1936 battery ????

[cpwalter]

Has anyone seen this type of battery? And know why it would be used in a 1936 Olds L36?

[JFranklin]

12Volt?  A bit of modification I guess.

[PONTIAC1953]

I had to look close to see the middle two added terminals, I was wondering why this 6 cell battery didn't have the filler caps in a straight row, appears to be a 6-12 battery, so that your starter spins faster with 12 volts for starting, and the ignition, lighting, and perhaps heating/defrosting still operates on 6 volts, definitely not an original type 6 volt battery the Oldsmobile had when new.

[Bloo]

Definitely not original. As @PONTIAC1953 mentioned, it is a 6/12 volt battery. The other parts, relays, etc. that mount on top of it are not there. There is a manufacturer's name for this setup, not Delco even though it uses a Delco battery. At the moment the name escapes me, but maybe somebody in here will remember. There have been threads about these on the forum.

 

It would be pretty useless today. In the days of tar-top batteries, just about any 12v battery could have been reconfigured to work with this. Today the difficulty would be high, and that is putting it mildly. It's probably best as a display piece, especially if you can find the rest of the parts laying around somewhere.

 

Edited March 16, 2023 by Bloo (see edit history)

[pont35cpe]

With the 2 extra lugs, dosen`t that make it a 6-8-12 volt?

[61polara]

It's basically two six volt batteries in one case.  A Ford style starter relay would be mounted between the two center terminals.  When the starter was engaged, it joined the two six volt sides together to give 12 volts for starting.  When the starter was released, it reverted to 6 volts to power all electrical components.

[Bloo]

It would have taken more than a Ford solenoid. If I remember correctly it was series for cranking, parallel for running and charging.