I have a 51 plate 1.6 Zetec Ford Focus and I need to charge the battery the problem is that the 2 chargers I have available say lead acid only and one says for 1800cc and over or diesel vehicles. So I'm stumpt to what charger I can use or what one to get. If you want the specs I will give you them of the chargers I have no manuals as there ones that my family have given me that they dont use any more. Cheers

I don't really know, but would guess an inverter type inteligent charger is the tool for the job....Dont rush out and buy one on my guess though!

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Why isn't the number 11 pronounced onety one?

Since the vehicle has an ordinary alternator for charging the battery on the move then the 'simple' battery charger you have will do the job. Batteries are rated by their capacity in ampere/hours and a typical car battery can be rated anywhere from 60 to 150 ampere/hours which means - in simple terms - if your charger can output 10amps it would take from 6 to 15 hours to charge those two aforementioned batteries fully (from 'dead').

If your charger outputs LESS amps then the charge time will be correspondingly longer. If you don't have an automatic charger, get one as overcharging a battery is usually fatal for it. Most modern chargers will apply the charge until the battery terminal voltage reaches a certain point at which time it will revert to 'trickle' charging thereby keeping the battery charged but not over-charged.

If your charger has 'fancy LEDs' indicating 'charging' and 'ready' this is usually good enough. If you are at all unhappy with the process, charge the battery for a couple of hours only to get sufficient charge in to get the car started and let the engine do the rest.

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This post may contain nuts

If that is the original Battery from 2001, then I would be guessing that it has reached the end of it's useful life..

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Verwood Handyman
I Know it says I'm On-line, but I might have just left myself logged in, whilst I'm out....

Well pointed out, something I completely overlooked.

Silver Calcium DO have a longer life than the old lead-acid but ten years is still pushing it!

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This post may contain nuts

Overlooking something on a forum is dead easy...I've done that many times...

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Verwood Handyman
I Know it says I'm On-line, but I might have just left myself logged in, whilst I'm out....

Will the battery have a manufacturing date any where, also I was told by someone that all fords after a date are fitted with a smart charging system so that was why I was asking about what charger should use/buy

What kind of grease is best for grease the posts and clamps, my uncle said he uses copper grease, a friend says he use vasaline, I've had to clease the grease that was on it of as who ever had it before but so much on it had gone all over the place

I always use Vaseline on car battery terminals. I would also scrape the battery terminals and the leads back to clean metal first if they're dirty.

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One day it will all be firewood.

dont know about the clamps but the terminal are alright should be considering how much sh**te was on them

what a coincidence I too have a 2001 Focus and it's the original battery,mine has a dot indicator on top of the battery green is usualy a good battery red indicating it's getting low on charge however this device is only monitoring one cell out of the six,I was concerned about mine so i cleaned off the terminals and applied normal grease applied with a small artist brush this gives a nice even coating without it going all over the place
Last night i connected my optmate charger that i use for the motorbike this morning all charging lights were in the green so alls well me thinks
this is the unit i use,
http://www.accumate.co.uk/it010003.html

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