Remove auxiliary battery

[Darksidesm]

Is it possible to remove the second battery? I believe it was installed by ford originally but I'm not certain. I dont have a camper and dont use it.

I looked through my manual but I'm not sure if its possible to just disconnect?

Anyone dealt with this before?



I have more pics if it would help?

Thanks

[Gary Lewis]

I don't think that Ford installed that one.  At least it isn't the way the EVTM and the master parts catalog depicts them, nor is it the way mine is installed on Big Blue.

But, it is easy to remove it.  The solenoid in the lower right corner of the pic is the key.  It should be fed with a big hot wire from the starter solenoid on the passenger's fender.  You can remove that link or just take the connection on the starter solenoid off.  And then remove the cable from the 2nd battery to the solenoid on the driver's fender, and remove the battery.

But, you need to ensure that none of the other wires are hot at any time.  So take a volt meter and check things out.

And, unless you just want to clean things up, you can leave everything else in place in the chance that you, or someone else, wants a 2nd battery later.

[Darksidesm]

I took pictures of the 2 wires that leave the setup.


The wire the arrow is pointing to comes from the center bolt of the solenoid. It goes into the blue piece. There are two other wires that go into this blue piece.


This wire comes from battery positive and disappears into the other wires.

I couldn't trace any wires to the starter solenoid. Unless they spliced in somewhere.

[baddog8it]

A Delco battery in a Ford?  Does that even work?  :)

[85lebaront2]

Ok, from what I am seeing it looks like he used an ignition on hot lead to activate the starter relay and tapped the power for the battery from the fusible link stud on the driver's side of the firewall. That stud is hot whenever the main battery is connected, so either disconnect the negative post, or be very careful removing that wire. I can't really see where the small fused wire goes.

[Steve83]

There's no DISadvantage to the aux.batt., unless it's leaking or dead.  It will help the truck in most situations (except cranking).  But Gary is right - that's NOT the factory installation.  This diagram shows how Ford built & wired them:


Click it for a larger version, with more info & links in the caption.

The blue thing is a ScotchLok, which is arguably the WORST wiring connector yet created (especially for stranded wire).  When you remove it, make sure the original wire that passed through it is not severed, or on the verge of breaking.  If it is, splice it back together.  Disconnecting that 1 wire is enough to electrically disconnect the aux.batt. cable from the rest of the truck.

The 2nd wire (with the fuse holder) is what connects the aux.batt. cable to the truck's main charging circuit & main battery (+).  But I can't imagine that the fuse in that holder is large enough to handle any load that requires an aux.batt.  It should have had a fusible link wire, or MEGA fuse (like '97-04 trucks).  You can remove the tray, relay, & wiring if you want, but I'd leave it just in case.  It's not so heavy or bulky that it's costing you anything to carry it around.

[Darksidesm]

I'm not using the extra battery so I dont want to replace it. I also dont want to get zapped while working on the truck forgetting it's there. That's my main concern.

It sounds like if I just disconnect those two wires I can remove the battery and leave the rest just in case.

Thanks for the info.

[Darksidesm]

Got the battery removed.

What is the safest way to fix these two wires? I got new pictures with the wires cleaned up a little.

You can see the original red wire that was spliced. Should I remove the blue piece and reconnect the red wire or just cut and cap the wire coming out?

The black wire is connected to this yellow wire. This one is the one that powers the battery so what is the safest way to deal with this wire?

I'm not an electrician and I just want to make sure I dont cause a fire or fry anything.

Thanks for all the help.

[Steve83]

Darksidesm wrote

What is the safest way to fix these two wires?

As I said: remove the ScotchLok, and inspect/repair the Red (Orange?) wire as needed.  The ScotchLok wraps around the target wire, so just unwrap its blue cover & then pull the truck wire out of the little metal barb inside.

The other (black w/yellow crimp) SHOULD come from the binding post, and it SHOULD go to the relay that feeds the Red battery cable.  (But it's hard to tell from your pics how the relay's power side is connected to the truck.)  So you can either leave it as-is (w/o the ScotchLok splice, the relay will never turn on), or unplug that LB connector to kill power to the binding post & relay.

[Darksidesm]

I got the ScotchLok removed and the wire did not look damaged so I wrapped it in electrical tape. I disconnected the other wire and capped it off. I tucked all the other wires out of the way. So I can easily reconnect everything in the future if needed.

Thanks for the help.