1972 safari.. Battery question

[Theo]

Which battery, size and power, should my A/S have as standard.. It has a massive one that does not fit inside the bay, without the plastic shelf being bent inwards with the door shut, leaving a very large distortion gap round the door..

Also. If I put a sealed deep cycle battery under the twin bed, or in the bottom of the closet, in a box, to supplement battery power, which one do you recommend I use there..

The other question is, are there any diagrams, or links to where I can look at the wiring for the breakaway system. This trailer has not got such a thing connected, and needs a new one. Is there any benefit in having the small battery in the black box, on that cct, or just a pull out.

Theo

[Navigator]

Gel Cell. Optima brand has been mentioned on this forum in the past.
Dick

[davidz71]

I'm not sure if your battery compartment is the same size as the 2 in my '77 Excella 500 but I would like to make a comment on group 27 size batteries. I found that a grp. 27 Duralast battery from Autozone was 1/4" too long for my battery compartment. The Delco Voyager grp. 27 maintenance free batteries are approximately 12" long and the Duralast was 12 1/4" long. The door would almost close. I looked on the Trojan battery site and they have grp. 27 batteries at 105 and 115 amp. hr. capacities that would fit the 12" long maximum for my trailer. I guess you will have to try a metal carpenter's ruler to get an idea of what the max length would be for your battery compartment. I had plenty of widty on either side of the Voyager batteries.

[Leipper]

Most Airstreams seem to use a group 27 battery (or two in the newer ones). If that won't fit, then you have to go for a group 24.

If you want to add more capacity and put the battery inside, the gell cell or AGM type is needed. I recommend the AGM rather than the gel cel. The Optima is one popular AGM battery. You can also find others. Arizona Wind Sun Solar http://www.windsun.com/ is a good source (and has a lot of useful information, too) - AGM batteries can be shipped UPS as they don't leak and can be used upside down.

You should not mix battery types and any batteries run as a bank should be close together so as to avoid imbalanced loads. So I use the house battery for the usual stuff and a couple of AGM's inside to run an inverter and some special stuff.

As far as the breakaway switch. the house battery is just fine for this. There should be a 25 or 30 amp line running to the tongue to service the breakaway switch and a tongue jack (if you have one). It may also serve as a charge line in the umbillical.

see
http://sierranevadaairstreams.org/ow...g/battery.html
for a bit on battery types

see
http://sierranevadaairstreams.org/ow.../charging.html
for charging information and a bunch of links to peruse

see
http://sierranevadaairstreams.org/ow...ry-config.html
for information about small battery bank wiring - and more links to peruse

[Theo]

Thank you SO much, guys.. I think this site is the most useful one I ever go to.. I will have plenty more questions as the work continues.

Theo