I am surprised one needs to get under the car to undo the hold downs for the battery in my IM but confirmed this with Henry.
I am replacing the battery and would like to replace with a more accessible mechanism. Any suggestions?
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Photos, please.
And maybe you could get ideas from your Daily Drivers?
I got a battery-specific mounting bracket when I bought my Odyssey Hoosie-Doosie 680 battery and screwed it to the bulkhead. Solid as a rock, but not exactly lending toward ease of replacement (every seven years or so, so no big deal).
Everything I have with a battery has a positive hold down clamp device fastened with 10mm nuts. Except for my snowblower, a device despised and shunned by you'se "Florida Folks". That has a function-specific bungee holding the battery down.
🎶 "Tie me battery down, sport, Tie me battery down!" 🎶
Take a picture of what you have. I know there’s an easy way to do this.
My CMC battery is in a black marine plastic box and held down with a strap and 2 strap holders that came with the box. Room for a rag and couple tools in box.
@ProfHollan posted:I am surprised one needs to get under the car to undo the hold downs for the battery in my IM but confirmed this with Henry.
I am replacing the battery and would like to replace with a more accessible mechanism. Any suggestions?
That is what was on my 2004 IM. the battery is held down and bolted underneath the car.
I’m sure you could fabricate something else, but you would still have to fasten the battery box somehow to the fibreglass body they chose the easy way, which is underneath I took the battery out originally without a problem… It may not be elegant, but it works
Consider using RivNuts. You put the RivNut in place and use a very long threaded bolt through the ends on the metal or plastic arm or the rubber strap that holds the battery down. Then you can secure from the top without having to go under the car to hold the nut. You can get the Harbor Freight version too.
^ that was my idea as well.
@WOLFGANG posted:My CMC battery is in a black marine plastic box and held down with a strap and 2 strap holders that came with the box. Room for a rag and couple tools in box.
I wouldn't put a rag into a box with an acid-filled battery. But that's me. The only thing that belongs in a battery box is the battery.
I agree with using riv-nuts. The Doyle tool from HF works great. It comes with standard and metric mandrels and a variety of riv-nuts in each size. I use it on the FV all the time. I even bought an extra 10-32 mandrel(the kit comes with 10-24, but 10-32 is ALL over the Vee).
The current Doyle tool is light-years better than the cheesy one they used to sell(I have that one too, I should throw it out).
I've used riv-nuts on my Spyder a bit. The best place was the headlight screw on the bottom that holds the assembly to the car. Also on the fuel tank hold-downs.
I've replaced some riv-nuts occasionally, the aluminum ones can strip or spin, especially in the THIN fiberglass on the race car. On those I mix up a little JB Weld and coat the hole before I set the riv-nut.
I love Riv-Nuts. I used a few of them in my initial build on Pearl for hard to get at spots.
In my last job we bought computer rack-cabinets from Mercury Cabinets in Canada. They were to our design, but were delivered “knocked down”, meaning that they were assembled at point of final manufacture, to save shipping costs, either in Massachusetts or Ireland. While they were self-aligning, they were fastened with Riv-Nuts. The factories had pneumatic rivet guns for assembler ease, but those things really hold. Ours were all steel (weight was not an issue) and they were available in English or Metric (all our stuff was Metric). Go for them!
Gentlemen - the Rivnuts in the HF/Home Despot/Lowes/et al kits are good up to about number 8 or so, but the "bulbed" steel rivet nuts are where it's at. The fastener has slits that allow the metal between the slits to become "wings" that have a huge grip-range (about 3/4" for a 1/4-20 nut).
You want these for the bigger stuff:
Amazon's pricing is better than anybody else. The 5/16 -18 are here and the 1/4 -20 are here.
You'll never pull these with the little rivet-gun style and the big-dogs that can pull them are long money. You could use a grade 8 bolt to pull it up if you can hold the "hat" and keep it from spinning, but McMaster/Carr sells a very nice tool for this purpose:
Now you know all my secrets. Good luck.
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Number 8, really? As in 8-32? The OLD HF tool, yeah, I agree.
