152: Thursday 19th August 2010

Yesterday I spent most of my spare time putting the battery rack back in the front of the car and remounting all the other stuff that I had to remove to get it out. I put the 2 batteries in the rack and connected them. I had to make some stops on the bottom of the rack for the bottom battery to sit up against. For this I just cut off a small piece of angle iron, drilled and bolted it to the bottom of the battery rack. I took the old hold down bracket and cut it to modify it to the new batteries. This was much easier than starting a new bracket, so I had to make one part shorter and the other part longer to fit the new batteries that are wider than the old ones. Today I got to remaking the bracket to the correct size for the new batteries. I had some steel bar that I cut to extend the bracket, then welded it all back together. In the photo below you can see the modified bracket all freshly painted with fire engine red Hammerite. This is now ready to go back on when the paint is dry. I need to make a cable to link up the 2 batteries and remount the DC-DC converter and 12v battery charger as they were on top of the old batteries, then the front end is all done. My friend dropped off some more angle iron as well for the back end brackets, so I am all set to start on this tomorrow. I have an early finish at work tomorrow (P.O.E.T.S. day), so I should get a fair amount done and hopefully I will be back on the road some time over the weekend.