I laid the rear battery bracket on the ground and tried 2 batteries in it to make sure they would fit. I had made the total length slightly too short so the handles on the batteries were clashing. I wasn't prepared to remodel the bracket, so a wooden block under one end of one of the batteries allowed the handle to overlap and get the distance I need. Making this change introduces other problems; the electrical connections were no longer lined up and the hold down brackets were too short. To resolve these issues, the copper straps were made with an angled step in them so they can connect at two different levels and I cut the bolts off the hold down bracket and welded new ones on the end with more thread available. This extra work added about an hour.
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I applied the coat of customary red paint and set about making the copper link straps and cutting the hold down straps to the correct length and drilling them.
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Unfortunately by extending the bolts for the hold down bracket, the new paint was damaged. I can touch this up another time as this bracket is accessible with all the batteries in the car.
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With all the bits made, I mounted the rear battery bracket in the trunk, loaded the batteries and connected them. You can see in this photo that 2 batteries just about fit side-by-side in the trunk. There is only about 15mm of space right at the back.
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As the batteries cover most of the floor of the trunk there was no way I could use the spare wheel well, so this has a new home just to the right of the batteries. I shall make a cover for the new battery layout as the terminals are exposed and I want to be able to use the remaining space for a bit of shopping or whatever. The alternative possibility for the future is to cut the floor out where the fuel tank was and mount the batteries there. I think I will wait until I can get Lithium Iron Sulphate batteries before I make that change.
So now with everything back together I went for a test drive. I was keeping a keen eye on the off-load voltage showing on the motor controller programming unit test function display. I took it down to 116v and had completed 22.5 miles. It still had a good pull even at that level. That's pretty good since the batteries had not been charged since new and judging by the boxes they came in, that was a while ago. Once I got past 15 miles I was smiling as that was my best distance for quite a long time with the old batteries before they started to deteriorate.
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