar to it, nothing fancy or different about the entire subject at all, but.. instead of the rather pathetic, renew it every year battery, of the correct dimensional size for a Glide etc etc, I thought I might have a rather more decent car battery inside the 'boot' of the chair. Plenty of room there, secure and safe and everything. What I would like to know is what size does anybody recommend. I used to have another outfit many years back with a weird car alternator fitted on frame I made, and belt driven from the sidecar wheel, plus various electrical doo-dads to make it all work alright. I had a rather fetching Bosch battery back then of almost aircraft battery size bolted into the chair behind the rear seat. More modern batteries are far more complex, so any help would be appreciated, thank you.....

Apples to Oranges here…. but years ago when my grandkids were small I bought them Electric toy cars to ride around the property and they came with 6 Volt batteries and they just went so damn slow so I took ATV 12 Volt batteries strapped them to the car connected right to wires and that double the speed and distance they could drive…

[Smitty901]

Long as you do not try to power A lot of lights the strain on the charging system will not over load it .

But if you are over loading it and the charging can not keep up in time it will fail.

[Pegasus1300]

If you are only getting 1 year out of a battery there is problem in your charging system or you are buying really cheap batteries. Or maybe you don'get to ride very often. I would thing a car battery or a little more CCH then what you have would would fine.Do you put your battery on abattery tender?

[TomyJ]

If you have a Battery Box, this might help,Another issue here with Batteries is length of use, I bought a 5 year Battery, AND another issue is AMP hours or also cranking AMPS, this seems to be how long (time) do you want to crank your engine to start or in my first Trike VW, 1600cc would charge the battery enough to run and lights BUT as soon as I turned on the BOSE sound system it started dying while driving, also remember the more AMP hours the bigger the battery, just trying to help...

[CrystalPistol]

If you're going bigger, go for a Group 65 or Group 27.

[NOTRIGHTNIT]

Thank you all for your comments, much appreciated. It seems much as I thought to be fair, a small car battery neatly ensconced in the sidecar boot, assorted wiring delights liberally scattered around the outfit i.e. legal lights etc etc, I have not much interest in any accessories like radios, computer stuff and so on, just the basic requirements. I do have a taste for extreme searchlight strength headlamps for the bothering of the more troublesome, ignorant people... we shall see...!!!

It is nice to have other heads commenting on the subject though, it sort of confirms things, especially when on a 'fresh' project. The bike alternator is more than powerful enough to charge the thing on expected mileage. The batteries I have on a seemingly regular pattern for the bike have been all makes and values, and every one of them have given up the ghost after a year or so. Maybe the weather over here in the U.K.. normally a cell conceded defeat which starts the process going, any use of a economiser speeds the job up until a second cell gives in. I tried one of those Gel type a couple of years ago now, the thing split in the casing and began to discolour for some reason or other...... I do hold out great hope for this project of mine though...... thanks again for comments...!!!!!