While I could have bought for a reasonable price a replacement battery tray, I decided to build my own. Mostly because I wanted improve my metal working skills by doing. I had a left over steel barrel top from a burn barrel. So I started with that. I traced out the battery and used a quarter inch offset for the tray design.
Barrel top with my vision.
I used a 3 inch rotary cut off tool to cut out my design.
The start
Finished cutout
I placed the battery on cutout for testing and fitting.
Yes this is going to work.
So I should have taken some more pictures and there are some steps missing.
1) I used the rotary cut off tool to score along the fold lines. This is a trick I had picked from a youtube video of hand made metal trays. I worked nicely. By scoring a very shallow cut into the metal you can hand fold into the desired shape. You can see scoring lines on the up tab.
2) I used a hammer and a
dolly to tap the corners together. This worked very nicely. Scoring lines really should not be hand cut. LOL
3) I welded the corners. I still have much to learn in my welding skills.
Folded and welded
I folded over my strap tab and welded on the bolted tab for holding the battery tray in place. I then tested the battery in the tray.
Almost there
I had welded a tube on the backside for the bungie cord. I made a clip that goes into the retaining tab. I place a plastic trim around the perimeter to protect the battery and fingers on the sharp metal edges.
Final product
Installed into the car. Some concluding thoughts here.
1) The clip is too hard to use at this point. While my design has merit, it needs further refinement for ease of use. It's too hard to clip the bungie in place.
2) I only have one attachment point at the firewall side. I may use dual lock fasteners on the other side of the batter that sits on the wheel well.
3) This was a great opportunity for me to improve my metal working skills. I did improve my welding skills on sheet metal. It's way too easy to blow holes into sheet metal than to weld it. I got better at aligning wire feed and voltage on my MIG welder. And for the curious, I use a 80/20 mix on my gas for steel.
Installed battery with the new tray