But the new Doyle tool is good for 8mm or 5/16". This tool can pull hard enough to strip an aluminum insert of 10-32, I've done it while being very ham-fisted.
@WOLFGANG posted:My CMC battery is in a black marine plastic box and held down with a strap and 2 strap holders that came with the box. Room for a rag and couple tools in box.
That’s what I used in my Spyder when I moved the battery up front. Easy peasy. Nut/bolt and fender washers on both sides to hold it down.
Thanks for the suggestions. Rivnuts seem like the way to go.
I've got the $200 set tool, and never use it, just like I don't use the standard aluminum riv-nut knockoffs for anything but trim panels, and I don't like them even there.
The pre-bulbed riv-nuts as pictured are over an inch long before set and pull up to about 1/4" - 3/8" on the back-side, which means the setting tool needs to pull 1/2" to 3/4". I use a Milwaukee M18 impact tool to set them (with the pictured tool). They don't ever pull out. My primary application is building custom shelving for the work trucks, so there's an enormous amount of stress on them.
You do you, but I'm sticking with what I know works.
@Stan Galat posted:I've got the $200 set tool, and never use it, just like I don't use the standard aluminum riv-nut knockoffs for anything but trim panels, and I don't like them even there.
The pre-bulbed riv-nuts as pictured are over an inch long before set and pull up to about 1/4" - 3/8" on the back-side, which means the setting tool needs to pull 1/2" to 3/4". I use a Milwaukee M18 impact tool to set them (with the pictured tool). They don't ever pull out. My primary application is building custom shelving for the work trucks, so there's an enormous amount of stress on them.
You do you, but I'm sticking with what I know works.
I think the ones you are using Stan are much more resistant to pulling out and are great for your application I have a few rivnuts in my cars build because the battery is held in it’s own frame in 900 front end cars and the top is covered with a wooden covered piece held down with 4 flush screws where the riv nuts hold into the metal.
Here is a sample from their site where the panel above the gas filler is held down with riv nuts.
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I've used a big fender washer on the backside before, making the pre-bulbed, wing-type riv-nuts even more resistant to pulling in applications where I REALLY don't want them to pull.
... like a battery mount in fiberglass for instance.
@Stan Galat posted:I've used a big fender washer on the backside before, making the pre-bulbed, wing-type riv-nuts even more resistant to pulling in applications where I REALLY don't want them to pull.
... like a battery mount in fiberglass for instance.
Don't forget the possibility of using a honkin' big construction bolt for mounting your battery!
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@Michael Pickett- do you have more pics of your battery install? I like that it's not in the spare tire well, but still up front (in this case, very up front!
).
@ALB posted:@Michael Pickett- do you have more pics of your battery install? I like that it's not in the spare tire well, but still up front (in this case, very up front!
No problem. Here's a link to the section in my build thread: https://www.speedsterowners.co...5#590866538509731535
I dunno......
If you go much farther towards the front of the car you'll be in my supermarket's parking lot.
The limiting factor in placing the spare wheel/tire in an early IM/CMC is, realistically, the size (circumference) of the tire itself. If it's too big it simply won't fit, either front-to-back or height-wise under the hood. There isn't a lot of extra space. The spare has to angle back significantly to fit.
OTOH, both Mike and I have found that there is another 6"-8" of space hidden in front of the spare tire well in an early IM/CMC that can be used for a variety of stuff. Not big enough for anything larger than a 4-beer-bottle cooler, but you can easily stuff an Odyssey P-680 battery out there, if you're short on space in the "Frunk".
@Stan Galat posted:I've got the $200 set tool, and never use it, just like I don't use the standard aluminum riv-nut knockoffs for anything but trim panels, and I don't like them even there.
The pre-bulbed riv-nuts as pictured are over an inch long before set and pull up to about 1/4" - 3/8" on the back-side, which means the setting tool needs to pull 1/2" to 3/4". I use a Milwaukee M18 impact tool to set them (with the pictured tool). They don't ever pull out. My primary application is building custom shelving for the work trucks, so there's an enormous amount of stress on them.
You do you, but I'm sticking with what I know works.
