[DeTomaso] Drop battery box

[David D Fisher]

Thanks Jack.
 
Ken sent some helpful pics that helped with the courage part. 
 
David
 
 
 
 

________________________________
 From: "JDeRyke at aol.com" <JDeRyke at aol.com>
To: fisher95020 at yahoo.com; detomaso at realbig.com 
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 11:22 AM
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Drop battery box
  

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