HEC updates

[romanyrose]

I thought thing's were going to well and me being a tad ambitious with my cleaning up of the battery tray i now have a small hole . As you might have gathered rust and i don't get on hence i have scrapped chassis's in the past, if welding was not an issue with me i would have saved a lot more including money .
Anyway back to my battery box and the folds in the metal where Mr Rust the little tinker likes to hide , the fact he hides mean's he can grow at his heart's content and when punished with a small tapping hammer he fall's out and leaves a hole or just very thin metal .
Now another small job turning into a bigger one which mean's me cutting alloy and reforming and strengthening the bottom third of the battery tray with alloy and rivet's, although i sound a bit brassed off it can't be helped, it also highlight's how i rely on other's to do my welding .
Thinking out load about this battery tray being held to the seat box by rivet's mean's a few more well positioned rivet's and alloy with some silicone between the two different metal's won't hurt .
I am afraid the weather bought my day to an abrupt end outside, this meant battery clamp's, bracket's and the like to hold my leisure battery in place could be treated to some paint .

Catch you later. R-Rose

[gossamer]

Hi Brad

If you are having to take the batteryt tray out, YRM do a fab and goovy deep replacement battery tray, it may even take two batteries!.

I think it means taking the seat box out to get it fitted though.

[AlexB]

£100 near enough for the double battery tray

[romanyrose]

Hey up chap's, it might seem like i am complaining but that is far from the case, to be honest i am more frustrated at myself and why i have to be so darn fussy .
Landrover's are often referred to as one big meccano kit, so with my positive thought's in gear i set to and cut the relative length's of alloy with 45 degree angles so it look's like i knew what i was doing , these will be fitted on the underside of the battery carrier so all you will see from the top is rivets, i will also not loose any battery space.
I will mark and pre-drill some holes, apply some sealant and with it all stuck in place apply the rivet's and the job will be done to last me out, of course i could have made it easier for myself and just fit the battery between the seat's .
My 24 volter has the two batteries between the seat's in the proper battery tray with steal hard top, now this i could have done and saved myself a lot of hassle , but that is not keeping the brain active and to be honest i like a challenge which is why HEC is not original .
Regard's buying a double battery box i don't need to , because i have a couple of the above mentioned spare but then one is for my ambulance camper and the other is for my Breakdown truck so i guess they are not spare.

Catch you later, a happier R-Rose .

[romanyrose]

Well chap's, as usual i was not happy with the inch angle that i had cut and stuck in place round the bottom section of my battery box, thankfully i had only drilled the alloy and not the steel of the battery carrier .
I have now dug out some dexion that is pre-drilled and wider, using this it goes well past the rusty patches that have been treated but is not as strong as the metal i am up to now. Next after confusion took over for a while i cut two long length's to go down each side of the carrier, having done that i laid my set square on the underneath section of the dexion i then marked and cut a 45 degree angle out of each end and on both sides.
Time to dig out some small nut's bolt's and washer's, of course this took longer than i hoped because they all have to be the same , with the dexion held in place by clamp's i dot punched and drilled the holes in the battery carrier through the existing holes of the dexion but only two each side.
By drilling the holes the size of the rivet's i will be using the small nut's and bolt's that allow a bit of slop for adjustment of the dexion front and back that i have yet to cut, unfortunately my hacksaw blade broke and i didn't have a spare .
I had just thought i will call it a day when the Gas Board van arrived to service my boiler, any excuse for a brew which i thought would be a good time to ask if he had any hacksaw blades , bless him he serviced my boiler and left me with the only two blades that were in his van .
By this time my lass was home so i called it a night, apart from locking up and setting the alarm's i am quite happy with my change of mind again .
Catch you later. R-Rose .

