Battery box cover on the cowl

Right now my battery is in the front passenger corner of the engine compartment, and the fan blades on the alternator have cut into it a couple of times now. That gets expensive fast, and it's got to move. And there's not really room in the engine compartment anywhere else.

So I'm sitting here looking at the cover on the cowl, wondering if making it functional would be a good idea. Has anyone done this? Once the cover is cut free, how do I attatch it again? Do I need to run dry cell batteries? Any other input on doing this?

Or maybe I should move the batteries to the back somewhere. That would be better for weight distribution, but more in the way too... Decisions decisions.

 

No room on the pass side firewall? I used a battery mount from a newer CJ(76) and it fit fine.

 

My fuse box is mounted on the passenger side firewall. I'd rather not move it, because I don't really want to have to modify every wire that goes into it.

 

I moved my battery on my M38A1 into the cowl box. I drilled a hole in the firewall for the cable. I also found out two batteries will fit in that compartment. I also ended up removeing the standard battery tray from the frame really cleaned up the engine compartment. The M38A1 cover was already removable maybe you could find a used one. Mike

 

err... the m38a1 should have been using the cowl cover as the battery box. both of them should fit nice a snug in the opening.

 

Some folks mistake the 24 volt gen platform on the frame for a battery tray. It actually works very well for that if you keep the F head.

 

I like the idea of using the cowl box, but don't rule out the firewall. I think you could space the tray away from the firewall with less fab work than building the cowl box, depending of course on how far you fuse box sticks out. I know that on my CJ5 with the firewall mounted tray and an optima battery, I can slide the battery all the way towards the front and have some clearance behind it, since it is a little smaller than the tray.

 

To get the cowl cover off, do you grind the welds from the top of the cowl, or from up under the dash? My dash doesnt come off without taking out the roll cage, so that's a consideration. I don't have a glove box, so it's just wasted space anyways.

The firewall is starting to sound better, mainly because it's sounding a lot easier and I'm tired of it not being driveable.

schardein, in your avatar it looks like you've got one battery on the firewall and one in the front passenger corner where mine is. How much clearance do you have between the front battery and the alternator?

 

Keep the battery on the firewall and figger out a way to convert the cowl cover into a lid for a stealth beer cooler. That's what I'd like to do on my A1 anyway...

Seriously though, your plan would be simple to execute with some M38A1 parts.

 

Actually Foster, that item up front is a MSD ignition box with a rev limiter kinda next to/under it.

Another thing to throw in the mix. Your question got me thinking....that motor is an 85 evenfire, which replaced an 84 evenfire.... but the alt mount is a standard Jeep issue....
the original mounts off the 84 had the alternator in basically the same place, but higher up and maybe slightly more to the driver side?? I will have to look and see if I have some pics from before I changed it.... it was a big funky cast aluminum bracket. You could find one in the salvage yard easy enough I would think, and the bracket also ties into some other brackets but it could be cut/grind to smooth it out and make it a little more presentable. Might be something else to think about.

 

Ahh I see it now, it looked like a battery at first glance. That bracket might work. I could also move the alternator a little farther towards the drivers side by getting a shorter belt. And I could probably get away with shortening the fan blades on the alternator a bit. But it would still be close.

I like the stealth beer cooler idea too. That would be a pretty cool setup.