Recommended Batteries for Shuttle Bus

[greenup]

1995 Ford e350 with gas engine. I have two batteries under the hood. I believe the driver side battery(black 'EverStart' in photo) is used to start the engine and the other(green in photos) is used for things like the wheelchair lift. I think the guy that I bought it from just threw in whatever batteries he had laying around.

After sitting for a week at the shop the bus wont start anymore, the shop it was at jumped it and i drove it home. I am charging it now. But it got me thinking about the fact that these batteries are probably not going to last long and might not even be correct. The one on the passenger side seems like a standard auto battery size but its sitting on a plate that looks like it should hold a much larger(longer) battery. The cables going to the batteries are sort of a mess and I got some parts to redo that and might even have to replace some of the wires.

There are a ton of cables going to the driver side battery, not sure even a fleet sizes battery connector will hold all of them. It currently has a marine looking connector with the bolt and wingnut. Each of the 4 positive wires has a terminal ring on it. Is this normal?

In addition, embarrassingly, I cannot get the driver side battery out of the vehicle! I even unbolted the coolant reservoir still it doesn't fit.

[Johnny Mullet]

Replace both with 65 series batteries that should be original equipment.

[PNW_Steve]

Hopefully the battery cables will get a little love too.

Those are pretty scary looking.

If you haven't tried them, take a look at "military lugs". I had to replace the clamps on my 5.9Dodge pickup. Dodge wanted to sell me a full set of four battery cables. Cost was over $200 for the parts.

I cut the clamps off of the end and had a battery store crimp lugs on them. Then installed four of these:https://www.waytekwire.com/products/...waAmvmEALw_wcB

Worked slick. Solid and reliable repair for $45 including labor for crimping the lugs.