Before hooking up a new battery, investigating something ominous

Tim
Update by Tim Suddard to the Ford Mustang Fastback project car
Jan 5, 2023 | Ford, Mustang, rust, rust repair, Ford Mustang, battery, Vintage Race Car, Optima, Optima Battery

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Photography by Tim Suddard

Our Mustang came with a trunk-mounted battery and a rather nicely made mount from Jegs. But beneath the battery, we didn’t like what we saw: a crude little patch.

What was the patching covering? We investigated and, sure enough, found some poorly repaired rust.

While the affected area was small, a rear spring mounted nearby so we considered this part of the car to be structural. We tore out the mount, ground down the patch, and welded in a larger, thicker one.

Optima does a lot in our motorsports world, and we’ve had good luck with them in our BMW M3 and Porsche 911 project cars, so we ordered another one.

The company’s D34 offers 870 cranking amps and should be perfect for our high-compression Ford engine. As our car now uses a trunk-mounted battery, we needed to factor in some loss due to the longer cables.

These batteries are widely available, with Optima offering them direct for $299.99.

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Comments
VolvoHeretic
VolvoHeretic GRM+ Memberand HalfDork
1/5/23 5:49 p.m.

Are you going to install a trunk mounted starter solenoid so that the heavy red starter cable is dead except when the starter button is pushed activating the solenoid and only the fusible link alternator wire being hot at all times? How about a dedicated ground wire up to the engine?

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