Did this a while ago, but for what it is worth... BTW; the O'Reillys AGM ATV battery is a POS. 6 month warranty, failed 3 days PRIOR to expiration. Will discuss replacement in a trip report, to be written.
Well friends, it was a cold snap in Skunk Hollow, today. Only about 96F (35.5 C) in the garage, this afternoon, so decided to finally take care of a few details that had been nagging in the back ground:
Some of you may remember that at original conception of this rig, I had the butcher of Buckley install a large car battery in the trunk, once he failed to find the promised (and blindingly expensive) two 6v batteries that he dreamed of installing in series under the hack seat.
I had since decided this was more weight (39 lbs/17.7 kg) than I wanted to carry behind the rear A arm, in the trunk, so I had already purchased and "installed" an ATV AGM battery and put it on the floor, in front of the hack seat. Securely installed with zip ties to the seat mount, of course.
It was time to clean this little bit of buffoonery up, especially after the last little wander through the rock gardens of Young, AZ.
My goal was to waste some time in the shop, fix the mounting into something a little more secure, and not spend a dime, i.e. use up stuff that was already kicking around in various bins.
With that in mind, I found a strip of 3mm thick, 19mm wide aluminum flat stock that was just crying out to be bent up into a battery mount. Found a pair of 10mm bolts that actually had matching nylock nuts and a couple of fender washers for underneath (yeah, it was a shame to waste 10.9 hardness metric bolts on this, but hey, sunk cost recovered...) Mr. Claude (no not that Claude) had contributed some genuine aerospace qualified sheet rubber to my bin a while back, so it found its way under and around the battery, before bolting the new bracket down:
Ran the bolts up from underneath for two reasons:
1. Less shit hanging down to catch brush on, if just the heads are on the the bottom side.
2. It was pretty easy to just set a 17mm boxend on the nut, then run them down tight with an impact gun from underneath. What's a day without some sidecar yoga, anyway?
Since I was screwing with it anyway, I decided to install an additional SAE connector, a BMW connector, a couple of heated gear plugs, and a pair of USB charging ports in the tub.
All this stuff was sitting in various bins from past projects real or imagined, with the exception of the USB station being a gift from Mr. Frank Grace, a while back. So far, so good, zero trips to the hardware store and zero new expenses.
Of course someone who shall remain nameless reminded me how sloppy my wire up to the USB station looked.
It was quickly addressed with some high priced sleeving, that happened to be in the top of a tool box.
No pics, but found a hack fender mount bolt, top center had stripped out with the bolt seeding the trail somewhere east of Young, and was letting the hack fender move a little under duress.
Drilled out the stripped mount, ran a 10mm bolt through it, long enough to put a nylock flange nut on the back side with a shitload of lock washers to compress (shoulder bolt, needed some washers to engage fully.) Cranked it down to "full impact" and am betting that it will stay for a while, at least.
With all of that done, I debagged all tools and supplies, sorted and re-bagged them with a few repairs, new batteries, etc. to various odds and ends, then loaded everything back in the hack.
When no monkey is onboard, tools get to ride on the floor, next to the battery, for weight distribution in the optimum triangle. Depending upon how agile a monkey is, the tools may move into the trunk from time to time when toting a monkey.
All that done, it seemed like a good time for a sunset ride around Skunk Hollow. Went out and got gas and looped around town, declared it a pretty good day, overall.
