AC Delco NS40ZL Maintenance Free Battery

For the past week, the ER34 have been kinda hard to crank up especially during cold morning starts. It gets much worst if it's left un-driven for 2 days or more. It takes a LOT of cranks to get her started. Not very impressive if there is any passer-by around. Kind of embarrassing actually. The battery voltage reading as indicated by the Blitz Fatt DCIV confirms that it's running a tad low on juice.

Skyline absolutely hates low voltage battery and it really does show. After checking through my records, my last battery change was exactly 2 years ago. Guess it's about time to replace it. Got my usual AC Delco NS40ZL Maintenance Free Battery from my regular parts shop and it's all good now. With just a crank or two, the ER34 roars to life beautifully! Pleased! :)

Got another AC Delco NS40ZL MF Battery

Pic 1: The ER34 half-cut

Hahahaha.....this is the 3rd AC Delco battery I've changed since I got the ER34. Darn, last week I left the ER34 undriven for 5 days while I was out of state. Stupid me left the cabin lights on and totally drained the darn battery.

Got another AC Delco NS40ZL MF Battery to replace it and finally in the process found a manufacturer that actually sells the NS40Z version (note that missing "L") of the battery where the positive and negative terminals are inverted. That is sold by Yokohama and is manufactured here in Malaysia. It's cheaper than the imported AC Delco but it's grey in colour, which isn't what I wanted. I wanted my battery in black. Yea am a bit fussy. :P

Pic 2: My old AC Delco batteries

Lucky thing that I have 2 used unit of the AC Delco batteries lying in my store room. With battery prices going sky high nowadays, at least I can trade-in the 2 used units for a small sum of RM26. (about USD 8.00) Well, better than nothing yea?

One thing I noticed is that the new NS40ZL by AC Delco is perhaps slightly different in size compared to my old one. I broke my battery cover trying to fit it in. God damn!

Anyway, since it's cracked, I've decided not to use it. I bet an aluminum cover would do wonders to dress up the engine bay. I wonder who can fabricate it for me.......

Pic 3: New battery in without the factory plastic cover

Pic 4: Cracked the battery cover

Pic 5: And another crack

New AC Delco NS40ZL Maintenance Free Battery

Pic 1: The AC Delco NS40ZL MF Battery

Geez!! I thought after going through a replacement alternator and recharging my old battery all will be fine. Guess not eh? After I charged the battery, it was flat 2 days later. It was completely drained out; I can't even crank the engine. I bought my battery on the 4th of January this year and I've 4 more days before the 1 year warranty period runs out. Better try my luck to claim warranty before I go and procure a new battery. Like mentioned in my previous post, batteries are getting costlier nowadays.

When I brought the battery back to the shop, they were a bit sceptical about the possibility of claiming it and being on the 31st December 2007, it doesn't really help that most of the people from the distributor are away and it's a public holiday the very next day. Thankfully, luck was on my side, as I was called about 30 minutes later to come and pick up my new replacement battery. Woohoo!!! That's fast work and it saved me buying a new battery for the ER34. :P

Pic 2: Old battery out of the engine bay.....

Pic 3: And the new AC Delco NS40ZL MF goes in.....

Faulty Alternator

Lately, the ER34 felt really funny. It requires more cranks to start her up and also the headunit would suddenly shut down as if power was cut. On top of that the volt reading was highly irregular. It fluctuates upon usage of the power window and drops to an unhealthy 10 volts whenever I used the flash.

Yes..... Skylines notoriously hate low power. The battery must be weak. The NS40ZL AC Delco Maintenance Free Battery was changed on the 4th January 2007. It couldn't have died less than a year! There must be something wrong with the battery.

I sent in the car for checks and the volt meter suggests that the alternator is not charging the battery fully. It registers only 12 volts where it should be reading 14 volts with the engine started. Looks like a replacement alternator is the only way to solve this problem.

New alternator are costly items, probably in the range of RM2,000 to RM3,000 a unit. That route is definitely out of the question. I need to source for a used alternator. The alternator on the R33 and R34 are supposedly the same thus it is so much easier to find a unit off the R33 than the R34. My appreciation and thanks to bro Emeraude3388 for sourcing an alternator off the BCNR33 (R33 GT-R) halfcut for me. :)

Pic 1: The ER34 Mitsubishi made alternator (Part No. 23100-0V016)

Pic 2: The BCNR33 Hitachi made alternator (Part No. 23100-0V010)

With the alternator on the ER34 removed, I noticed that it is made by Mitsubishi whereas the BCNR33 unit was made by Hitachi. Oh darn, two different manufacturers....... there must be some minute differences.

Sure enough, upon closer inspection, the pulley design is different BUT luckily the alternator belt is the same and fits snugly. The ER34 still requires a couple of extra cranks than usual to start and checks on the battery indicator suggest that it's weak. I'm left with 2 options, either to change to a new battery or to recharge the current one.

Pic 3: Note the diffrent pulleys. The pulley on the left belongs to the BCNR33 while the right pulley belongs to the ER34

Nowadays battery prices are sky high and changing to a new one is going to cost me. There has been at least 3 price hike in 2007. This is due to the rising price of lead. The lead price on the London Metal Exchange (LME) had shot up from US$1,600 (RM5,325.82) a metric tonne early this year to US$3,600 (RM11,983) in November 2007.

Fortunately my current battery is just weak and a recharge on the current battery would fix the problem. I took the battery out to be recharged at a regular workshop and it was working allright after a 4 hours charge. Yea it took that long, luckily bro sakakida kept me company via some parts ogling at speedshops and chop shops. :P

In case you are wondering, nope I did not procure anything at all. :D

AC Delco Maintenance Free Battery

If you have read about my constant raves and rants about the car having some electrical problems under Low batt and a fried amp?, you would have empathized with the sort of irritation I've been having with the car.

Pic 1: Stock Pitwork battery - NS40L

I finally got time to try another suspected cause of the problem. Change the battery!! If it still fails, then it has to be the battery cables.

Anyway, one fine day I sneaked out from work to do some shopping. Well, it is unbelievable that one CANNOT find a maintenance free battery the size of NS40L. And this is after going to perhaps 5 workshops and calling up some spare parts shops. Crazy!

Darn it. I finally decided to try my luck with the NS40ZL. The difference between the two is the location of the terminals. In the NS40L, the terminals are located inwards towards the engine while the NS40ZL has its terminal location outwards towards the car front bumper. Fitted it in and thankfully enough, the cables are long enough to reach the + and - terminals. Phew..... and I nearly resorted to ordering a set in from overseas. LOL :D

Pic 2: AC Delco Maintenance Free Battery - NS40ZL

Anyway, the battery I used is from AC Delco, a brand that I have been using since my days in my previous ride. Have no qualms about its reliability and being black in colour is a plus point. :P

Once fitted, I'm a happy camper. Gone are all my electrical gremlins. Now the car feels good without my constant worries of it going dead in the middle of the road.

Woohoo!!!