Battery tray mods
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:03 pm
My truck still had the original Japanese batteries that were getting tired so after a long time trying to decide on my options I went with a single deep cycle gel battery.
Jay (Tardisdeli) showed me his skills and innovation on this one. Thanks Jay! We decided to ditch the old tray and replace it with a single plastic tray (Marine application) and were able to fit it by only using existing taps. The tray was installed toward the driver's side as the frame rail is underneath and not much space could be used below. Doing so gave us a big opening that may be used to mount my WVO filter. I already had a bracket made to mount it behind the front passenger's side wheel (thanks EricN!) but this way might make it easier for access and line routing. Also, if Plantdrive can't figure out how to get us new filters than the extra space would alloy me to use a narrow Racor heated filter (or so I hope!). All in all a very clean install. I'm not worried about having this opening unsealed as I the rest of the engine bay isn't seal from the bottom...
So thanks again to Jay for this help and also getting the new stereo installed and all the old amps wired removed! We used an existing hole made in the firewall for those amps wire and installed a new hardwired electrical outlet which doesn't require the key to be on to function, nice! I almost forgot one of the most frustrating part of the evening, replacing the old Karaokee back stereo with a plastic pocket (compliment of Glenn at CCautos, Thanks Glen!) The rear unit doesn't come out easily, ohhh no! But it's done and I'm happy! The moral of the story, "If it ain't broken, modify it!"
David ps. sorry for the low quality pictures but we only had a cell phone camera... (Thanks Falco!)
This particular one is similar to the Yellow top (Optra, Optima?). It's a deep cycle rated at approx. 110 min reserve and 920cca. I guess it's not a real deep cycle as it has good cold cranking amps, these are typically used on 4x4 vehicle with greater demand for extra lights, winch...Jay (Tardisdeli) showed me his skills and innovation on this one. Thanks Jay! We decided to ditch the old tray and replace it with a single plastic tray (Marine application) and were able to fit it by only using existing taps. The tray was installed toward the driver's side as the frame rail is underneath and not much space could be used below. Doing so gave us a big opening that may be used to mount my WVO filter. I already had a bracket made to mount it behind the front passenger's side wheel (thanks EricN!) but this way might make it easier for access and line routing. Also, if Plantdrive can't figure out how to get us new filters than the extra space would alloy me to use a narrow Racor heated filter (or so I hope!). All in all a very clean install. I'm not worried about having this opening unsealed as I the rest of the engine bay isn't seal from the bottom...
So thanks again to Jay for this help and also getting the new stereo installed and all the old amps wired removed! We used an existing hole made in the firewall for those amps wire and installed a new hardwired electrical outlet which doesn't require the key to be on to function, nice! I almost forgot one of the most frustrating part of the evening, replacing the old Karaokee back stereo with a plastic pocket (compliment of Glenn at CCautos, Thanks Glen!) The rear unit doesn't come out easily, ohhh no! But it's done and I'm happy! The moral of the story, "If it ain't broken, modify it!"

David ps. sorry for the low quality pictures but we only had a cell phone camera... (Thanks Falco!)