It all started with a vision... a vision of dual optima batteries under the
hood, lovingly retained by a shiny 304 stainless battery box. Two optimas
in the stock location of the single P38 battery, enough power for my winch, my
engel, everything!
I had just installed a Warn 9.5ti, gotta have the juice to power it. I had
seen good success from dual Optimas (Red tops from Costco, $140) in the
Defender, and wondered how they might fit in the stock location. Doing my
web searches, I read other writeups where folks had run a remote battery into
the spare tire compartment, but that seemed pretty clumsy. I wanted it
under the hood!
Brace
Pan
Fab work was done by the stainless fabricators
Fab-X/Metals.
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Stock Battery Box |
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So if you've never seen it, this is what it looks like. It's held in place with just 4 bolts to the body, and of course the bolt pattern is very weird - making it hard to measure for a replacement! |
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Battery Location |
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This is what the mounting location looks like with the stock battery box removed. |
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Dual Battery Box base |
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Fabbed base, viewed from the side. |
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Dual Battery Box base |
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Top view - note the 4 mounting brackets. Holes in the base allow for ratchet access. |
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Batter Box - top |
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This top is custom fabbed to conform to the contours of optima batteries. It gives a nice snug fit! |
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Box Bottom |
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Batteries installed... |
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Complete Box |
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Batteries installed, top on |
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Tubing Protection |
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This tube connects the radiator to the expansion tank. It would be chafing against the new box at this point, so I beefed it up with a little heavier duty covering. |
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Box Bottom |
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Installed in engine compartment |
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Installed Battery Box |
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notice that only one battery is connected - at this point I have not bought the battery cables to connect everything up (I wanted the install done so I could get the measurements right). |
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This is a good project. Actual fab-time is around an hour, but this took
the better part of 2 days because of me screwing around, getting measurements
wrong, changing drawings, etc. Now that I have it figured out if I need
another one it will be a lot easier!
