www.iFourWinns.com

This weekend I replaced the wing nuts on the battery posts with stainless steel self locking nuts. The wing nuts kept loosening no matter how tight I made them. While doing this work I found that the plastic buckle that held the two parts of the nylon battery strap together had mostly dissolved. The plastic buckle the dealer had installed was the same size and shape as the buckles used on many life jackets. So before you take the boat out, give the battery strap a hard pull and check to see if it is functional.

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2006 Sundowner 255, 5.7 GXi, 320 hp
"Simply Irresistible"

Good tip. I discovered one of mine was rotted out when I replaced them last season. I make it a regular maintenance item to check.

Another tip, always assume that any carrying handle on a battery WILL fail. Never pick one up by the handle. It's much too heavy a thing to allow crashing down onto anything in the engine room (like the hull itself). I've never had this happen in a boat, but did have one wreck a carburetor in a car some years ago. Damn thing just snapped off and cost me a new carb. I shudder to think what that much force would break in an engine room...

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista

I never liked those straps; they always seemed to allow some movement (especially as the factory fitted battery trays each have 1 side cut off, the allow the fitment of British sized batteries ( US batteries are not shipped with the boats from the factory to the UK!) . I replaced the straps ( on my 2 battery set up) with a flat metal, insulated bar that goes over both batteries, which is held in place by 3 lengths of stainless threaded bar/ locknuts, attached to the base on which the battery trays sit. The batteries don't move at all now.

Graham