AGM battery yes or no

[DeltaV]

You have an Opel? Jesus Chrysler. Need pictures. Kadett or 2 seater. What kind of charger, I’ve heard this before.

He's been holding out on us. I bet he has a Lancia squirreled away too!

 

[33 IMP]

No lancia, but i did have an old opel rekord (correct spelling pre kadett) wagon that i desperately wanted to make into an early hemi powered gasser. At the time i decided i didn't have the talent, money or equipment to do it right. I ended up working for a camera manufacturer that had a full machine shop, welding shop, all kinds of metal tubing and shafting, could have done it, but the rekord was long gone. Darn.

 

[SoCal440GTX]

+1 for AGM

 

[Kern Dog]

My Optima battery fit just fine, I even shortened the tray since the Red, then Blue Top Optima was shorter than the old battery by a few inches.
I have since mounted the battery in the trunk. I use a battery box from a A-100 van. The AGMs are great but they do need to be driven or charged if they sit. No problem for you, given your history of actually driving your car!
I resurrected my dead Red Top by doing a series of overnight charging using a traditional battery charger and another conventional type battery.
The AGMs are not light, at least the Optima batteries I've had are not. They seem to weigh as much or more than conventional batteries.

 

[alsant]

AGM my vote.

 

[zyzzyx]

I found a good video

 

[moparedtn]

I found a good video

Well, THAT certainly was enlightening!

 

[moparedtn]

AGM batteries are great. They require a different kind of charger/maintainer. Battery Tender is what I’ve got for mine. Also, if an AGM battery goes dead, you’ll need a regular battery to help get it going on a charger.

Brings up what is probably a stupid question for me, but here goes:
If AGM batteries take a different charger, were changes made in cars at some point in history to their charging
systems to accommodate AGM batteries? I assume our old factory alternators and such get along with AGM batteries
without modification?

 

[alsant]

Good question ?

 

[5.7 hemi]

As far as I know, nothing has changed. It’s the way a dead or low AGM battery has to be charged.

 

[SoCal440GTX]

Low / dead AGM batteries have an extremely high internal resistance and are difficult to start to charge with conventional chargers. You sometimes have to put a very high voltage difference across them to get current to flow (+60 volts). Once they start to take charge the internal resistance drops so you have to be careful and reduce the differential across them. A good quality 2 stage or 3 stage float charger can be used from that point on.
Cars don't need any special changes for AGM's since they don't discharge that much under normal use.