Has anyone found a battery maintainer lead that will play nice with the goofy LR battery terminal?
I can use either the Battery Tender/Schumacher male/female style connector or the NOCO style.
My first attempt was to modify a Battery Tender ring into a spade but I still couldn't get it to work. I don't want to rely on the clamp-style leads since this is a permanent connection.

Hopefully I'm missing something really obvious...

 

You should be able to connect ring terminals to the ground "bar" that is between the battery box and the fuse box, and the positive to the hot stud inside the fuse box. Those are the locations I usually draw power for for auxiliary components unless it's very high draw like a winch.

 

I made my own with ring terminals and an AMP Superseal connector (ebay). There is a bolt on the positive battery terminal that fits a ring terminal. Negative goes to a ground bolt near the coolant reservoir. The connector hangs lose behind the front grille (make sure it can't get sucked in by the AC fan) where I can easily grab it. A spare connector housing to seal it when not in use.

 

That'll work for now.
I was using that ground bar to attach the one side but hadn't checked inside the fuse box. Only problem is that the Battery Tender lead is 18" which doesn't get me out to the grille. So I'll need to either find a longer lead, or make one.

The rings on the Battery Tender lead are only about 12mm ID. Which is too small to fit around the bolt on the terminal. Do you know what size your rings are?

 

Ground bolt is 6mm dia, my battery terminal bolt is 8mm dia. You could also use the tightening bolt for the battery terminal, which is 6mm dia too. I got ring terminals from my local hardware store, since I made my own cable.

 

On the topic of battery tenders, I've found that leaving the trucks unlocked causes the batteries to drain more quickly. Opposite of what I would think, when locked the battery seems to keep it's charge longer. I now have tenders on the two trucks I never drive so it's a non-issue, but has anyone else experienced this or can think of a reason why this could be the case? Maybe it was just circumstantial.

 

That’s a great observation. My D2 can sit for 2 weeks and crank over at full speed. But during my 5 day canoe trip in September the battery went completely flat. This was in the middle of nowhere, with only a handful of other vehicles within 25km, so there should have been no radio interference. I’m pretty sure the doors were locked but I don’t remember. I can’t really troubleshoot it because it hasn’t happened again.

 

Locking with the remote brings the current draw significantly down after a few minutes. The current I measured was in range of self discharge currents of lead acid batteries. I am not sure if current draw goes down as much when you just lock the doors just with the physical key.

 

Well, I always lock with the fob so maybe there's something to it. I would go so far as to say that it was repeatable to the extent that I noticed, and would habitually lock the trucks whenever I wasn't driving them. It was just an observation though and I didn't do any actual testing so I can't present any data. .

 

That’s also a great thought. I have no idea if I locked it with the key or the fob that time.