Sounds easy enough!
Battery Tender
Thread Starter
Racer
Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 431
Likes: 1
From: Northern NJ nj
Battery Tender
When hooking up your Battery Tender, is it as simple as connecting the tender to the battery or do you need to disconnect the car's battery cables? remove the battery? anything else?
Thanks.
Thanks.
Drifting
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 1,330
Likes: 0
From: Moorhead MN
We just hooked up a tender to my son's Trans Am yesterday. The instructions stated that depending on whether your positive or negative cable is grounded, the other cable should be affixed to a piece of the frame or the engine itself. The cable on the tender wasn't long enough to do either, so we affixed to the piece of metal holding one of the fitting absorber ***** for the hood. I always thought you'd just hook the positive to the positive and the negative to the negative, but that is apparently not so. FWIW. Dan
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Drifting
Joined: Oct 2004
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From: Moorhead MN
The ones my son and I bought we got at Sears. I think they sold for around $30. Don't know if it is the best or not, but should work fine. We hooked my son's up to his Trans Am and the light was amber as it said it would be and after a few hours it went to green and has been there ever since. Dan
Instructor
Joined: Jun 2004
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From: Port St. Lucie FL
Had my tender on for a week now. By the way you dont need to shut the hood unless you want to. The light will go out on the hood in about 20 minutes so no power is being drained while the hood is up.
Jim in Amarillo, TX
Jim in Amarillo, TX
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Just hook it up. No need to do anything to the battery itself.
Safety Car
Joined: Feb 2004
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From: monroeville pa
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Guys are right no need to disconnect anything on the battery just red cable to red cable and black cable to black cable and then plug it in that's it very simple. 
Safety Car
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From: monroeville pa
St. Jude Donor '04-'05-'06-'07-'08-'09-'10-'11-'12-'13
Originally Posted by zman3
So what is everybody using? The batterytender webpage has a "Battery Tender Plus" rated at 12V, 1.25A. Is this the one I would want?
Melting Slicks
Joined: May 2004
Posts: 2,426
Likes: 285
From: West Barnstable MA
I found a real inexpensive one a Harborfreight Tools. Has anyone had experience with these:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=42292
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=42292
Drifting
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 1,917
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From: Southern NH
Originally Posted by charlene
Yes that's the one you want the battery tender plus.
Yep... That's the one I have. Just connect to the battery terminals. All the warnings about connecting the negative clip to the engine or ground point is liability BS.
Connect the clips to the battery, then plug the Tender into AC. The tender is intelligent and the lights on it will tell you if it's connected incorrectly.
Drifting
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 1,330
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From: Moorhead MN
JC: Putting the liability issue aside, will a battery tender function properly if the one post is grounded to a metal piece rather than to the battery post? As mentioned in a previous post, we did my son's Trans Am yesterday and did it as per the instructions. I assume it will work as good as hooking to the battery posts themselves. Does it work better one way or the other or the same? Thoughts? Thanks. Dan
Drifting
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 1,917
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From: Southern NH
Originally Posted by TkitPlz
JC: Putting the liability issue aside, will a battery tender function properly if the one post is grounded to a metal piece rather than to the battery post? As mentioned in a previous post, we did my son's Trans Am yesterday and did it as per the instructions. I assume it will work as good as hooking to the battery posts themselves. Does it work better one way or the other or the same? Thoughts? Thanks. Dan
But the Tender also comes with a hardwire connector with eyelets that you connect directly on the terminals, and then connect the end of that cable to the Tender lead.
Since I only power on the Tender after it's connected to the battery, there is no chance of a spark, but that's the reason they tell you to use a remote grounding point.