75ZT Community

now thatim retired, i use the car only occasionally and end up with a flat
battery even tho it is not very old.i am thinking of fitting a solar powered
trickle charger. the problem is that the cig lighter is not alive till
the ignition is on.crocodile clips can be used but how do i connect them
from inside the car to the battery.

You could always replace the cigar lighter relay with a bridge, if you know what you are doing. On the older cars that switch off the cigar lighter, the relay only powers the lighter. On newer cars it stays live anyway, which kind of proves it's OK to do this.

Although my ciggy lighter remains live I left mine on clips whilst I was not able to drive it over the winter. It worked a treat apart from breaking the battery cover!!! I'm looking at attaching the clips permanently somehow though. I simply ran the cable from under the bonnet through the passenger door and onto the charger, however be careful as I've also managed to chaff the the wires as they're not armoured in any way. Some heat shrink solved that little problem.

Make sure you get one that's man enough for the job though, mines a 4w and kept the battery in tip-top condition. Started it about every 10-days or so and it fired up as if in daily use and the battery is original so now around 7 years old.

Hope this helps.

PS just in case makes sure everything such as the sat-nav is powering down properly as I believe these can instil a drain on the battery otherwise.

Gary M.

I wouldn't recommend running cables from the battery in that way, precisely because of the problem with cutting the insulation. The croc clips probably aren't fused, so you risk the positive wire shorting to the body. Then, the wire acts as the fuse instead and gets hot and messy first. The problem is, what happens before the improvised fuse blows?

That's the reason I mentioned it Duncan. I originally used the ciggy lighter but when I checked it it was hot as if I'd had the lighter plugged in? Wasn't happy about leaving it like that so reverted to the alternative, not ideal but wasn't able to do anything else at the time.

And the leads aren't fused - cost I suspect?

Gary M.

There is probably nothing wrong with your battery. Modern cars use a lot of amps, even when standing still, plus, you can't start a modern car, especially a diesel, without a full voltage output (12 volts +), unlike older cars that eventually start with a badly discharged battery. Even then, you could use a starting handle!

During the winter I put my battery on charge for a few hours at the weekend. If you look on here at my book, the 'Companion', under the Know How forum, you will see my under-bonnet battery box mod. Using plugs a sockets from Maplins, it is easily wired into the battery; you can then just plug your battery charger in, without having to remove the battery cover.

It may be useful to make sure everything is switched off. Because I seldom use the car at night, I have permanently extinguished the courtesy interior and boot lights. The handbook shows how to do it, but you just press and hold down the main front roof light switch for a few seconds, until the lights go out. Just reverse the procedure to bring them back on with the door courtesy switches.

Roverite.

further to my post on flat battery i have purchased a 9 watt solar trickle charger. since fitting
i have not had any trouble starting after the car had been unused for several days. i to had to
run the cables thro the passenger door it is not ideal but when the door is closed the wires are
caught between the rubber seals of the door and the seals of the door frame.also if the wires
are routed on the outside from under the bonnet and along the gaps in the body panels they are
almost undetectable from a casual observer.

Well done. Just keep an eye on them though.

Gary M.