I haven't bought the new batteries yet but I wasn't sure how to get the old ones out so I went ahead and pulled them first. The batteries on the later 955L's are under the seat and working on them is a real pain as they are boxed in on all 4 sides. I ended up taking the whole seat assembly out and it took all of the strength I had to set it upside down on top of the dash to get it out of my way. The biggest problem was getting to the 4 nuts to loosen the battery hold-down brackets as they are hidden under the side walls without much room to work. This is the smart charger I bought to keep the new batteries from running down again. It's 2 separate isolated 12 volt chargers in one package so you can permanently hook them up to series batteries without removing the battery jumpers. I found a nice spot to mount the charger on the back wall inside of the left compartment. I'm also going to mount a male AC receptacle so I can just plug an extension cord into it without opening the cover. It takes me forever to do things but I will update the thread with some more pics when I get it installed. !
You said the batteries went down after a time sitting? Are you using the disconnect switch when you park it? Should be no draw to them with the disconnect open unless someone wired in something direct to the batteries.
Agree. those batteries should hold a charge for some months. I know back before Christmas we parked all our Hual trucks and Cat loaders and only one or two were started before the first week of March. These were sitting outside in sometimes sub-zero ºF temps and none had a problem starting. Disconnects are shut off every night per company policy.
+2 on the battery switch. My 955 sat out all winter without starting and I forgot to turn the disconnect off, it still started up this spring. I would check to see what is drawing current, it could also be maybe one of your batteries has just come to the end of it's life and pulled the other down
Master switch is always off and there is no current flowing. The batteries are getting up in age with a 2006 date and also my fault for not starting it for close to 2 years. If I could have kept them charged I think I would have gotten more time out of them. The rear battery has a full charge in 5 cells but one cell is damaged and won't take a charge, probably from freezing. The front battery is really bad with 2 fully charged cells and the rest between zero and 25%. I could probably desulfate the front battery and bring it back but I don't think it's worth the time as they are old and I have to replace the rear one anyway. Another issue is the 24/7/365 mice nests being built on top of the batteries. A little moisture and traces of acid on the case will make batteries discharge between the posts even if nothing is connected to them. I always keep the seat forward but there is a heavy steel cover on top of the batteries. I'm going to start leaving the cover off and that will take care of the mouse nest problem as they will not build out in the open.
How do you hook the charger up with the batteries wired in sequence? I was thinking of doing the same thing to mine, but couldn't figure out how to wire the charger in.
Charger as in one 24 volt or two 12 volt chargers? If you have two 12 volt chargers they have to be isolated from each other internally or you can blow the chargers up. I know the brand "Battery Tender" is isolated because I had two of them hooked up before I bought the charger shown above. Just hook them up like you are placing them on two separate batteries. You will notice that there will be a positive of one charger hooked to the negative of the other charger at the series battery connection and this is why the two chargers need to be isolated from each other. I should actually be calling them maintainers, but they will charge, it would just take some time on large batteries. The maintainer in the pics will charge at 4 amps for each battery. They sell a larger 10 amp per battery version but I'm just interested in maintaining the batteries at full charge so sulphates don't start collecting on the plates.
My biggest question is, how can you own that beautiful 955 and be able to keep your hands off of it for 2 years? I remember when you bought the thing, just painted right? I would have a hard time just looking at it for 2 years, lol.
Lack of time mainly and I'm a disciplined person. Speaking of time, why does it seem to pass according to ones age? If only it went by this fast when I was in school staring at that dang clock.:tong Come August, I will have owned the loader 4 years already. Remote property with a fair amount of drive time, ** almost 3 year long trench project, fixing leaking trailer roof and mouse damage, keeping the backhoe running, I could come up with a whole list of reasons. ** Something else that is keeping me from running it is the property layout. Other than 2 small fields the property is all wooded with very nice manicured roads made mostly of fine shale and I have to use these roads to get to different parts of the property. One day I took a joy ride on the old logging roads and another time I did a legitimate job of hauling gravel. Other than when I had to make a turn it didn't look like I damaged the road at all, but I was mistaken. The roads have fixed themselves now but for 2 years I had to put up with that bone jarring vibration of driving over dozer tracks. I can cut some trails through the woods to take care of this problem but then we get back to that pesky time thing again.:dizzy
I'm not sure when it was painted. The farmer I bought it from had huge tractors in huge barns and all of his equipment looked as though he washed and waxed them weekly. This loader was the worst looking machine he had.
Seems to me like you have a perfectly sound reason to add a grader to the collection. Then you can keep them trails in proper shape.
I have been doing other things and haven't bought the new batteries yet. I mentioned in my OP that the nuts on the battery brackets were difficult to access. Well, while trying to get the nuts loose I dropped a nice MAC ratchet that fell all the way down to the belly pan but luckily I could see it after I pulled the old batteries. I taped a super magnet to some fiberglass rods and got it out yesterday. These things are powerful and I wrapped some bubble wrap around them so I could get the magnet down to the bottom without it sticking on everything. Actually I store them in a big ball of bubble wrap so they don't stick to everything they come close to.