[romanyrose]

Hi good evening some more pictures of brads latest project at 9pm.
Jaynie

[romanyrose]

Well chap's, what do you think , having been called a wood butcher and now a bodger, i can't understand for the life of me why i guess because i used the word dexion they must have imagined what they would have used it for.
As i have mentioned Mr Rust has been knocked out and treated, although again as above i had made these angled part's in alloy i felt it just was not deep enough. In my mind the battery i am fitting is a heavy little tinker, the last thing i want is for it to drop out of the bottom for what ever reason and cause a short, or just leave it for someone to run over {motor cycle} and cause an accident.
To my eye's anyway the holes look as though i have drilled them at equal spacing's, however the 45 degree angled cut's proved more of a problem to my easerly confused brain , i think i have cracked it with a bit of patience a few brew's to give me confidence that i have very little of.
Because the mating surfaces are painted in anti rust paint {used on oil rig's} tomorrow i hope to fix everything in place with a type of silicone between and loosely bolt it together before riveting her up .
With the excess silicon that has squeezed out cleaned up i can then give it another coat of paint and go on to the next job, making a mounting bracket for fitting my Anderson female socket to that i found while looking for something else .
For those who might not know what an Anderson socket is , it's to enable people to jump start car's off with a flat battery using only one set of large crocodile clip's if that is what you call them .

Catch you later. R-Rose .

[romanyrose]

Oh dear did i get myself in a pickle , my friendly neighbor who supply's me with pallet's and screw's also supplies me with a tube or two of silicon, but this time i was off to buy some from Asda until while passing his bungalow he stopped me for a chin and asked why i was not going on my noddy car.
The reason was my batteries are shot on the noddy car but i reckon i can get there and back if i take it steady, come with me was his reply so we toddled off to his van, i have black or white or do you want to take both , for a change i was lost for word's but before going back home i tried crossing the psalm of his hand's with silver but was politely told to go away.
I had drilled a few holes for the angle to be held in place with small nut's and bolt's i thought doing one side at a time after applying the sealant to the angle it would be a doddle , how wrong was i i got it everywhere, to make matter's worse i got an itch on my nose scratched it without thinking .
In the end i marked-dot punched all the holes before drilling then debured the holes-checked everything fitted applied the mastic and stuck a rivet in with the head to the inside. Having deburd the holes meant the rivet head sat flush as did the washer fitted to the rivet on the outside of the battery box ready for my rather nifty rivet gun.
By this time it was just to late to carry on, my hand's had blown up like i had boxing gloves on, at one point i thought this is typical why do i bother so i drank my cold brew with the view to just packing up. What made me just wipe thing's clean instead of just leaving it i don't know, but to be honest i am pleased i did because it looked a lot better cleaned up .
Catch you later. R-Rose still covered in mastic .

[romanyrose]

Well chap's, i have to be honest, although the sun was shining for what ever reason my excuse for muscle's had lost there strength , i just put it down to the small rivet gun i had to use from inside the battery box. I did it this way to give me a tad more room for the battery, also the smooth head's of the rivet's didn't damage the battery.
Not to worry with the mastic now gone off i was able to cut excess off with my shape knife, this made a real difference to how it look's so i was happy, with only having a small drop of kur-rust left i applied that to the thinner coated part's just to help i guess . This doesn't take long to cure so i was soon at it with an undercoat that dried well in the sun so i gave it another coat before packing up for the night.
If the weather is anything like it has been today i hope to empty the cab out, i guess that mean's the cuddy box and tool tray along with the passenger seat then go from there. Why i feel excited i don't know, maybe it's because i can see some progress if only a tad on the slow side i still feel happy.

Catch you later. R-Rose .

[romanyrose]

A calamity from yesterday i am told was better than watching cartoon's on the TV, before you think what a nutcase i was not trying to be funny or clever it just happened .
Time to top coat my battery tray on the inside then the underneath by brush as normal, now although i am slow at what i do my reaction's are very fast and sometimes just so fast my hand's are quicker than my head/thought's .
Try and picture this, while stood at my bench with a litre tin of paint sat nice and flat,my battery part of the seat box sat level on the said bench, i had hold of the paint tin with my left hand and was steadily brushing away with my right i must have pressed a tad to hard .
While trying to catch the battery box that i had almost finished painting i must have somehow knocked my tin of paint with no lid , letting the battery box fall to the floor i found myself juggling an almost full tin of paint with no lid with it going everywhere and when i say everywhere i mean everywhere.
Oh dear! having got in a pickle with my mastic the other day, believe me i am three times worse off with the paint, in fact so much so i had to throw the carpet in the bin and used what must have been a bag of rag's to clean everything up after which i cleaned my brush and packed up.
With the sun shining today i got the last coat of paint on the battery carrier with no mishap's after which i emptied out the cab as much as i could in readiness for turning the truck round and maybe get ready for fitting the battery box .

Catch you later, accident prone R-Rose .