One of the things on my list for baselining the truck was to examine the battery situation a bit closer on it. This becomes even more important as I bought the truck explicitly for hanging out in very remote places. I suspected the existing batteries in the truck were pretty old, but there wasn’t a decipherable date code in a language I read. The cranking performance didn’t feel stellar on the truck.
One of the attractions of my particular truck is that it is equipped with the factory optional dual battery setup. Poking around the Mitsubishi parts catalog revealed the battery spec is the same regardless of whether a truck is equipped with single or dual batteries, which means that by way of load test either one of my existing old batteries should be able to start and run the truck. It turns out neither one of my old batteries could start the truck individually(at least not a cold start with the glow plugs also going full tilt).
With my suspicion of old, not so strong batteries confirmed, I peeked in the BCI international cross reference guide and translated the JIS battery spec into something useful on this side of the world. I called up the Interstate Battery distributor and gave them money over the phone, and in exchange they set out a pair of their finest MTP-24 batteries. Doing business this way works for social distancing, but feels something akin to a ransom exchange.
I lamented not having a new fuel filter on hand, because access to it (under the intercooler on the firewall) is so much better without the rear battery in place. There’s so much room for activities without a couple of batteries under the hood.
Re-performing the single battery load test revealed that just a single new 750CCA battery turns the starter over considerably faster than both old, weak batteries together. With everything cleaned up, it should be set on batteries for years to come.
