[DeTomaso] Drop battery box

[JDeRyke at aol.com]

When I dropped our battery many years ago, I didn't use a box. Instead I 
made an angle-iron crossmember between the two lower frame rails for the 
battery to set on. This gives maximum ventillation and may even help stiffen up 
the front end. In position, your battery will be bounded by the firewall in 
back, the frame rails and the steering rack mount to the front. I slid a 6" 
long piece of wood 2x4 between the battery case and the right frame rail as a 
spacer. The big water tubes pass just underneath and the steering 
shaft/clutch hydraulic line are to the left side. 

Stock battery cable have enough slack to reach that locaton without 
extending them, if you re-route them a bit. The short ground cable can be attached 
to a steering rack bolt. I also recommend rerouting the right front brake 
connecting line, since with the battery gone, it looks funny up in the front 
trunk no longer hidden by the battery.   Recommend NOT using a battery with 
side-posts because the hot side-post connecting bolt will get VERY close to 
the welded-in-place steering rack mount and you'll have to provide some sort 
of insulation against dead shorts, or get underneath and chop out enough 
metal for safe clearance. Even on dual-post batteries, I leave the polyethylene 
shipping plug in the unused hot side post hole for protection.

IMHO, the hardest part of the job is working up the courage to make that 
first cut in the floor! There are several articles on this upgrade that 
replicates the factory location in post-Ford wide-body cars. Good luck- J Deryke