When I installed the ones I bought for my gas tank hold downs, I whipped up a double-nutted bolt contraption to get them started. Once the mandrel of my normal Rivnut tool would reach, I finished them off with that. Seem to remember it took a couple of pipe extensions to make it work, but it did.
I’m gonna get me one of the tools you posted for next time, though.
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Sigh... One of the few negatives about the new BMW is that it doesn't give me an excuse to buy more tools. 
Years ago a member here mounted their normal 24 size battery in the very front of the passenger's side wheel well - under the headlight. The thought was that most drives are without a passenger so there is better weight distribution. I'd want it protected so terminals don't corrode. I have the oversized 12.5 gallon tank so that kills even the temp spare in frunk. I like how some have used that battery area for a gas heater.
BMW - I was looking for the trunk-mounted BMW tool kit that they USED to build into the trunk lid! All I have is a tow hook -- no jack, lug wrench, air compressor or tire goop. Not sure that saving 20# on a heavy X3 makes a whole lot of sense. I would have preferred a real size spare wheel and a jack. Not big fan of run-flats. Salesman said they would get you 50 miles when flat so you could buy a new tire! Ouch, $463 per tire at Tire Rack!
@Lane Anderson posted:Sigh... One of the few negatives about the new BMW is that it doesn't give me an excuse to buy more tools.
Not true Lane. I've bought quite of "Porsche" specific tools when I got the 718. I bought a new oil filter wrench, some e-torx sockets, magnetic spark plug sockets, brake caliper specific wrenches for brake bleeding, Hazet lug bolt sockets, wheel hanger alignment pins, and probably several others that I can't remember at the moment. You'll find what you need when you start doing your service maintenance.
I'm really enjoying the QuickJacks and all of my new stuff. My son was visiting earlier this week and before he was coming out he said he needed an oil change and asked if he should go to the dealer, an independent, or a quick lube place for his VW Jetta. I sent him the link from FCP Euro for everything he needed and told him to ship it to my house. When he got here I gave it a complete intermediate service. He even had a very squeaky rear brake so I got that fixed as well. I really enjoy working on the cars here and having the right stuff makes it very easy.
I went online a got the complete list of service requirements for each of our cars and I just follow the schedule that Porsche would follow.
@Robert M posted:I really enjoy working on the cars here and having the right stuff makes it very easy.
This is by far the best part about getting older.
@Stan Galat posted:This is by far the best part about getting older.
I find myself thinking that very though on a regular basis. How did we ever get anything done when we were youngsters?
@Robert M posted:Not true Lane. I've bought quite of "Porsche" specific tools when I got the 718....
I bought most of the BMW-specific tools I need when I bought the 128i. There may be a couple that don't carry over (I hope, I hope!!!).
@Lane Anderson posted:I bought most of the BMW-specific tools I need when I bought the 128i. There may be a couple that don't carry over (I hope, I hope!!!).
I will be praying that that is the case for you Lane. 
@Michael Pickett posted:I find myself thinking that very though on a regular basis. How did we ever get anything done when we were youngsters?
Ah, those were the days, my friends. Fix or build anything using only a ViceGrips, Sears jigsaw, framing hammer and a rock.
All of Ed's points, above.
And then I graduated up to a Sawzall and never looked back.
Yep, Ed nailed it. The angle grinder was my big aha!
A potentially embarrassing question: has anyone here actually bought one of those 100+ piece tool kits I see advertised all the time. Maybe they are even 200+ pieces. Every socket, wrench, screw driver and on and on that anyone would ever need?
My tool accumulation method is and has been to go buy what I need when I need it when the vice grips, hammer and rock just wont do the trick. At least, that was it for a very long time, when money was tight. I'll confess relative to the above mentioned realization about one advantage of being old: I now have a lot of tools and I can afford to buy the one that easily does the job for which the vice grips and rock are ill suited. Oh, and you forgot to mention duct tape.
True confessions: my first 356 was a true rust bucket and had an especially bad case at the front edge of the foot well, where I guess what you could call the fire wall met the floor pan at a right angle. Just rusted through in several places. admitting air and water which was only partially hindered by the rubber floor mat. My fix was some Al sheet metal, some roofing compound a 3/8" drill and sheet metal screws. also, there were two sheet metal cross braces at that location that extended forward to the suspension parts where the torsion tubes were. I forget the actual details, but these were rusting also, to the point where they were no longer connecting. More drilling and sheet metal screws. It was not pretty. But what's a poor starving graduate student to do? Tools required were minimal.
