Replacement Battery Box

As you can imagine, a steel battery box, in a 30 year old car is a prime location for rust.  Mine was subject to this, with a few small holes right on the curve.  As with everywhere else on the car I tried to repair this, however owing to the location (on the curve) and my poor welding skills, the repair was bad to say the least!

So the decision was made to replace the battery box.  This means drilling out the spot welds (all 10,000 of them, or at least that's how it felt!) bending back the brackets and pulling out the old box

Terrible
repair visible in the middle back

One bracket free!







All ready to prise out the old box!

As you can see I previously stripped the bulkhead and lightly painted and then abandoned it, this area needs some work!







The new box, disappointingly, does not come with the connection for the drainage pipe.  My first thought was to cut the old one out and weld it in but then I had a brainwave to use a pipe insert.  I checked the size and it's fine so that's a job for the future.

Old spot welds are flatted and a dusting of weld through primer.  I spray this on so that there is no bare metal under the lip of the new box

New box welded in and the spot welds dressed flat.

You'll notice that the back edge (which has got to be bent up to meet the kick in the bulkhead) hasn't had any spot welds in.  I have done this as the box is not moving out of place and so I didn't see the need for them

More updates to come of the previous works, but these will come in nor particular order!