Battery tray idea....

[Wanderer]

had my head under the bonnet of my '93 Vit 1.6 LWB & noticed that the battery tray (on drivers side) can also be bolted onto the other side of the engine bay, attachment holes already there!

Has anyone tried this for a dual battery set up?

Exhaust manafold is a little close, but no closer that on some larger 4x4s, a heat barrier would be mounted to deflect heat from battery. Will also need to move radiator overflow bottle.

cheers

[possum hunter]

Good idea I never even looked at that! but the original item is a lil small and lightweight, pirhana have a battery tray to suit, very solid and fits a much
larger battery!!! think i paid somthing like $60 or so.. It does sit close to the exhaust but i havent had any probs(was worried at first). I mostly make all the gear on my vit myself and was going to do the same but quized Alan at the fourby show in melb and to my surprise they stock one so didnt bother dragging out all the tools...thought that was a fair price for that!

[Wanderer]

excellent! do you know who stocks pirhana gear, i'm in the ACT? did you use a pirhana dual battery wiring kit as well? what sort/type/brand of battery/s do you use? i was originally thinking of mounting a dry cell battery (on its side) under one of the front seats but prefer the engine bay. are you still using the factory alternator?

[roadrunner]

I looked at using the original tray and putting it on the other side, but it'll limit you as to the size of battery you can put in, due to size and strength.

Ended up using the piranha one supplied by ARB. Its a very solid mount and allows a good choice of battery. Its a lot longer than it is wide so you'll end up with some spare room but this can be used for other things !

When I fitted mine I moved the overflow bottle onto the radiator shroud; ground the studs off the outside of the strut tower; moved all the wiring into a single loom going under the new tray and trimmed the bottom lip of the battery to allow for clearance of the wiper motor electrical plug.

I also removed the air intake tube from the inside of the engine bay and am replacing it with and external ( shiny ) alloy custom one going into a modified vitara airbox, as this allowed me room to mount the compressor between the strut tower and the side of the engine bay.

Replace the bolts that come with the kit though, as I broke all but one when I first fitted it as the arn't real strong

[possum hunter]

I wired up my own duel battery setup the same way that most people do with a cont. current solenoid, simple and cheap as i don't need what other setups can do...I have pro comps (exide orbital) small (it cleared the wiper motor setup) and powerful, somewhere around 770cc amps each...
I have an 85amp Bosch alt to run and charge everything works great and i can change the brush packs easy if need be unlike stock alt.. The bolts that came with my Pirhana tray have held up good, been there for 18 months now and haven't moved or snapped...

[Rotazuk]

Does anyone have a pic of the battery boxes installed ?

Cheers
Chris

[roadrunner]

possum hunter,

Wondering what model Bosch you're using, where you got it etc.

Just put new brushes and bearings in my standard alternator but still want to upgrade to something better

[mudfkr]

Has anyone tried this for a dual battery set up?

Yip done that,
You can't just use a tray from the R/H/S as the lower mount will end up the wrong way around so you have to cut it and reverse it and all so you need to off set it out from the air intake pipe which covers the two holes you want to screw it to. As you know you'll have to move the over flow bottle but I just moved mine around the strut tower abit.

Originally when I first looked at doing this I noticed that the V6 models had the tray mounted on the left which still won't bolt in unless you ditch the air intake pipe also.

I used this system for a while for auxiliary lighting which worked fine and then once I put a winch on I remove one rear seat and put a 925 Cca in the back to run lights/winch/compressor and kept one 390 Cca under the bonnet for starting.

Heres a few pix
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mudfkrs/album?.dir=a990&.src=ph

Cheers Shane

[possum hunter]

I just went down to the auto elec with my old one and asked if i could match something up that had more grunt (did the same on my old vit but went to a mates wreckers used one out of a vl but wasn't perfect fit on mounts, close enough to space out though and wanted more than 70 amp) I can't remember what car it suited but here are the numbers off it
9 120 060 036 k1->14v 14/85a 962 bosch out of?????
9 120 060 003 k1->14v 28/70a 92034119 752 bosch out of VL
Had to get a different size belt (I use an 815 4pk but will vary on pully size) and use a different top bracket to clear the bigger alt but it all fits nice and cosy also spaced the pully out to match the rest...

[Wanderer]

is ARB a stockist for pirhana products? does anyone have the stock/model number for the battery tray?

the dual battery set up with a continous solinoid, any suggestions for brand/type/model/stockist. does anyone have a circuit diagram or link to one?

thanks all for the imput - greatly appreciated!

cheers