Second Battery

I found a discussion of installing a Second Battery in New Body Style (GM T1XX) trucks like our Trail Boss trucks.


They don't seem to have a good solution, IMHO, although the issue seems purely locating a battery. Wiring it up is apparently trivial. I was looking under the hood of mine today (Had it One Whole Week now!) and there is easily room on the passenger side for an Odyssey AGM like we use in light planes. And, well, yes many motorcycle brands.

Attached is an image of one of my Odyssey PC680 batteries lowered down in to the space. Seems like a bracket to secure it would not be difficult. And here is a link of the specs and to purchase a battery like this:


I looked for this after watching a few ... okay, a bunch ... of utoob videos of Trail Boss trucks driving offroad. Some were not able to deflate their tires in one video, because they forgot to bring the air compressor to re-inflate for the drive home. And if you're going to bring an air compressor capable of re-inflating our tires ... you're going to need a power station (Goal Zero, etc.). Or a second battery and a pretty hefty Inverter.

vezePilot said:

I found a discussion of installing a Second Battery in New Body Style (GM T1XX) trucks like our Trail Boss trucks.

Dual Batteries

In the old body style, it was easy to add a second battery but in the new one, it seems much more difficult. Am I missing something?

www.gm-trucks.com

They don't seem to have a good solution, IMHO, although the issue seems purely locating a battery. Wiring it up is apparently trivial. I was looking under the hood of mine today (Had it One Whole Week now!) and there is easily room on the passenger side for an Odyssey AGM like we use in light planes. And, well, yes many motorcycle brands.

Attached is an image of one of my Odyssey PC680 batteries lowered down in to the space. Seems like a bracket to secure it would not be difficult. And here is a link of the specs and to purchase a battery like this:

Odyssey PC680 series

www.odysseybatteries.com

I looked for this after watching a few ... okay, a bunch ... of utoob videos of Trail Boss trucks driving offroad. Some were not able to deflate their tires in one video, because they forgot to bring the air compressor to re-inflate for the drive home. And if you're going to bring an air compressor capable of re-inflating our tires ... you're going to need a power station (Goal Zero, etc.). Or a second battery and a pretty hefty Inverter.

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Vezepilot, did you follow through with this dual battery project? I’ve planning to add a battery. This looks like the solution.

Sorry for the delay in replying. No, I have not installed a battery as described. Although this might be a good solution, this type of second battery is rather small in capacity compared to the OEM battery. For instance, while it would be enough for an air compressor, and *maybe* a winch ... it is probably not enough to start the engine in one of our trucks.

Here is the Smitty Built high volume air compressor I run with. Clamps right to the stock battery and works great. I air down all the time. I also carry a tire plug kit. That 30 bucks kept me from being stranded in the desert. Just over 10,000 miles, 3 of my crappy Duratracks have been road hazard replaced because of the weak sidewalls.

Steve

I carry a tire Slime can and a small compressor in my Corvette, cuz those don't have room for a spare. But I don't, or at least haven't, driven my TB off road enough to need it. Most of my off road driving has been to spots to do target shooting, and that has basically been outlawed in the Democratic People's Republic of Boulder. Simply by permanent fire bans, even in winter now.

"Clamps right to the stock battery" ... got photos of that?

vezePilot said:

I carry a tire Slime can and a small compressor in my Corvette, cuz those don't have room for a spare. But I don't, or at least haven't, driven my TB off road enough to need it. Most of my off road driving has been to spots to do target shooting, and that has basically been outlawed in the Democratic People's Republic of Boulder. Simply by permanent fire bans, even in winter now.

"Clamps right to the stock battery" ... got photos of that?

Click to expand...

No picture of the clamps but here it is in use. I might be airing down this weekend so I will take a picture of the clamps. The TB has a generous amount of terminal space on the battery.
Since I brought up compressors I should note there are two common types of portable vehicle units: High pressure/low volume and high volume. The low volume type (most common) typically plug into a cigarette lighter port and are useless for airing up 4 off road tires. I consider them emergency use only. A high volume compressor like the Smitty Built I linked to will air up my Duratracks in a reasonable amount of minutes. Good compressors draw a lot of power and need to hook up directly to the battery with the truck running. The Trail Boss has a feature that blew me away. When you connect an air source to a low tire (truck running) the blinker on that corner of the truck flashes to let you know air is going in. When you hit the recommended pressure the horn beeps. I have checked this against a gauge and the damn thing actually works. The pressure reading sent to the truck via TPMS is pretty accurate.

I spend a lot of time off road, I push this truck hard. Often times I am alone in the desert so I go prepared. I carry tools, recovery gear, and survival gear. Unexpected things happen in the wilderness. In these photos I punctured the weak sidewall of the duratrack, second time tire fail. Because of what I do off road I replaced my factory temporary spare with a matching Duratrack. You also have to replace the wheel because the spare is a 17 instead of an 18. So I spent over 400 bucks at Discount Tire for a good spare and wheel. In these photos we were about to mount the spare only to find out the new wheel Discount Tire put under my truck requires special thin lug nuts and an adaptor. They failed to provide that or even mention it to me. My 400 dollar spare was usless. My 30 dollar plug kit from amazon and my compressor got us out of the desert.

I can't wait to get rid of the Duratracks. If you Google them it is not just me complaining. They have known weak sidewalls.

Steve

veseplilot, I love CO, not the politics the state. I have spent a lot of time there. I live in AZ, it is still the land of the free! Some of my favorite trails there is the Alpine loop area. Ouray to Silverton is perfect for a Trail Boss. I hope I didn't highjack your battery thread with my compressor and tire rant.

vezePilot said:

I carry a tire Slime can and a small compressor in my Corvette, cuz those don't have room for a spare. But I don't, or at least haven't, driven my TB off road enough to need it. Most of my off road driving has been to spots to do target shooting, and that has basically been outlawed in the Democratic People's Republic of Boulder. Simply by permanent fire bans, even in winter now.

"Clamps right to the stock battery" ... got photos of that?

Click to expand...

Here are the Smitty Built clamps attached to my battery. Fit perfectly. TB even has the covered little plate to do this on the positive side.

PHXPHOTOG said:

Here are the Smitty Built clamps attached to my battery. Fit perfectly. TB even has the covered little plate to do this on the positive side.

Click to expand...

Sorry I see the piture did not attach the first time.

PHXPHOTOG said:

Sorry I see the piture did not attach the first time.

View attachment 2423View attachment 2424

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nice