I would go bigger just in case you decide to do some add ons down the road. Not sure what price you are looking at now but check out dcpowerinc . com They make HP alternators. Im sure they might be a little more than those but they will def keep your batteries charged with no problem.

 

Yeah that sounds really low. Higher wont hurt that's for sure.

 

Alright thanks guys im back on the road it was pretty easy to install new alternator i didnt even have to use the tensioner i just used a little muscle and lifted the belt enough to get it off then back on. Prolly the easiest ive ever done. My only thing is when i turn truck off it makes a little squeek noice its done it since ive owned the truck im not sure if maybe its a pulley goin bad. Any recomendations would be good.

 

Might be a pulley

 

WELL I left my power inverter plugged into my cigarette lighter all weekend while the Mrs. and I were at my parents' and came back to my baby Took almost 45 minutes for her 'lil Scion with a brick holding it at 2500RPM to charge the beast enough to crank over and fire (no I wasn't trying every 5 minutes, I turned everything off and kept my WatchDog plugged in so I could monitor the voltage, then cranked it once it hit 11.6VDC) she struggled but finally lit. Then 15 minutes at high idle and another 15-20 of driving around and putting her through a mild workout. She was a little slow to go when I was leaving work and I'm a bit worried...REALLY don't have $500 to flush out for new batts right now (Optimas will be going in next) so I hope I can resurrect them

Here's my future thought, both batteries are only really needed to start the truck so I'm thinking quad 750s, 2 under the hood (paralleled) and 2 under my toolbox next to my air compressor (paralleled) and have the 2 sets paralleled to each other...so it would be twin 1500CCA setups paralleled to a terminal switch to change the input/output voltage to Set1/Both/Set2/Off and remaining 12VDC. So that I could run any ACCs without worrying about being able to start.

If that makes any sense

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Holy hell I said paralleled a lot

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Like a selector for boat batteries

 

I don't know about all that, but one thing I've picked up on the powerstroke forums is optimas are a huge waste of money in our trucks.

 

How so? I'll be getting them at cost from the base and we run either Optima 750s or CAT 880s in all of our equipment. I could just say to hell with it and parallel twin CAT 1500s

She was nice and spunky this morning so I think I caught them before they got too low. Phew!

 

Not sure, but I know I've read a few times on the powerstroke boards that the optimas just don't do well cranking over a powerstroke. You'd think CCA is CCA no matter what, but I'm not really sure what happened.

I bought some 880CCA napa units, they were dirt cheap. Most of the batteries made are all made by the same people and just re-badged anyways.

 

I had optima yellow top in my old truck. Died on me in 3 months wouldn't hold a charge. Advanced replaced it same thing. When they tested both batteries nothing came up. Just my luck I get 2 bad batteries back to back?