TR2/3/3A Battery Box Liner TR3A Tip for the Day

[Tinkerman]

After the discussion about the felt and rubber pads under the battery, I decided to look into a battery boxliner That's when I found out that they are made of kinda expensive plastic!
I called the local parts supply house that the battery came from and asked about plastic liners. Long story short, they had plastic boxes for marine use. I bought one of those for less than $12. Had to cut it down though. Figured I would use my dremel tool. Nay, Nay! just melted the plastic. Tried a saw, that worked OK but could only use it for a small area. Was headed to the local hardware to pick up a handle that I could put a hacksaw blade in. When my wife came into the shop and told me to try something. I got that box all cut up using a heat gun and a razor knife, in about 15 min flat! Slick as goose grease. Hardly any finish clean up, as a side benifit.
Anyhow I thought that was pretty cool and just had to pass it on.

Tinkerman

 

[tinman58]

Hey Dick! Women are smarter then we think. When are you going to fire up the TR?

 

[Stinger]

This is exactly what we did on our TR4A. We left the top cover off of ours and didn't cut the front part out like the aftermarket ones to help contain any acid spillage. Saved money too to spend on other TR parts!

 

[mrv8q]

Did the same thing for my TR6. I suspect modern batteries leak much less than those back in the day. All kinds of interesting things in a marine shop...

 

[tdskip]

Thanks Dick

 

[Don Elliott]

I have never used or bought a battery box to contain the battery acid. The secret on a sidescreen TR is not to over fill the liquid level in the cells and to have the voltage regulator set so it will never overcharge or overheat the battery which causes the acid to spit out the breather holes in the top of an original (not-sealed) battery.

Once a year when I remove the battery for the winter, I clean out the bottom of the battery box that I put in during my restoration from 1987 to 1990.

Here it is in 2007 at VTR with 17 years on it and 114,000 miles driven since I put it in.