Central Battery Location

[virden]

See previous post re Check Your Battery Tray

Given the damage done, I have decided to relocate the battery to sit above the gearbox. Will some kind soul please send me a description/pic of how the battery box is located. Is it bolted to the top of the gear box or is it riveted to the East-West chassis member above? Thanks

[Crudders]

Virden,

 

If you have a short passenger footwell (most Live Axle cars and some De Dion race cars) you can rivet the tray to the tubes at the base of the footwell, side of the engine bay and the diagonal between the two. That's what I have (I never liked the idea of having the battery under the carbs and this was one of my earlier mods). If you have a long passenger footwell box (as most cars do) the preferred location is on top of that. You could make up a tray to span between the tubes over the gearbox if you really want to put it there or the other options are obscured for some reason (dry sump tank, say) but I presume you were not being serious about bolting the battery directly to the gearbox. If you were - don't!

 

Wherever you put the battery, assuming you have the original Banner type you can save some weight and lower the CoG by buying a racing battery like an Odyssey 680, Varley Red Top 25 or RMD Racing 25 (see the Bulk Buy section for a good deal on these) laid on its side. This should fit within the original tray and you'll just need to make up some basic bracketry to hold it down. You won't get acid finding its way out of this kind of battery either, which has to be a good thing.

 

HTH,

 

Crudders

[virden]

Hi Crudders, Thanks for the advice. I do have an extended passenger foot well, but also have the original wide heater unit (much needed in Scotland) and there just doesn't seem to be the clearance from the feed pipe to allow a placement there. If the racing batteries are that much smaller it might work.

 

Re fitting over the gearbox, that is the one area where there is space, hence my query as to how this is effected in more modern cars.

[Drumster]

Virden,

 

I was in exactly the same position as you. I fitted my battery to the top of the long passenger footwell, but needed to buy a pre-formed 90 degree hose and then cut it down to enable it to give enough clearance behind the battery. Have a look at the pictures here (you'll need to scroll down to the bottom of the page) to give you an idea of what can be achieved.

 

ETA you can see the clear plastic hose coming from the battery breather which then runs down to the bottom of the engine bay.

 

Chris Alston

C7CAT Supersprint

 

 

 

 

Edited by - Aeroscreens on 1 Dec 2010 11:59:36

[jonboylaw]

If you look in the bulk buys section there is a buy on for some racing batteries, I also put a link in my post to an alu cage that I used to fix mine to the bulkhead, you could screw this to the top of the heater and mount the Battery horizontal.

 

 

 

Jonathan

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