I am going to have to respectfully disagree. Internal or external regulator, it must be interrupted by the ignition switch to not drain the battery, any battery. The wet cell battery is perfectly fine, so long as it does not have a constant 250mA draw on it. It has been in the truck over three years. I've replaced I don't know how many AGM batteries in old MX5s with wet cells, never had a problem.

I know there is supposed to be a charge indicator on the dash that should be illuminated when the forklift is not running, but it's not.

Guess I'll just rewire it like I know it should be.