RE: Battery Relocation

From: Bernd D. Ratsch (bernd@texas.net)
Date: Fri Dec 28 2001 - 00:55:37 EST


Don't forget to take care of the battery temp sensor (silver/spiral
thingy) under the battery.

- Bernd

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dakota-truck@buffnet.net
[mailto:owner-dakota-truck@buffnet.net] On Behalf Of Bob Tom
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 10:54 PM
To: dakota-truck@buffnet.net
Subject: Re: DML: Battery Relocation

At 06:50 PM 12/20/01 -0800, you wrote:
>Ok, so i have a KB supercharger, and i wanted to move the filter into
the
>engine bay for the winter (it gets soooo dirty and wet where it is
currently
>mounted). And well the only place i could think to put it would be to
>remove the battery, and set the filter where the battery was. Buuuuut
that
>leaves me with the problem of where to mount the battery. I was
thinking if
>i could get a sealed battery box, and some how mount it to the frame on
the
>underside of the bed. There does seem to be enough room, but i was
just
>wondering if you guys had some ideas. My dad and i have been
brainstorming
>this for a while now, but cant seem to come up with any other ideas for
the
>battery. If you guys want, you can check out the pics i have at
>http://glen.dodgedakotas.com the KB pics arnt the best, so i'll try to
get
>more pics up soon (i just got my westin bars on, so i gotta put those
on my
>web server too). This is probably the only pic showing the mounting
for the
>filter: http://glen.dodgedakotas.com/dakotaweb/kennebell/kb3.jpg. As
you
>can see the engine bay has no more room to put that filter. Anyways,
>thanks in advance for any advice you guys can come up with. =)
GlenC

I also needed room on the driver's side, not because of a SC but because
I have a cold/ram air box with 2 air ducts. The passenger side duct
goes
through the opening on that side of the rad. The driver side duct was
where your duct is currently. In order to run the driver side duct to
that
side of the rad, I needed to relocate the battery and remove/replace/
relocate the overflow bottle to create an opening there.

I relocated the battery to the underside of the bed where the spare is
located.
I do not have a spare there anyway because I carry 2 rim/tires along
with a 3 ton hydraulic jack (for racing purposes) in the bed. The
lockable
(to some degree anyway), hard bed lid allows me to do this.

I used 20' of 0 gauge, welding cable, running it from the Power
Distribution
Center, through an opening in the frame in the driver wheel well, along
the
rail, over the axle (need to tie it carefully because it's tight in
there
with the
tank, back to a cut-off switch (needed for racing) which I put in place
of the left license plate light (one light illuminates the licence plate
adequately) and then to the battery.

I am also using an Optima battery which is put in a Moroso battery
box upside down. The Moroso box is bolted to the frame and
cross frame using exiting holes except for one which needed to be
drilled into the frame. The box is on the driver's side because
the box would not line flat up to the frame on the passenger side
nor with the existing holes over there. I decided not to put the
battery
in the bed because I didn't want to drill holes nor bring the cables
into the bed (I have a bed liner to prevent dents with all the heavy
racing tools that I carry), and then bring cables out for the cut-off
switch. The battery is grounded to the frame but you need to ground
the engine block to the frame as well for the starter to work as it
should.

HTH.

Bob Tom Burlington, Ont., Canada
'97 CC Dakota, 5.2L, 4x2, 44RE, 3.92SG, 4,075 lb (racing weight)
RW: 231.2 hp 340.0 torque PB: 14.313 95.05 mph



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