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cheapest way to put the battery in the boot?


pauldoubleyou

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For my Lupo conversion i need to house the battery in the boot. I intend to fabricate a box for it to sit in, however im a tightarse and want to look at wiring. The last time i did it I used a heavy duty set of jump leads and attached my own crimps and terminals.

 

Where is best to get the wire and what sort would be best? The distance is about seven feet.

 

 

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You'll need 40mm2 cable really. About £8 a meter off ebay. Terminals for either end are a quid each. Crimp tools are £30-40 but you can do an OK job with a hammer, some angle iron and a 4mm punch.

Don't worry about a box, you don't need to seal it, just secure it and make sure nothing shorts out.

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post-7547-0-11532900-1508404363_thumb.jpg

This is the cable from a rover 100 P4 which had a 2.6l engine. Insulation is OK and it has steel outer sheath to enable it to withstand the apocalypse. There is a ring terminal on one end (rubber cover still intact) and a negative battery terminal on the other which unless your Lupo is very odd will need changing. I most likely have a decent + one so if you want it PayPal me 6 quid and I'll bung the lot in a jiffy bag and that will be one less thing cluttering up my workshop.

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And how does putting the battery in the back do that?

 

More room in the front to fit a stupidly big engine?

 

Or better balance in bends.

 

 

Or being AS, it's the only place the battery won't fall out of due to rot & if cars start they are always faster than those that don't.

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I fitted a 500cc bigger engine to my Calibra earlier this year, I didn't immediately lose the capability of using correct English or feel obliged to festoon it with tat :-D

 

Subtle modifications are fine IMO, if done for good reasons.

 

(The Calibra's been lowered 20 mm for the last decade, although you'd probably not notice as it's the standard ride height for a DTM V6 Calibra... but more importantly, a good quality lowering kit was half the price of replacement OEM shocks & springs).

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Don't worry about a box, you don't need to seal it, just secure it and make sure nothing shorts out.

I would have thought he would have to make sure any hydrogen from Charging is properly vented? My Volvo had a sealed battery in the boot with a little vent pipe going from the top of the battery to the boot floor and outside

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Indeed. Don't most cars with batteries in the boot have special batteries for exactly that reason?

 

I seem to recall a recent story on here about MX5s & normal batteries being fitted resulting in rusty boots due to this.

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Loads of vehicles run batteries in the cabin outside a box, my VW T25 for example.
They only create hydrogen when being abused (otherwise they'd only last about 2 weeks!) and it's not harmful anyway, unless ignited, but the battery box isn't going to help you there.

 

EDIT:  That stuff about MX5 batteries causing rust is more down to rusty MX5s and their damp, unventilated boot. The very slight amount of acidity caused by an improperly vented battery was just like the straw that broke the camels back really. A battery in a draughty car isn't going to cause any issues.

EDIT 2: My own MX5 had a normal 063 battery in the boot for 5 years. The boot area was the only place that wasn't rusty!

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Loads of vehicles run batteries in the cabin outside a box, my VW T25 for example.

They only create hydrogen when being abused (otherwise they'd only last about 2 weeks!) and it's not harmful anyway, unless ignited, but the battery box isn't going to help you there.

 

EDIT:  That stuff about MX5 batteries causing rust is more down to rusty MX5s and their damp, unventilated boot. The very slight amount of acidity caused by an improperly vented battery was just like the straw that broke the camels back really. A battery in a draughty car isn't going to cause any issues.

EDIT 2: My own MX5 had a normal 063 battery in the boot for 5 years. The boot area was the only place that wasn't rusty!

I don't mean necessarily put it in a box, I would just make sure it's a vented battery and use a vent pipe. It's Paul's choice but that's what I would do personally. As you say it only really gasses when abused but if the alternator did start over charging I'd rather not find out when I opened the boot to check the battery and the boot light switch made a nice spark and ignited the hydrogen.

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