Kelly, I don't know if you noticed the toolbox in my trailer when you stopped by at Thompson. Everything was put away and we were ready to roll when you got there.
I bought a 5-drawer mechanic's cart at good old Harbor Freight just for the trailer. It was around $250 or so. I also bought the Quinn mechanic tool set for $400. Along with that, I bought a couple plier sets, some prybars(these and screwdrivers hang through holes in the top shelf) , a hammer, and a rubber mallet.
The Quinn tool set isn't Snap-On or Mac quality, but it is certainly better than Craftsman or Husky.
I also bought the plastic socket organizers with the sizes printed in white on them. The plier racks they sell are also sweet, as well as the combination wrench racks.
The tool set comes with almost every standard and metric socket, bit, and wrench you could need. It also comes with a screwdriver set. It even has those nice box ratchet wrenches. Real time savers. There are so many sockets and bits that you quite simply don't have room to put them all in socket racks. All the 12 point sockets are still in the shipping bags. All three ratchets(nice ones too) and a nice assortment of extensions and flex-joints.
I added a 20v Porter Cable battery impact gun, in 1/2" and some impact sockets. This thing will back off a tight axle nut easily. I also got a 36mm deep impact socket.
I have a 12v Dewalt drill/driver, batteries, and charger. Some drill bits, a center punch. Also some battery-powered work lights, various rolls of tape. This goes into the one deep and narrow drawer.
On the bottom shelf I keep my tune-up box: timing light, dwell/tach, fuel pressure/vacuum gauge and compression tester. Also some pop-rivets/gun and the Doyle rivnut kit(mentioned in another thread). The Porter Cable impact goes here too, along with the Porter cable battery angle-grinder.
We have some PB Blaster, gear oil, engine oil, funnel on the side shelf. I bought the side shelf too, and have a rubber glove holder and paper towel rack.
I have about $800-900 in the whole box, and honestly I use it ALL the time. My tall toolbox in the garage is mostly unused now, that's how much I like this cart.
In the winter, the cart is in the garage. I strap it to a section of E-track on the trailer wall at the racetrack. It easily rolls out right next to where you are working.
Did I say how much I love this setup?
I know this sounds like a "topper" story, but it's true and I'll keep it short.
I learned about the value of standardization while serving in a 3rd world country as a vocational missionary in the 80s. Parts were exceedingly hard to come by for the mission vehicles -- so we attempted to minimize the issue by trying get all of the same make/model trucks, then getting as many wrecked or abandoned vehicles of that same make/model as possible to cannibalize for their spare parts. Most of what we had was tiny Suzuki 4-cylinder, 4wd pickup trucks (utes). We "made-do" a lot.
I was once on a trip a few hours from home, and bought a wrecked Suzuki ute for $100 or some such. I had no way to get the entire truck home, or even to strip it properly -- but It had a good engine, and I had a hacksaw, a piece of clothesline, and a ball-peen hammer in the bed. I broke the bell-housing free from the engine with the hammer, cut the mounts with the hack-saw, and pulled the engine out by curling it like a big, oddly shaped dumbell.
I carried the engine over to the bed of the truck, and tied it in with the clothesline. The entire process took maybe an hour. Sadly, I had to leave the rest.
And from my experience in Honduras, what was left of that Suzuki after you left was probably gone within three months by parts "melting away" into the night.
When I was a kid building Dune Buggies, I had a basic tool set of both English and Metric and for fancier stuff I had LOTS of tools in my Dad's shop. After I got married and moved over an hour away, I added to my basic set as needed when working on my Hot Rod, mostly Craftsman because Home Depot and Lowes were just appearing in the Northeast in the mid-1970's - Sears was everywhere and guaranteed their tools.
Flash Forward 20 years and I had a good job and decided to build a Speedster so I actually bought a 250-piece Craftsman set along with a two-chest roll-around to hold them. I was still buying tools on an as-needed basis so the collection kept growing as we built our house. Bigger stuff, like Radial-Arm saws showed up, and a wood lathe and drill press and more.
