Battery Bracket

The Oily Bits S1 Specific Topics
1

What a day. In my head it had been so straight forward, a day off work, no children, no wife, scoot over to where the Exige is stored, whip it out, a few hours around favourite roads around the Cotswolds in the sun and possibly a blast across to the Brecon Beacons… Oh so simple.

And all began on track, right until I uncovered the car. I noticed the solar battery conditioner wasn’t connected, it has a connection joint on the cable and it was disconnected. When I put its cover on I must have pulled the cable tight and it came apart. I immediately had the sinking feeling… a rummage around my daily driver turned up nothing useful, so a 20 mile round trip in search of jump leads followed. I returned victorious and upbeat. Only to be quickly put back in my place, the battery was truly dead and simply wouldn’t jump.

A significant sulk followed. Itself followed by a 30 mile round trip to find an autofactors with the right battery. Back again I enjoyed the epic mission that is getting a large battery out of a very small enclosed space. Hands scraped it was in. Just the pesky battery bracket and all would be good. What could go wrong now… I could drop the **cking thing through the only hole big enough for it to fall through that’s mainly what. It fell past the floor platform the battery rests on and down into the lower reaches of the front floor. It must be 20cm with zero access. Two more goes taking the battery out to see if I could find a route to get the bracket a good deal more sulking and I put it back in.

On the basis it has very little capacity to move, I took heart in turning the key, and hearing the engine start. I settled for a 45 minute drive around some favourite roads, and revelling in the last of the dry and sunshine and what is a wonderful car, its amazing how quickly you forget the *hit bits :smiley:

Tucked away safely again and having checked the conditioner cable 10 times tonight I still need to resolve the bracket issue. So if I can ask

a. does anyone know how to get access to the lower floor to get at the bracket?
b. does anyone know if you can get a replacement bracket?

Not the day I had in mind but I guess I got some “quality” time with the Exige nonetheless… :crazy:

2

Your’s has AC, is that right?

3

It does, the unit has been removed from the engine bay as the alternator has been moved to stop it frying, but front end pipe work is still there.

4

So your battery sits on the tray above the evaporator housing?

Edit…

And it’s 16 that you’ve lost, is that right?

I suppose you need to take the battery tray out or try a magnet on a stick, most of the stuff down there is Aluminium or plastic.

5

Thanks Jonny - Yes to both your questions. Magnetic fishing it is then! Thanks for taking the time to send the build images. I couldn’t decide whether to bemoan the lack of access yesterday or applaud the genius of packaging to get everything into the limited space available …

best of luck with your rebuild :smiley:

6

Absolutely no problem, let me know if you find it. If you don’t I have a spare here… :slight_smile:

7

Are you sure it wasn’t the wife that pulled out the charger plug :wink:.

I certainly sympathies with you. My wife and kids went back to the UK for a couple of weeks, I was dreaming of the freedom of sunny evening blasts in the Lotus…only to discover a leak in the radiator on the first drive. So I spent the sunny evenings in the garage rebuilding it :frowning: It’s amazing how quickly you forget about it though once it’s fixed and you go for a great drive.

Hope you have a successful fish for the bracket.