Poll: Stainless Steel Opel GT battery trays

[RallyBob]

Originally Posted by neuropel That's easy for you to say Mr. TIG Welder with your fancy SS rods! For us mere mortals stuck with MIG welding, I've found it can be tricky - lots of popping and bubbling because the melt temps are different. Perhaps using SS wire in the MIG would be different? Or perhaps it takes different gas??

That is very odd. I've never had any issues with mild steel welding wire (ER70S-2) and 75%/25% co2/argon shielding gas when MIG welding mild steel to stainless steel. Like I said, the only issue is the weld area itself is no longer 'stainless', but as far as ease of welding it should be the exactly the same.

Yes, TIG is better in some ways and I always use a higher grade TIG filler rod (309 grade when welding 304 stainless to mild steel).

[BQS4]

Originally Posted by neuropel Let me use it over the winter here in PA - I'll show you some rust in March/April dude . Seriously, I suspect that welding the stainless tips to the aluminized exhaust pipe probably works fine, especially with no salt. But remember that Eagle ("knee grinder") I had? I had a shop do a quick repair between the SS flex pipe and another MS piece of exhaust pipe and it didn't hold up well at all here.

Not to steal the thread, but, here's another reason why you shouldn't have moved from GA. Just kidding, cars rust as bad as cars up north just sitting out in a field....

[jlthunder]

My tray arrived on Friday. Very nice job!!! Thank you Bob

[saxybiker]

Bob:

We received our battery tray today (Monday). Very nice and shiney too! Now to decide... into which car will we put it

Vickie

[MonkeyNutZ]

Just a quick question, what are the two welded on nuts on the tray for? Battery hold down strap? The placement says otherwise.



(The welds on my tray were beautiful by the way, top notch work.)

[BQS4]

the nut on the angled piece is for the original battery ground. The one on the flat bottom is for the battery hold down

[myopels]

Originally Posted by RallyBob Yup, no problem. Just let me know if you're interested in one, and I will have them pull one from the lineup and change the configuration. The battery boxes should be done next week, as I mentioned the shop is very slow and they were very willing to produce these parts for me. Other things in the works possibly too...maybe a weld-in Manta battery tray in stainless, possibly some rocker panels for GT's and Manta's.

Bob, I have a few Mantas that are in dire need of a battery insert to fill the battery hole, or how about a battery tray/mount that could be rivited over the right rear wheel in the trunk. This will get the battery away from the fuse box, and help with weight balance. I made one with some cardboard and welded it up with 1/8 steel, and rivited it to the car. I got a plastic battery box to contain any acid, and ran a welding lead to the front/starter-worked great.

[RallyBob]

Originally Posted by myopels Bob, I have a few Mantas that are in dire need of a battery insert to fill the battery hole, or how about a battery tray/mount that could be rivited over the right rear wheel in the trunk. This will get the battery away from the fuse box, and help with weight balance. I made one with some cardboard and welded it up with 1/8 steel, and rivited it to the car. I got a plastic battery box to contain any acid, and ran a welding lead to the front/starter-worked great.

Since the replys for the GT battery trays have been less than stellar, and the Manta interest even less so, I'm seriously doubting they'll get made any time soon in this economy. To invest in the tooling for the Manta I'd need about 25-30 trays ordered minimum. Since I can't front the money I'd have to have them at least partially pre-paid. I can't see that happening right now.

So far, I've only sold 12 GT trays out of 21 originally promised here, and there are a lot more GT's being repaired than Mantas!

Regarding the battery tray in back. I'd through-bolt the tray down with large washers on both sides. My old '73 Ascona got rear-ended about 11 years ago, and I had used 3/16" large-flange steel rivets to hold the battery tray down in the trunk....about 16 of them IIRC. They all tore out of the trunk floor and the battery got knocked around a bit. The only thing that kept it inside the trunk was the ground strap!