Battery Relocation Noob

[MisterCinders]

After agonizing over AGM battery options, I decided to order one of the slinky Shorai batteries. With that battery and a new R/R on the way, I decided to tackle rigging up a tray to mount the battery and electrics under the seat and eliminate the stock battery box.

I am making it from some galvanized steel sheet I grabbed from Ace. Here are some pics of the various cardboard mock ups and the beginnings of the sheet metal shaping.

This was an early concept, using the old fender mounts and flanges to put a shallow box in the back. The bottom of the tray would be flush with the frame, but I am not sure the rear wheel won't contact over bumps, etc.

Still plan to use those fender mount points, but I think the bottom of that tray will align with the top of the frame tube instead, to give a bit more room for the rear wheel. Another pic of the clearance (bike on center stand):

So this mock-up shows the front and the higher level for the rear tray. The sides will trimmed and bent over the frame tubs to be flange supports.

The other part of the tray will use the old battery box mount points to create a second shallow area in the middle. Then the sheet will flow back over the top of the frame and tie into the fender mounts.

I have made it to here with folding the actual sheet metal, but need some rivets to better secure the corner folds. May also rivet a second ply in the tray to reinforce the bottom.

another shot:

More to come.

 

[GSequoia]

If you're going to weld to that do it outdoors preferably with a breeze. When galvanization burns it off-gasses toxic fumes.

 

[MisterCinders]

Got no welding skills or gear. Just going to rivet some folds and then drill and bolt the tray to the frame mounts for the old box and fender.

 

[GSequoia]

Cool.

FYI you can pick up sheets of adhesive backed rubber from www.mcmaster.com, I'd consider lining it where the battery will touch. They deliver fast as well.

 

[Steve]

I think the "noob" part is right.

Before you fasten that thing in there, you had better do some research to see just how far your tire is going to come up.
It appears that you have about 2 inches of room there, typical wheel travel is about 4 inches.

Now, if you have it hard-tailed or have some extra-heavy-duty springs on the back and will never compress the shocks more than 2 inches, you will be fine.

.

 

[MisterCinders]

I think the "noob" part is right.

Before you fasten that thing in there, you had better do some research to see just how far your tire is going to come up.
It appears that you have about 2 inches of room there, typical wheel travel is about 4 inches.

Now, if you have it hard-tailed or have some extra-heavy-duty springs on the back and will never compress the shocks more than 2 inches, you will be fine.

.

Um, thanks for the tip and all the pretty smilies.

When you scoured the OP for typos or spelling errors, did you overlook the part where I specifically changed my approach on the mock-up because of clearance concerns?

The clearance pics are from the mock-up that I ditched because of the clearance problem. You know, the concern I expressed in the OP. After noting the clearance at the mock-up stage, it's odd that you assume I will ignore clearance in this project.

The lack of clearance is why I ditched the lower bottomed mock-up version. I will also check the clearance as I shape the tray, and arch it to account for wheel travel. I previously had a board fastened to the top of the frame there as a spacer for the seat hinges and to support the tail-light. The underside of that board shows no tire contact after a year or so, but I understand that it might get a tire buff over some speed bumps. So I am ready to adjust the back tray as needed to maintain clearance, even over the big bumps.

 

[Big T]

A few thoughts:

1. Will the front part of the fender still fit under the tray? If so, you have enough clearance and remove the fender. If not, reshape the tray

2. How are you going to keep water/mud/etc out of the electrics? With no rear fender, water will be coating the electrics. A hugger might be helpful

3. It is typical to hang the R/R under the tray to be in the cooling breeze.

 

[Steve]

Um, thanks for the tip and all the pretty smilies.

When you scoured the OP for typos or spelling errors, did you overlook the part where I specifically changed my approach on the mock-up because of clearance concerns?

Just so you know, I gave up scouring any posts on this forum (besides my own) for typos or spelling errors LONG TIME AGO.

Sorry, I must have been concentrating on the pictures that appeared to be your plan, I did not read all the words that went with it.

Since my reply appears to bother you, I will withhold any further input, and will be gracious enough to extend that to any of your future posts. :-\\\

.

 

[MisterCinders]

A few thoughts:

1. Will the front part of the fender still fit under the tray? If so, you have enough clearance and remove the fender. If not, reshape the tray

2. How are you going to keep water/mud/etc out of the electrics? With no rear fender, water will be coating the electrics. A hugger might be helpful

3. It is typical to hang the R/R under the tray to be in the cooling breeze.

I haven't had a rear fender in awhile. Will look into some measures to keep water and crud from the tray.

The R/R will mount under the front tray. If there is room, I may put everything up front and away from the wheel. Made some progress last night. With my rivet tool, I can do some reinforcing with more plates.

 

[MisterCinders]

Here are some better pics.

I started with a base plate that will bolt into the front battery box mount and hooks over the frame cross-member.

This rivets into the tray, adding a second ply to the bottom and allowing me to avoid shaping the front of the larger tray piece to navigate that mounting tab.

Here is another pic of the current WIP:

The front portions of the sides need to clean up a bit. It's a bit tricky to navigate the taper in the frame there. But she's coming along.

I also need to add more rivets to a few spots and tie the back portion into the rest of the tray.

Finally I will Dremel the flanges to tidy them up a bit.

Once the shape is where I like it, I will probably paint it black or with some bed liner to mask it from view. I also need to drill out an grommet some ports for the wires.

