Fitted a new Battery as the old battery

2nd March 2013
This year as normal I am replacing my battery in my buggy. I have been doing this regularly as I am finding that not using the buggy for half the year and running the alarm on the buggy has had its toll on batteries. The new battery I fitted had a slightly bigger handle as it was an Exide. This caused an issue with the bolts on the connectors meaning the battery box lid would not fit. I was intending to cut these down but found to bolts from a pair of skate wheels that fitted flush and removed the problem totally . The new battery allowed the engine to fire straight up.

The engine started well . I was quite pleased about this as last year I had to replace the ignition lead set. I took the buggy out for a run down to the beach. It was a gorgeous sunny day.

Making a battery box cover

22nd April 2012

Last week I successfully relocated my battery so that it sat in the middle of the rear seat panel.

I knew that the battery was just lower than the edge of the box I had created and had intentionally made it this way so a lid or cover could be attached over the battery securing it  from fingers that may be on the back seat.

I started designing the lid by measuring the aperture in the top of the box. When I created the box I had noted that the two corners that I had used that was already joined flared  out slightly and had made my two new corners to look the same. This meant I had to measure the inside area allowing for a 2mm tolerance. You can see in the diagram to the right the sizes marked up. Once I had my measurements I made a paper template this size and put it through a plastic envelope heat sealer to make it plasticized. I found a piece of flat Stainless a tea tray and laid this on the surface so that I would be able to put the fibreglass on top and gauge the size I needed. I layered up four sheets of fibreglass with fibreglass resin  this took longer than normal to set because of the weather so I used a paraffin heater to raise the temperature in my workshop.

The matting I applied was just larger than my paper pattern that sat in the A4 plastic heated liner. This is the same machine that does plastic badges. This stopped the fibreglass sheet sticking to the tray. I left this over a day to dry and cure. Once hard the fibreglass was turned over to expose the pattern on the other side. I used an angle grinder to cut through the plastic and fibreglass around the edges of the template pattern so that the sides were clean cut and crisp.

I then removed the template which peeled of leaving a smooth surface The fibreglass panel was then sanded on the opposing side until the thickness of the fibreglass was consistent all over the panel. Once the panel was smooth I painted the rougher side with black Hammerite hammered paint. This sealed the surface on one side. So that I could concentrate on the other. I used Car under seal to spay the other side leaving a rippled effect . This was the same process I had used inside the car.

The underseal surface dried quite quickly leaving a slightly textured surface. This need no further preparation and I was able to spray m 1k black paint onto the surface . This sealed the under seal and fibreglass . I knew I had run out of thinners and would have to buy some more . I wanted to finish the panel and decided to try making up the 2k Lacquer and hardener and adding the gold leaf with a view to using a large brush to apply it.

 The finished lacquered panel looked amazing and you really could not tell it had not been sprayed  with a spray gun. The panel was then checked for size and it fitted neatly into the top of the box. I had purchased some stainless fixings to secure the top from a boat chandler I offered these onto the lid so that I could gauge how they looked against the finished surface. They fitted in four places and I was able to decide were they would fit.

I attached the eccentric / pull over fastener to the panel with M5 countersunk bolts I used these as I did not want them to interfere with the battery and to be pulled in flush to the fibreglass. Once these were all bolted in place I offered the panel up to the box and marked the positions of the stainless box to locate the eccentric keeps. I fixed theses to the rear of the box through my body bar . I used self tapping screw's to fix the front eccentric keeps.

The lid was latched in place and sat neatly over the battery . The eccentric / pull over  latches had little loops on them that either a wire and a single padlock could be used or four separate padlocks could also be used to secure the battery from theft. I was very pleased with this as it made the rear seat area a much safer place to be. I was also wondering whether I could build a seat to go on this new area.

A New lease of Life

16th January 2011

I returned to the garage today after purchasing a new battery with 420 amps of starting power in an 63 battery format. I had a great deal of problem explaining to the retailer that this was a heavy duty version of the 63 format and was available . He spent quite a wile trying to tell me all the 63 format batteries where only 330 Amp stating current until he found one on his shelves. :-)

My Perseverance was rewarded as i returned to the garage and found that the battery indeed turned the engine over much better. The engine however would still not start and there appeared to be a lack of significant ignition. I removed the distributor cab and looked and the point working with the ignition in first position. The spark was very week and fragmented. I decided that I would need to replace them and managed to purchase a set from my GSF store along with a new condensor . I put this into the distributor and set the points on the square of the distributor shaft too .016". I put the distributor back in the engine and connected up the ignition leads . I noticed my no 2 cylinder spark plug was not tight so places some oil on it and tightened it up. I then ran up the engine:




The most noticeable thing was the engine speed was very high. I would have to look at this another day as my throttle was not returning as it should allowing the engine to idle. I was not sure whether I needed to lengthen the throttle cable unscrew the stops or fit stronger springs.

On the whole I was very pleased with the day as my new battery was much better and the points and condensor had only set me back £6.00.

Next time I would try to get the Idle speed down to a better tick over and see if the buggy still had its acceleration problems that had dogged me last year.