This may sound daft - but its a serious problem ... two 20Ah Lawn Tractor batterys

Its already been stated that this type of battery is rated at 330 CCA.
Refueler said:
Fine ... but its the Amps that is the killer ... I have suspicion that those two batterys even together are going to suffer trying to deliver wopping amps ... regardless of total A/hr used.

My Perkins has the old diesel drip feed into air intake .... via a Glow Plug that ignites it ... so a flame gets sucked in. I looked into the history of it and it appears to be from the days of early tank engines.
The thing is - it works every time ! If I remember to top up the small tube reservoir. So usually I end up using the Easystart.
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PaulRainbow said:
Good way to kill an engine.
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I agree that it has a bang to it that can lead to damaged pistons etc. if over used .... a more kind application is strangely enough WD40 ... but WD40 is useless in real cold weather.

But that's the killer ... people tend to spray far too much in and that is bad.

Of course the Perkins method of the 'flame' is also not so kind ... but it works.

My 4-99 never suffered from previous owners use of Easy start all those years ... it was only the boat flooding out and engine half submerged that led to its demise. (I was away all that year and couldn't get back to boat in the yard).
The 4-107 that replaced it has never shown any signs of distress in all the years previous owners sprayed Easystart at it ... in fact I was the one that re-instated the proper cold start into the air intake.

I agree its best not used. But there are times you better have a can handy !!

As a teenager with Fordson Dexta ... Ford 3000 ... Ford 4000 tractors ... it was not only Easystart but also a fire under the engine to get the darned things going in winter ...
 
Refueler said:
.... a more kind application is strangely enough WD40 ... but WD40 is useless in real cold weather.
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In olden days, some people used WD40 to help start engines, because WD40 at that time had LPG as its propellant gas. But more than 20 years ago, WD40 changed the propellant gas to carbon dioxide, which doesn't do much to help start reluctant engines!
 
VicS said:
You are lucky that you have been getting away with this without doing serious damage to the engine.

Easy start is OK for petrol engines because the ignition still relies on the spark and therefore occurs at the right time in the cycle

However with diesel engines, which rely on compression raising the temperature of the fuel air mixture to the point at which ignition occurs, you have no control of the time in the cycle at which the Easy start ignites...
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Cummins were happy to fit ether cold start as standard.
 
pvb said:
In olden days, some people used WD40 to help start engines, because WD40 at that time had LPG as its propellant gas. But more than 20 years ago, WD40 changed the propellant gas to carbon dioxide, which doesn't do much to help start reluctant engines!
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Didn't know that ... WD40 is not exactly in my portfolio ... I just use it to free up locks and things. Its one of those products that used wrong leads to all sorts of trouble.

Used to race cars in my younger days and the workshop facilities were provided by a garage service that no mechanic liked touching car electrics. We are talking points / coil days before todays techno wonders ! So it was agreed I would do the electrics in return for the gear ...
The number of bad starters we had to fix because of WD40 sprayed all over the points etc. Mini's ... 1100's ... they all used to be rolled in for a clean up !
Met my first wife due to her Viva packing up .... ignition coil failed.
 
I am still surprised though about WD40 ... because it still has volatile solvent in it ...

My mate uses it in summer for his Grand Voyager - its got a weak fuel pump and needs a bit of help ... but I know as soon as weather goes cold - its back to the Ether !
 
Cheap jump starters like this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12v-Port...685529&hash=item56c7ce40d9:g:vpIAAOSwPHpdNcgu use a 17AH battery, so two 20AH ones in parallel should work. As others have said its CCA (Cold Cranking Amps) that starts engines, not AH and I had a good illustration if that when my jump starter failed to start SWMBO's diesel 4x4. The AA man had a similar sized one branded Snap On Tools, and his one spun it up and started it with no trouble.
 
Norman_E said:
Cheap jump starters like this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12v-Port...685529&hash=item56c7ce40d9:g:vpIAAOSwPHpdNcgu use a 17AH battery, so two 20AH ones in parallel should work. As others have said its CCA (Cold Cranking Amps) that starts engines, not AH and I had a good illustration if that when my jump starter failed to start SWMBO's diesel 4x4. The AA man had a similar sized one branded Snap On Tools, and his one spun it up and started it with no trouble.
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Trouble is the batterys have no CCA stated on them.
 
Refueler said:
Trouble is the batterys have no CCA stated on them.
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And if they did, it would only tell you what they were supposed to be like when new.
I measured the cranking current of a supposedly 800A CCA car battery a while back, at +15 degrees it only gave 150A to 7V for 20 seconds or so, but it would start the car. It was quite old.
Bike batteries often lose a lot of cranking performance in not many years.
 
Some of these batteries are AGM and some are gel. If they are AGM maybe (but probably not) , if they are gel unlikely.
 
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