Batteries and battery boxes

We've been working on battery boxes. I made two out of 0.63 diamond plate 18 x 13 inches and 13 inches deep. These will go in place of the gas tanks under the rear seat. We did two to retain the parking brake cables that run from the center console to the rear wheels.

These are very nice cables. To move them would require having new ones made. And these are just VERY nice with some sort of sheathing I really like and the parking brake works very well. So two boxes. This will allow us to stiffen a bit too.

Brain cut a single hole to accommodate the two boxes and installed a piece of 1x1 12 gage steel tube 20.5 inches long in the center. The boxes fit pretty well and we placed a piece of angle iron on the front edge to bolt it to the sheet just aft of the cross member.

These newer cars have a kind of unibody design and Europeans love to do this around a "pan". We have just cut a hole in the pan basically.

By sizing the boxes and using the piece of tubular steel between them, we basically fill the hole in the pan, and regain the stiffness it provided. Probably enhance it just a bit.

I lined one box with ABS and the other with bakelite. I don't really like either one. The bakelite cracks around the rivets. The ABS I suppose is alright but not overwhelming. The issue here is to insulate the boxes. Since our batteries are nominally 9 inches high, they will sit DOWN in the boxes a couple of inches. This gives us a good opportunity to get a wrench between a terminal and the inside wall of the box. That's not good. So we insulate them.

Each of the two boxes can hold 12 cells.

Jack