An Evening of Mounting

Today I worked on making mounts for the battery and the radiator. For the battery I just made a very simple rectangle out of angle iron the size of the bottom of the battery to keep it from sliding around. I will still need to make a clamp out of some all-thread to hold the battery down but getting it permanently in place is a good start to figure out what I need to fit around it, such as if there will still be enough leg room for the passenger.

The radiator mount was a little more complicated, finding a reasonable place for it was definitely a challenge. I first though I would put it between the top mounts of the rear shocks and the top mounts of the 4-link suspension but not only was that going to be a very tight fit, when the shocks compressed the driveline will come up and would have created a conflict with the radiator. The next place I though of was to mount it flat hanging from the ceiling but although it would have fit there with no problem I did not like having the sight of this big radiator and fans in the view of the driver. You could still see straight ahead but the drivers vision upward was then blocked. I also just didn't like the looks of placing it there, it seemed way out of place. So finally, because there was no room to mount it up front, I decided to mount it here...

This is still not an ideal place for it because the inlet and outlet are facing the back but to get the fans on the right side I had to put it there and there was simply no room anywhere else. The inlet issue won't be a big problem I'll just have to get some U-shaped tubing to get them going the right way again. Being mounted up there it will also get good air flow through it as there is very little in front of it.

Also, just as a side note on the steering I got a hydraulic steering ram that has an 8 inch stroke and two inch bore from Poly Performance. Like the majority of the rest of my steering parts I also opted to go with a Performance Steering Components (PSC) one because of there high quality reputation. This hydraulic steering ram and the orbital steering valve should both be getting mounted fairly soon. Now, I just hope that the stock steering pump will have enough pressure to operate the system as it should so I do not have to purchase a new high performance pump for another couple hundred dollars.