So the big news for me is that I was invited to the Handbuilt Show - a show similar to the 1 Moto Show here in Portland but a bit more curated. Since I'll be driving down to Austin I wanted to deal with a creeping problem the van has had which is a weak charging system. It used to be about 13.9-14.1 volts but it's kept dropping but slowly enough I wasn't noticing. It kept starting and charging but with our recent cold snap it was really struggling. I knew my two DieHards were toast as even with a night on the charger they'd barely crank the van over if it was cold.
It was time to get a serious battery and have the charging system checked out.
The back battery had pretty hammered terminals and shortening them would mean moving the rusty battery box. I didn't want to replace the whole length of 1ga. wire so I opted for what I thought was going to be a simple solution - making a new battery box to hold two batteries and moving it forward so the cables would reach with new ends.
Much like working with Russian Baltic Birch as opposed to cheap plywood I am done working with hot rolled steel. I will pay the price to not have to deal with mill scale on any steel ever again. Yuck. I had some angle iron (hot rolled of course) and figured this would be a good material and it was in the shop.
Like most projects I thought it would take about a day and it took three days and was more complicated than I expected. I built the hooks on the back because a 65lb battery is a huge pain to try to hold with one hand and thread fasteners with the other. A jack works but I don't have one big enough to be stable. The hooks allow me to bench press the battery up over the frame cross member and then I drilled the holes. It's another belt and suspenders situation.
I bought one of those inexpensive hydraulic crimpers and they're worth every one of the very few pennies they cost. Crimping the new battery terminals on was easy if you don't count laying on your back in the dirty driveway with dirt falling in your eyes.
I got a little silly with the battery clamp. I made the wing nuts because I didn't want to be fiddling with a wrench over my head any more than I had to be. I noticed that the stainless 1" strap I used for the tie down sort of bowed a bit and so I made a brace from some scrap stainless rod. Also, that rule of 33's for stainless welding has changed my life. So. Much. Easier.
So there you go. It's up quite a bit higher and more central. Not sure if that's an improvement or not. I want to use the space on the other side for the on board air compressor and tank.
One thing I will say is that these Odyssey Extreme batteries are expensive ($300ea times two!) but
powerful. Like insanely powerful. It spins the starter up at what seems like twice the speed and the van starts instantly. My alternator was also diagnosed as failing so I put a new one in at the same time so the charging system is working at 100%. Massive improvement.
That's all - just a quick van improvement. I'll get the tires rotated again before we leave for Austin and I'd love to build the rear motorcycle carrier before then but I doubt there's time for that.
Gregor
