Trunk Mount Positive Bat Cable Route

[5.0 Chero]

Back to work on the BUGPYL
On my 64 the PO removed the original fuel tank, I now have a aluminum tank where the back seat used to be. He had the Battery mounted back by the fire wall inside, I do not like both fuel and battery in the passenger compartment and I would rather transfer some weight back up front. So I am trunk mounting the battery. I was thinking about running the Positive down either the heater channel/rocker panel if it is clear or maybe the shiftier tunnel any other ideas?

[Ol'fogasaurus]

You need to find a voltage drop chart for all the cables an wiring that will have to go that distance.

On rails and some buggies the guys make a battery mount on the transaxle but it is the access to it you would have to consider as part of the mix. In my buggy I have the situatio like you don't like and I am not that much of a fan of it either

Make sure the tank is fully grounded via a proper grounding cable... and not a flat woven style either as they can break down fast as it is part of their want.

Putting the battery in it.attery box might help also. If it is an old style battery you might want to figure a vent for it.

Will putting the battery up front help balance things out... I doubt it. A battery is what 10#s give or take. Fuel, as I remember, is lighter than than water which is a bit less than 8#s per gallon. How many gallons in a VW (I don't know)?

[Piledriver]

Batteries are typically ~50 lbs ish, unless you have a tiny "racing battery" or Li-ion, (rare and expensive)
Back seat/center is probably safest place for the tank in an impact, but any sanctioning body would require it to be under/behind a firewall. Keeping the battery low would be just as important as moving it forward, spare tire well?

Most ACVW T1 gas tanks were ~10.5 gallons, so it would weigh more when full, but is mounted quite high over the beam in the stock setup. It might sit much lower in the back seat position. It won't cause a weight shift as it empties in that location.

VW and others frequently designed later cars to have the tank in ~that middle location under the car.

I have seen pics of racing setups (baja) with the midmount tanks made to be sort of conformal to the pan with two pickups.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Pile... I know its been a long time since I bought a car battery but I don't think I could ever lift 50#s .

When I pulled the fuel tank out of the front and mounted a spun AL tank in the rear, on top of what is laughingly called a rear seat, in my 80" wheelbase glass buggy. It did make a big difference but was fairly easy to adjust to the change but again I was going fairly slow speeds too.

The shocks had to be changed a( couple of times mostly for valving) to help balance things out. Granted the short wheelbase exacerbates the change but I finally got the ride some what balanced until a couple incidents that caused me to make the big changes I finally made.

As you are aware I am still trying to adjust the torsion spring stack to the rebalance of not only my black buggy (glass buggy w/stock WB) but my blue one (80" WB) also. I spent some time into looking into the conversion to an inside the upper torsion tube swaybar along w/a higher rated lower stack and lately looking into modifying one or both front spring stacks.

Did emptying the front mounted tank make a difference as it lowered... I think some but my runs were so short that I don't remember just how much as the tank emptied. I remember more about the tank emptying via the fill cap when going down steep hills and dunes.

[Piledriver]

Today you can simply use Google to discover the weight of things you want to buy, including batteries...

The largest "Braille" brand AGM racing battery has great cranking specs, but doesn't list reserve capacity as it has none to speak of. Those can be had for $200, and at 21 lbs they are not too heavy, and are about the size/weight of a large motorcycle or riding lawn mower battery, but the CCA/CA ratings of a good std sized battery.(but no reserve capacity spec)
If you have a really good alternator you might consider one in a race car.

You'd be crazy to run on in a driver, esp in winter, as they would probably provide about 20 seconds of cranking before being quite dead.

Same thing for the hyper expensive but tiny <5lb lithiums, great cranking, ~no reserve capacity.

Of course if you have a T1 you must shut it down immediately anyway if you toss a fan belt, but driving home after losing a voltage regulator probably isn't happening if you are 20 miles out with one of these, it's call AAA time, esp at night.
Example: my battery (Wal-mart MAXX H7) has a "reserve capacity" of 130 (minutes), which is defined as how long it can feed a 25A load at 80F. That has proven to get me ~40 miles back home from Dallas at night, with EFI and low beams.
(I put a GM alternator in it after the last "lifetime warranty" T4 voltage regulator died, again, I killed one a year each summer, always)

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I had a long night last night and so got time to do some thinking about what changes the lighter and stiffer front end did make.

