Battery Tray? We Don't Need no Stinking Battery Tray

Back in early '06 (when my dad still had the convertible) he brought it to me to have me do a little work for him. He's more mechanically inclined than the average bear, but if you don't have the right tools, you can't do the work. The project at hand was the replacement of the old battery tray. Years of snow and slush did their work to the point where the battery was sitting on cardboard and being held down by a bungee cord. The cardboard kept the battery from rattling around on bumps. Obviously not the safest way to go. To remove what was left of the old tray I had to break out the grinder to remove the bolt heads. Once that was done I was able to drill out the remains of the bolts and re-tap the holes for new bolts. I could only get to three of the four bolts due to some additional structure under the last one, but that's still three more than had been holding the battery down previously! Here you can see the original tray next to a Year One replacement.




With the old tray out of the way I brushed off the remaining lose rust and gave the whole thing a heavy coat of rust inhibiting paint followed by a coat of under body coating. I don't know if the under body coating will help, but it shouldn't hurt...




Here's the new tray ready for action. The rest of the engine compartment looks pretty shabby next to the new metal and paint, but it's an engine compartment - who's going to see it? When I get around to doing substantial work on the car I'll probably pay some attention to this area and clean things up as well as possible. 35 years of dirt and oil are waiting for me...