I figured I should get a build thread going since I spent a couple hours tonight shoe horning a big battery in the cruiser.
Shortly after I got her from Bamachem:
The battery has been on the down slope, and the recently kinda cold mornings have been a little tricky. It barely started over the weekend, so I picked up a Die Hard Platinum 31M.
I couldn't get around to fabbing up a bracket and everything until this evening, so I rode around ghetto with it in the floorboard in the back seat, and a set of jumper cables. That got old fast.
I went out to my father in law's shop this evening, and my bro in law and I knocked out the install in a couple of hours. We got a little silly with part of it, which you'll see in a bit.
First step was to see if it fit. Yup, plenty of room:
The next step was to extend the positive terminal so that the right angle part would fit on the oversized battery. From the threads on here, it looked like folks used copper bar stock. I used a 2.5" piece of 1" x 1/4" bar.
The next step was to slim down the end that goes on the wiring harness to fit in the channel that it clamps in. We could have used a grinder, but we thought it'd be a lot cooler, totally unnecessary, and complete overkill to have a machined piece. Over to the mill...
Then over to the wire wheel on the grinder to clean it up and get it ready to go.
While I was at it, I figured cleaning up the mating surface on the terminal wouldn't be a bad idea.
Fit on the terminal was good.
Next step was to get the tie down strap ready to go. I used a 2" x 1/8" piece of mild steel bar stock, and bent it on the brake to fit the contour of the battery and line up with the factory tie down j-bolt and front bolt.
Next I cut two 5" sections of 2" x 1/8" angle to use on the tie down, and welded it up.
My welding skills aren't that great, but they're looked functional enough. I tacked everything, and then test fit. Then I ran one as a full bead, but got worried about the piece warping, so I did the others a half at a time and rotated through to finish it up.
And lastly, bolt everything down and start her up.
It starts really quickly now. Big improvement.
Shortly after I got her from Bamachem:
The battery has been on the down slope, and the recently kinda cold mornings have been a little tricky. It barely started over the weekend, so I picked up a Die Hard Platinum 31M.
I couldn't get around to fabbing up a bracket and everything until this evening, so I rode around ghetto with it in the floorboard in the back seat, and a set of jumper cables. That got old fast.
I went out to my father in law's shop this evening, and my bro in law and I knocked out the install in a couple of hours. We got a little silly with part of it, which you'll see in a bit.
First step was to see if it fit. Yup, plenty of room:
The next step was to extend the positive terminal so that the right angle part would fit on the oversized battery. From the threads on here, it looked like folks used copper bar stock. I used a 2.5" piece of 1" x 1/4" bar.
The next step was to slim down the end that goes on the wiring harness to fit in the channel that it clamps in. We could have used a grinder, but we thought it'd be a lot cooler, totally unnecessary, and complete overkill to have a machined piece. Over to the mill...
Then over to the wire wheel on the grinder to clean it up and get it ready to go.
While I was at it, I figured cleaning up the mating surface on the terminal wouldn't be a bad idea.
Fit on the terminal was good.
Next step was to get the tie down strap ready to go. I used a 2" x 1/8" piece of mild steel bar stock, and bent it on the brake to fit the contour of the battery and line up with the factory tie down j-bolt and front bolt.
Next I cut two 5" sections of 2" x 1/8" angle to use on the tie down, and welded it up.
My welding skills aren't that great, but they're looked functional enough. I tacked everything, and then test fit. Then I ran one as a full bead, but got worried about the piece warping, so I did the others a half at a time and rotated through to finish it up.
And lastly, bolt everything down and start her up.
It starts really quickly now. Big improvement.
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