What did happen was that with the removing of the fuel tank the front end got stiffer, hence bouncier off-road with the reduced weight on it. On a hard drop it wasn't too bad but going through whoop/rhythm sections of a trail it could be bad... sometimes real bad. Several times, when going through a trail with a long rhythm section of whoops, the front would get bouncier and bouncier (timing) along with the IRS in the back traveling lower and lower (again mass adding to the timing) in its travel with each whoop plus add to that my foot trying to be as light on the loud pedal but when I hit an out of rhythm whoop/small hill my tootsie would hit the gas a bit harder and I would launch off the top of the whoop and, often, the buggy would land at an angle in the trail and have to jam on the brakes to keep from hitting something like a tree on the side of the trail. If there were people coming the other direct I would usually stop or go real slow and let them pass by (the trails are not always that wide anyway) especially if there were children operating a quad or (now days) some kids are operating the SXS .

After doing some mods such as changing the shock at both ends to a proper off-road shock, adding adjusters in the front beam to change not only the ride height but allowing the changing the preload of the springs to mostly the bottom stack and having the top stack come into full play later than usual which is based on suspension travel, a body lift to allow for more suspension travel and to stiffen up/protect the pan (glass buggy) and resetting the rear preload (several times until I got the two ends of the buggy as close as possible) on the rear (but stock) torsion bars. I'm trying to get my black buggy up to a point to where I will be close enough to only make minor changes to it If and when I ever get it on the trails.

With all the changes I now can ride on top of the rhythm section if I want to rather then going over almost a mile of tippy-front, tippy-rear riding... almost like riding a bucking bronco.

On the battery: I am sure you are correct on the weight as it has been a long time since buying/replacing batteries. Since I am running an 091 tranny the stock VW type of battery just won't handle the power the bus starter draws so I had to buy a larger amp/deep draw battery to support it. A bit bigger and heavier but not that much other than the dual posts (standard "on top" and GM style of side post) allows me to get at it when attaching a trickle charger... very handy for sure (also remember I have an open glass buggy so things are different than a closed cab rig would have). It also makes it close to a good spot for the battery shut off-switch location I use. I've tried both the on battery style and remote style and I still prefer the remote style as being less complicated/messy than with the "on battery" style. Still, having to make the other changes to move the battery up front including having to tie it down so the whoops wouldn't fling it around like a missile (slight exaggeration for effect ).

Some things to consider which may or may not apply to you.

Remember: change begets change.

[bajaherbie]

Just run the cable as short as possible.

Sent from my SM-G920R4 using Tapatalk

[5.0 Chero]

I am running 2/0 welding cable should be plenty big enough. Found out that the heater channel is indeed clear and ran it through there,




voltage tap from a chevy pickup

[Ol'fogasaurus]

What gauge? Your ground gauge should match your positive cable'gauge. On older metal I don't trust it for grounding as age, joins and fixes that you didn't do might be suspect.


Just my was of doing things.

Lee

added:

http://www.lsi-industries.com/documents ... asheet.pdf A PDF table with instructions.

[5.0 Chero]

2/0 AWG welding cable is the gauge.
Ground straps will be plenty going to use roll cage as one point front and rear since the bug dose not have a frame. as well as "Body"

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Make sure that there is no paint in the way of making good contacts . Also... no woven flat ground straps for the ground. They were a pain in the butt back when I was a kid getting into cars and still are... when used .

[5.0 Chero]

Working on the wiring some more

[Piledriver]

As far as the whoops multiplying your pain, Google a bit on setting up the suspension natural frequency...
Its how you set up the spring rates so "rhythmic" roads don't make you want to hurl at least.

Possibly also aids getting a flat launch from a jump at the right speed, or skipping across the tops of whoops.

You want the front a little higher frequency that the rear, so the front/rear go up/down together.
You only get to target one speed for that to be correct tho.

I targeted mine for 65 MPH when setting up the spring rates.

Works great from ~50-80 on concrete highways.

Applies the same way for off-road, all the decent spring rate calculators I have found include it.

[5.0 Chero]

Actually have not really driven it on the road yet except one trip up our road to figure out the brakes were to sketchy to drive spring rates and shocks will come later want to get the wiring and brakes squared away and drive it first.

[5.0 Chero]

Actually have not really driven it on the road yet except one trip up our road to figure out the brakes were to sketchy to drive spring rates and shocks will come later want to get the wiring and brakes squared away and drive it first.