i posted earlier that i bought an Antique Auto Battery for my 57 TBird , see : http://www.antiqueautobattery.com/ they show both acid filled and sealed maintenance free batteries. i got the latter, which appears to have an Optima battery inside a concours correct original style casing. You need to call them for their offerings as at the time i bought battery it was not on their website but was in fact available. Since my 65 Mustang Superformance Cobra replica batteries were relatively new I did not check their Ford offerings for batteries other than what I was looking for. I got the battery in April and it has served me well so far. Pricey but for what I wanted , it was worth it. As a side, I had used the Battery Tender once on two of my cars and had to add water to the batteries every month during winter storage.I forgot one month and noticed my tender warning light was no longer going from red (charging ) to green (charged) but rather stayed red. Turns out ALL my water had disappeared and both batteries were toast. So, i had two tenders that I tossed and now just disconnect the batteries for long storage periods, and charge them overnight after storage before their first usage ( antique auto battery excluded as this will be its first winter ...even then it will not be 'tenderized' so to speak, just disconnected ). bill, Motown -----Original Message----- From: Ronald Robertson [mailto:ronald.robertson@sympatico.ca] Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 12:16 PM To: RSANTER@aol.com; shelbymustang@carmemories.com Subject: Re: Batteries Bob: In an earlier post, a lister bought a battery for his Thunderbird from Antique Auto Battery. He either stated, or hinted strongly, that AAB had taken an empty shell and put an Optima battery inside. I would imagine cutting one open, removing all the acid and innards and replacing it with an Optima or similar would be easier the second or third time one had done it. Ron ----- Original Message ----- From: RSANTER@aol.com To: ronald.robertson@sympatico.ca ; shelbymustang@carmemories.com Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 9:29 AM Subject: Re: Batteries if you like the look of the battery you have, would it be possable to empty or gut out the battery and then use it as a shell to hold one of those compact,sealed, high powered racing batteries? just a thought in fact I always wondered why nobody has made just a repo battery shell to do that. one other thing I have always wondered. if you were to drain the battery and refill it with fresh electrolite, would the battery work good again? and for how long? bob
