[shep]

has anyone mounted a second battery under the bonnet of there sierra.
i was running a 650cca 58amp hour deep cycle cranking battery but my
(really) old man just stole it and left me a 80amp hour deep cycle battery
and a 550cca cranking battery.

i need to put both of them under the bonnet as i have the seats still in my car. a photo would be great.

[Scrawny]

Plenty of room on the left, unless you have a compressor there? TJM and ARB do all the dual battery wiring/monitoring stuff.

[shep]

tjm and arb are the same shop here and are not an option, hell they just told
my old man that there is no snorkel to fit a t/d paj. anyway i will be using a
200amp isolating solenoid i am just not sure how to mount a tray for a heavy battery.

[Scrawny]

I'll post you one up from Brissie if you want

Ball should be able to fab up something for you shouldn't he? He's the wiz with the mig

[want33s]

I prefer to keep the C.O.G as low as possible so the idea of mounting a second battery in the engine bay was ruled out for me.
I made a bracket and put a 1000cca 110Ah battery under the floor at the rear of the car.
I run winch, air compressor, 2 way and rock lights off this batt.
I fitted a Pulse batt out of an aeroplane as my starter batt. 280cca but only 5kg.

[Zook_Fan]

want33s wrote:

that is really clean

[shep]

ScrawnC wrote:

I'll post you one up from Brissie if you want

Ball should be able to fab up something for you shouldn't he? He's the wiz with the mig

naa he is to expensive. at least i think he is i am still waiting for an invoice
from last july.

[want33s]

Zook_Fan wrote:

that is really clean

That pic was taken nearly at the end of my total rebuild and conversion from WT SWB to NT LWB. My build thread is on outers or Ozwheelers.

[keechox]

im half way doing one myself. i got a vitara tray from the local wreckers ($10) some welding flex cable from work ($10) and a "red key" isolator ($15)

had to mod the tray a bit and weld up a new bracket to keep it steady.

I have an isolator on the positive of the reserve battery and one on the earth of the primary battery so i can choose which battery (or both) i am drawing from.

my main aim was to have a reserve battery for starting if i leave the fridge on and it drains the primary battery. but you can switch on the isolator on the secondary battery and have twice the amps if you need it for the winch or something

was a cheap mod and hopefully, in time it will be worthwile

[shep]

keechox that's what i am looking for, what size is the battery and did you relocate the charcoal canister or just toss it? do you think it will stand up
to driving on lots of corrugated roads. the battery i am trying to fit is a N70.

[11_evl]

i put an N70 in the std location, combined with the falcon alt upgrade works well

[royce]

Bruce has a really nice tray I gave him, he might post pics

from what I remember when trying to fit a massive battery in mine, the drivers side has more room than the passenger side, the little indent in the inner guard is a bit wider so you can fit a longer battery, need to get rid of the heat shield though

if that turns out the way you need to do it with the aux on the drivers side and the start on the passenger side, thats pretty easy to sort out too, mine are currently back to front

[shep]

11_evl wrote:

i put an N70 in the std location, combined with the falcon alt upgrade works well

not enough juice storage, i already have a 550cca/58amp battery in the
stock possie. shits me having to run the car when i am camping to keep the fridge going.

[keechox]

im not sure what size the battery is, as i said, its really only for emergency starts and winch use. The vitara tray was a little narrow for the "big" battery i put in there. Thats why i needed to mod it. the lhs battery mount goes through the original inner guard and the rhs one is now reinforced with some scrap steel i had laying around. My zook gets pretty well abused and thrown over a lot of rough stuff so ive built it to last.... time will tell

[shep]

fixed. i did about 1000k's on very rough roads on the weekend and it
didn't fall out

[Chop]

Hey sheps, is that battery tray just a universal style? and how did ya fix it, to the fire wall?
I'm going to be adding one in the near future, for a trip later in the year.
I'll be doing mine with the baintech setup.

Cheers
Chop

[shep]

yep just a universal tray. i can pull the battery out and take some photos if ya
want. be careful of the electronic charging kits as they do fail. with a solenoid
at least the original battery will be charged, plus they only cost $30

[Chop]

Yeah photo's are always good!

Chop

[shep]

battery tray is stuck to the firewall with a bit of 40x40mm angle bolted on using
the charcoal canister mounting bolts. had to cut a bit out of the angle to
clear a lumpy bit of the firewall.


had to cut a bit of the battery tray so that it would clear a lump on the guard
and sit 20mm lower.


just bolted it through the guard with some big washers

[Damo]

Hey Ball! Check it out, Shep used washers!!!

I would also put a piece of insertion rubber or something like that under the battery to stop the bolt heads rubbing through the battery casing. But nice job Shep!

[ball]

He forgot to use paint on the angle bracket though

He is still a rough bastard

[Damo]

ball wrote:

He forgot to use paint on the angle bracket though

I was going to mention that, but I thought i'd give him a break!

ball wrote:

He is still a rough bastard

You can take the boy out of Queensland, but you cant take the Queensland out of the boy

[TZAR]

Maybe consider one of these too



This way you can swap between batteries, keep one for starting and maybe you could get a deep cycle battery for your fridge instead.

This is where Royce "the electro guru" comes in and tells you what is best

[shep]

TZAR wrote:

Maybe consider one of these too


This way you can swap between batteries, keep one for starting and maybe you could get a deep cycle battery for your fridge instead.

This is where Royce "the electro guru" comes in and tells you what is best

i have a deep cycle for the fridge, 58amp hour its the red one .
the trouble with those battery switches is that they are all designed for
marine applications and have a high failure rate on the roads that we have.
battery isolating solenoids are cheap and ultra reliable.

damo and ball, well you can both just get stuffed.

[royce]

those solendoids corrode up and stop working cause they arent sealed

you can get marinised ones, same solenoid but covered in rubber so its sealed

[shep]

royce wrote:

those solendoids corrode up and stop working cause they arent sealed

you can get marinised ones, same solenoid but covered in rubber so its sealed

well there ya go, i hadn't heard of that.

[Chop]

Sweet shep, thanks for the pics.

Chop

[jimbo_jones]

heres mine mounted it east west so I could fitt a bigger battery in

[jimbo_jones]

also fitted in nice and missed that hump so no trimming needed

[BUZOOKA]

shep looking at wewre uve bolted it in to the top of the guard does that give u any trouble with rubbing on tires when flexing??