wow.... i just looked under my battery and it's badly rusted through. i slathered it with phosphoric acid and will coat it soon BUT i now need to strengthen that area before i install a new battery. this is the only rust on the car... any suggestions?

 

You will need to weld in a new battery tray. That tray is part of the fender support structure. I had to do that on my car.

 

you can buy a replacement battery tray
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/g...se2-_-goodmark

 

that tray is for a dodge right?

 

wow, dont know how that got screw up.. try this one https://m.summitracing.com/parts/oer-10092052 down side it they have like a 4-6 week lead time... or at least when I tried to order one they did.

 

Before you go wild, and start ripping out the old battery tray, consider simply patching the existing tray.

I'm going to assume this is not a Coucours level car. A "driver" at best?

You can do a lot to strengthen a decayed battery tray with just some sheet metal, a drill, and some pop-rivets.

Complete removal of the old battery tray - even if you think its all rusted-out -
is actually a fairly labor-intensive job. You're gonna need to detach EIGHTEEN spot-welds. I know this because I did it. But, considering my car is just a driver, I wish I had just patched a few of the larger holes with the pop-rivet method, and left the tear-out-the-whole-tray thing for another day.

You can read about my battery tray experience at https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/body...tery-tray.html

 

that's what i was thinking.... if i just got rid of the bad rot then killed and painted the rust, i could just bolt a plate over the existing sheet metal.

 

If you do "bolt" anything to the battery tray, be very sure none of the bolt heads are left "standing proud" in such a way that the bolt heads will dig into the bottom of your battery.

Also be sure that your patch doesn't cause the entire battery to sit so high that the battery terminals are in danger of coming into contact with parts that need some space.

Don't fix one problem, and create another problem in the process.

 

yes....

 

You could also do the 4th gen coolant recovery bottle/battery tray.
It fully hides the recovery tank and replaces/covers rotted out battery tray.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/fabr...lant-tank.html
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...ml#post6146576
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/auto...en-washer.html
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/body...her-fluid.html

 

My question on the 4th gen recovery tank: how long will it last with the weight of the battery and heat of the water before it cracks?

 

All I can tell you is that I will be doing this mod. The battery tray is about 1" thick plastic and the tank is actually underneath. You will cut out most of the rot in your current battery tray for the tank to pass through. Win-win.

 

this is awesome. just the other week i was talking to my buddy about doing some type of billet aluminum coolant overflow tank so I could get rid of the gawky white plastic tank on the inner fender. Instead of doing the billet one, I might do this 4th gen setup!

questions....what now holds the battery down. does the oem style bolt-through-rubber hold down now bolt into the plastic "top" of this setup? is that strong enough to solidly hold down the battery fore-aft and left-right movement as in autoX etc??

how low does the bottom of the tank sit? I saw a photo on one of the links your provided and even though the angle of the photo was shooting upwards... it looked like the tank hangs quite low and might even be visible from a human crouching position along the side of the car.

 

i like this idea a lot....

 

I bought my 4th gen tank (on ebay) and will put it in next week via cutting the hole in the existing pass side battery tray.

however, my tank did not come with any hoses. do I need a specific metal AND rubber coolant pickup tube/hose as pictured above in post #10 (and on a stock 4th gen setup), or can i just buy some 3/8th or 1/2" coolant hose and run it into the tanks reservoir? I don't think it will be "pressurized" ??