Type 1 Breakdown - Dead Battery. Any Explanation??

I was driving through Melbourne city in heavy slow moving traffic at night and so had the headlights on. The bug has original 6 volt electrics. Its a German built 1965 Type 1.

After being in slow moving traffic for about 10 minutes the engine cut out. I was on a hill and tried to roll start it again but it would not jump back to life. Turns out the battery was dead. The bug started again easily with charge from jump leads and battery was holding charge just over 6 volts and has done since.

Can anybody offer an explanation why this occured? I can understand the battery losing charge with the lights on but it was only ten minutes in traffic. Im also wondering why it wouldnt start after rolling and jumping in to gear.

"could" be an intermittent short some where

Batteries can get crud in them as well and short out between the plates. The re-charge has blown it away??
Did you take the battery out to charge it??

You could try flushing the battery with a fresh lot of distilled water

Otherwise convert to 12 volts

Hi

I had the same thing happen when I had a power pulley on a 12 volt generator equipped car.

Generators don't charge at low rpms. So what you basically did was leave your lights on (plus whatever else was on) for 10 minutes without the battery being charged, a sus battery will not handle that sort of treatment. The reason it didn't clutch start was because you didn't have enough power for the ignition system.

Steve

dam thats what i was going to say do a test turn on ya lights and anything else you had working and leave it all on for 10 min than start the car

OK, thanks guys for the advice. By the way, I only had the lights on. The original old radio works occasionally but thats about it.

radio only works occasionally?

my radio on the 1500 plugs up the a 12volt source that is always live, it was naturaly like that when i got it, and was an old system.

If thats the stock setup, then maybe its the radio shorting it out if it keeps going on and off. just another guess though. Cause if its cutting out, then that means that something buggery is mucking with the source 12 volt power.

sounds like a crappy connection somewhere around the battery (possibly the terminals...)

I have had something like this happen to me a couple of years ago when I was sitting in the entry traffic to the Ettamogah Pub (at the Dubs by the Pub show) - the car had been idling for around 10 mins and I had the lights on - then it just stopped. No lights on the dash, nothing. I rolled it down the hill and sat for a couple of minuites and the lights came back on - still had to be roll started.

Once I got it home I discovered that the connection between the positive terminal on the battery and the lead was not as clean and tight as it should have been, so presumably the current drain of the lights was enough to cause the terminal on the positive lead to begin to heat up, which in turn causes the resistance in the connection to rise, which causes more heat, which .... well its a spiral effect until there is not enough volts going through the power lead - then everything stops.

Even if your battery terminals are tight and look clean, remove them and clean them again before re-fitting the leads, then check your charge voltage with the headlights on - it won't be much above 6 volts at an idle but it shouldn't be going backwards quickly either.

R 🙂

AS someone else pointed out...
a Generator doesn't charge at slow engine speeds...

also Your regulator may have been playing up....
and only charging at high engine revs...

maybe the points in the regulator need cleaning..

overall,
the Voltage drop when You have only 6 volts isn't good...

8 Volt batteries were made in the 60s to fix the problem
of voltage drop... they really made a difference.

I din't think they are available these days...

Lee

PS: I believe if You want to keep the car at 6 volts..
Use Two 6 volt batteries in Parallel...
thats connecting the positive to Positive +
and connecting the Negative to Negative --
so its still 6 volts but with double the amount of CC Amps..
Lee


http://community.webshots.com/user/vw68autobug

the other thing, that should be done to All air cooled VWs

all the electrical connections should be cleaned
including the ones on the battery, headlamps, generator, regulator and all terminals on the fusebox including the ends where the fuses sits...
don't forget the earth strap on the gearbox and the earth strap connection on the body/chassis...
clean between the strap and the body...

cheers

Lee

Thanks guys. Some great feedback there. Gives me something to do over the Christmas......

you have much to learn grasshopper