Battery Hold Down
 

Please forgive me if this is a dumb question, but how was the battery held down to the battery tray on these cars? My '89 Camaro has a battery tray with a bunch of holes in it and a small flange spotwelded to the front of it, but I can't seem to figure out where the Dorman battery hold down I just got for my car is supposed to go, and how it's supposed to hold down the battery. The angled flange on the front of the tray obviously is supposed to contain one side of the battery but there's nothing to screw a hold down to on the back side of the tray; there's just an empty rectangular hole. It's as if something is missing on my tray. like maybe a rectangular nut where the empty hole previously mentioned is.

Interestingly the assembly manual I got for my car (it's actually for '86 models) doesn't show how the battery is held down. In the assembly manual I got for my 2nd gen Firebird it does show this. Kind of weird.

Thanks for any help.

Re: Battery Hold Down
 

Long bolt passes through a wedge and threads into a weld nut on the tray. Wedge tightens up against the battery housing when the bolt is tightened.

Both right and left battery tray have battery tie down provisions. You can look at the other tray to see what you're missing.

Re: Battery Hold Down
 

Looks like I'm missing the weld nut, like I suspected. Is the bolt GM #11509853? Looks like it's a few inches long with a built in washer.

The left hand battery tray provision must be for when a Pontiac engine was available the the 3rd gen cars, even if it was just a 4 banger.

Re: Battery Hold Down
 

While you're in there look into replacing the entire battery tray with one from a fourth gen. It's a battery tray and washer reservoir. You'll have to cut a hole where your battery currently sits, but it looks much better IMO.

Re: Battery Hold Down
 

I'll look into it. I was planning on replacing my car's tray eventually with a new one because it has the typical battery acid damage that battery trays get over time if no one has made an effort to prevent it.

Re: Battery Hold Down
 

It'll also get rid of that huge overflow tank on your fender. Cleans up the engine bay quite a bit.

Re: Battery Hold Down
 

How does the 4th gen battery tray/overflow tank mount in the 3rd gen f-body?

Re: Battery Hold Down
 

You simply make a template to fit the bottom side of the washer tank of the fourth gen camaro. Place that template over the current battery tray, trace it, then cut it out. The fourth gen tank will have the washer tak down inside the front fender now, battery tray will stoll be in the same place. Check out this thread......https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/fabr...lant-tank.html

Re: Battery Hold Down
 

4th gen battery tray/washer reservoirs are plastic and commonly crack at the battery hold down. It’s nice because it saves space, but I wouldn’t say it’s better than the 3rd gen design.

I would weld on a nut and use the factory mounting.

Re: Battery Hold Down
 

I'll do that. I found a thread here on what it takes to install the 4th gen tray/bottle set-up and it looks like a lot of work for what you get out of it. That, plus what you just mentioned makes my mind up about this.

Re: Battery Hold Down
 

I used riv-nuts where all the bolts go through the fender well. As long as you don't He-Man the bolts in, no problems.

Re: Battery Hold Down
 

I was planning to just tack weld a metric nut onto the under side of the tray. Unfortunately the wire feeder on my mig welder quit feeding wire. I'm ordering a new wire feed motor, so hopefully that will fix the problem. I feel completely lost without my welder working.