Flash forward another ten years and somewhere along the line I added a "portable" tool box that held all of my basic set plus a few more (the older "basic" box kind of got caught under the wheel of a pickup and bent out of shape). That 3-drawer plus top is still my go-to box, today. Later, I always took that with me when traveling to the "Southern Hacienda". One year, I decided to buy another Speedster kit to finish down South so I wouldn't have to trailer Pearl back and forth, and about the same time I wandered into a Lowes while they were doing inventory and talked them out of a stainless roll-around base with a five drawer top for $250 all in. Because I was so proud of myself for hammering a deal, I threw in a 250-piece English/Metric Mechanic's tool set. Now I had pretty much the same tools at each house, and added stuff like a chain saw, Sawzall, Angle grinders, etc, as I needed them.
Then, life got in the way. Grandkids started to appear (all up North). My folks passed away a couple of years apart and we decided to move back North to be near family. Most of the southern shop got loaded in a Cube Van and trucked to Massachusetts. I kept both tool chests but made the stainless one entirely Metric and the other red one, entirely English. After the dust settled I separated out all the duplicates between me and my Dad's shop and those all went to the younger family mechanics. I kept a 75-pound, 1" drive socket set that is mostly used these days to draw large diameter circles on things I want to cut out. I would make a good boat anchor for a 20-footer.
So, Yes, @El Frazoo I bought a couple of 250-piece tool sets, back when Kobalt, Husky and Craftsman were still decent quality. I also have quite a few hand tools from the Craftsman and SK Wayne era before that, which will all outlast me, not to mention some power hand tools from my Dad that will do the same, including some weird tools like a power, chain saw, chain sharpener and a HD 1/2" drive corded drill guaranteed to snap your wrist in two if dis-respected. I seem to be slowing down on new tool purchases, though, but have faith. The Electric Car Era is just beginning!
My wife, a life-long quilter, has never, once, complained about my tool buying affliction. It is true, though, that I have built her a 14' X 20' room for her sewing/quilting operation with a considerable "stash" of fabrics, from Batiks to Hawaiian to Calicoes and much in between. I never say anything about what she may need for all of that, other than trying to convince her to get a machine much better than what she thought she needed. Sometimes that strategy works, sometimes not. "You can always grow into the better one."
The same applies to "Cah Guy" tools.
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How about this drill:
@Michael McKelvey posted:How about this drill:
I sent it to Pat Downs and asked him for an air-cooled version. I'm awaiting his answer.
Very impressive. I am humbled, just a piker. Can't really compete with you professionals. The most tools I ever bought "all at once" was a plastic strip of six-point 3/8 drive English sockets when I came up against a nut that the 12 pt just would not do. I think I see about a dozen or more of these kind of strips hanging on Gordon's wall. I did finally buy a proper tool chest (empty) to put things in, just a craftsman four big, two little drawers; sits on top of my home-made 2x6 work bench. I manage. Danny obviously needs a real "go-bag" to manage his adventures at the track. He has quite the system, very well thought out. My "go-bag" is the little canvas thing Cory Drake made up one year for the Carlisle group. It is amazing how many tools will go in to that bag.
I bet for those 250 piece sets there are items in there that do not yet have finger prints on them. Just sayin' . . .
Sure, you get a few tools in those collections that you may not use right off (if at all), but that depends on how much you use them, how handy you are and what is included in the tool collection. My neighbor across the street, who is a decent musician, wouldn't use 99% of what's in those collections and would undoubtedly use a pair of channel-lock pliers or vice grips as a hammer. But then, he would never buy a tool collection like that, either. He can make really decent repairs to his guitar collection, but to work on his car? Never.
OTOH, the guy next door races motorcycles and has a tool chest in his track trailer similar to Danny's with a lot of specialty tools in there for his bikes. He is the only guy I trust un-supervised in my shop because if he damages a tool he borrows, he always replaces it. Between the two of us, we have a really complete shop including a lift, torches, welders, even a metal bandsaw. It's good to have neighbors.