For mounting things to this tray, any tips on whether to secure nuts onto the sheet metal (e.g., with JB weld or solder?).

 

[Crankthat]

MrCinders

Thinking about it, thought it might be easier and more piratical(for grounds) to drill holes and stick bolts up from bottom with a nut on top to make posts.

Then slide parts onto posts and lock down with another nut.

If you do decide to use JB weld or solider drill another small hole next to larger hole and connect the two with your adhesive on both sides to keep from twisting off.

Looking good son far.

Andy

 

[El Giablo]

What seat do you have on your bike? El G

 

[MisterCinders]

What seat do you have on your bike? El G

It's a fiberglass seat that I made.

 

[MisterCinders]

Spent the weekend wiring and fiddling with this project to get everything to fit. I got everything together and routed, but I probably will redo this based on some lessons learned along the way.

Here are some pics:

First a couple "before" shots of the old battery box and electrics.

The original wiring had the One Fuse To Rule Them All system. I wired in that fuse block ($10 from O'Reilly) to convert to the later 1 + 3 fuse system. Otherwise, my coil relay is the only real mod to the wiring.

The new set up swaps in a Shorai (could not resist the sexy, sexy lithium) battery and an FH014 R/R from a 2008 CBR.

Here is that battery next to the old one.

I went back-and-forth from the earlier tray design, trying to tuck the battery up front. All options there, however left me with either a clearance issue behind the box, or more of a visible box than I want.

The new set up eliminated the old wooden platform I had before. That piece did 2 things (a) level my seat on the frame using the hinges (which sit about 3/8" above the frame tubes; and (b) provided a platform to mount my tail-light signals and plate.

I kept a piece of the old board in the center for leveling, but in the next iteration, spacers on the bottom of the seat are a better way to do this.

For the tail light, I fabbed up an extension from some aluminum angle bar, riveted that to the back half of the pan and bolted it (and the pan) to the old fender mount holes.

I drilled some holes to ventilate that battery box. Then I re-routed the wires to the new location and drilled more holes, installed grommets and snaked the wires into place. Where the pan or tray have flat edges near the wiring, I covered them with some black press-on auto panel trim. Here's what turned out:

This is functional and close to what I want. I'll use it for now, while I work up a cleaner new version.

The next iteration will benefit from lessons on this one, especially with respect to routing the wires and drilling holes. A number of these could have been placed better had I followed a different sequence.

 

[EvilEnfield]

I really dig your work, learning from mistakes, trying things out, keeping at it until your happy, it's really in the true spirit of cafe-ing.

 

[MisterCinders]

I really dig your work, learning from mistakes, trying things out, keeping at it until your happy, it's really in the true spirit of cafe-ing.

*blushes*

Thanks. This trial and error stuff is fun and therapeutic.

 

[Bonehead]

Definitely need to get into this, looks awesome Master

I will be trying to do the same on my 650g. I looked at someone else's thread somewhere and it gave me a good idea of how to do the box let me see if I can find it... HA! Found it. It is from Dec79's gs750 project, which by the way is beautiful (The post with pictures is about 1/4 way down). Hope it helps Master :lol:

 

[MisterCinders]

Definitely need to get into this, looks awesome Master

I will be trying to do the same on my 650g. I looked at someone else's thread somewhere and it gave me a good idea of how to do the box let me see if I can find it... HA! Found it. It is from Dec79's gs750 project, which by the way is beautiful (The post with pictures is about 1/4 way down). Hope it helps Master :lol:

Holy smokes. That. Build.

Don't have the welding skills or gear to follow that path, but the next iteration will be much cleaner for wiring and the seat mount.

Looking into getting some gate hinges that I can alter to marry up to the hinge parts on the frame. The stock seat hinges put the screw mount holes pretty far to the left. So to use those hinges, the seat itself must be extra wide or skewed to the left. With a different hinge plate that put those mounting holes further in, I could still use the seat hinges, but have more room to center a narrower seat over the frame. The hinges themselves would stick out, but that's NBD.

 

[Toasty]

How sturdy is the metal pan? Have you run into any issues with the battery bouncing around?

 

[MisterCinders]

How sturdy is the metal pan? Have you run into any issues with the battery bouncing around?

The sheet metal pan is solid. Once I formed the box, I used some adhesive backed foam to keep the battery from vibrating and rattling, and to snug up the fit.

Re-did the back pan and battery tray this weekend to clean up some of the wire paths and try another set-up for securing the tray to the frame.

I also played around with some other methods for leveling and fitting the seat. Came up with some leveling posts using some large machine screws and threaded inserts.

Basically install a couple insert nuts into the seat plank in line with the frame tubes. Then put a hex nut and lock washers on a 2" machine screw. By turning the screws, I can dial in the seat height to level it with the gap caused by the hinges. Once it's where I like it, the hex nut and washer/lock-washer tighten up to fix the screw at that point.

It works pretty well, but there are some issues requiring a bit of fine-tuning.

First, the board I was using does not line up with the frame at the front because it's too narrow. So, I had to use a wooden spacer in the front. I'll play with some wood to shape up a better board.

Second, I was going to do this with some self-leveling furniture feet, but the only things I found at the Home Depot were either too big, or were sliders instead of rubber feet. I'll try to hunt down better hardware and/or some sort of rubber pad for the screw heads.

Will take and post pics later.