All right, part 2 - some fabrication of the brackets.  Cut off a couple of 1/2" pieces of threaded rod



And square off your metal bar so that a wingnut threaded on a piece in one of the holes has something to tighten against..



Make your forward piece first.. 3.5" over and 2.5" up..



Stick it in a vise and bend it 90 degrees..



Cut and bend the aft piece such that when the holes are lined up, the area captured is the length of your battery..



Cut and bend the side pieces.  Note that the parts are sitting flat on the block (not lapped) but you could do it that way if you wanted to    



Zap it together with a mig welder, sticking the bolts out the bottom.   If you don't have a welder, this could be done with flat-headed bolts and lapping the side pieces.  Welds are already ground and cleaned up for the sake of modesty    Oh yeah.. breathing fumes from galvanized metal.. that's bad.



Before we go off to the electrical work, let's do a couple things that need to dry.. threadlock on the wingnuts..



And paint the brackets.  Note that I also glued some pond liner in there to pad the battery.  An easier way would be to stretch a few sections of inner tube (bicycle size) over the tabs.

Now that our brackets are good and dry, let's see how they fit together.  Why, though holes drilled through the shelf, that's how.  The front of the bike is to the left.  The forward and side brackets sit on the shelf, and the bolts stick downward through it.  The aft bracket is held on, under the shelf by the wingnuts.  I put an extra layer of pond liner on the aft bracket to level things up.



Here it is looking through the belt, ready for me to remove the aft bracket and slip the battery in.



Yay, I got the battery all snug in its little spot.  A couple of caveats:  If you are running long shocks, there is a danger of the swingarm smacking against the battery if it is too far back. And the + terminal is at the rear edge of the battery.. so watch out for that.  Also, the shelf is just barely long enough for the two bolt holes spaced out so that the wingnuts don't interfere with each other.  It would be better to put the bolts side by side, in a couple of longitudinal slots that would allow you to shift the battery forward or backward to eliminate the possibility of clearance issues.  Live and learn.



It was suggested that my ulterior motive for this little project was to make the bike look better and YES, dammit, ALL THIS TIME the real purpose was to make room for my bobble-headed Steve Irwin^TM doll.. may he  live on, warming his reptile friend by my Savage engine.



Actually I don't know what to do with the hole. Probably make a nice aluminum diamondjim-style plate and put my lunch on it  

The bike started right up on this cold November evening just the same as with the original battery.  Of course I had topped it up before trying it for the first time.  If I have any trouble with it over the next few months I'll post about it here.

Hope you guys like this little mod, and questions are welcome.

verslagen1 wrote on 11/30/09 at 23:10:53:

Yeah there's plenty of air circulation down there, you'd just have to make sure the fins didn't load up with mud.  Along those lines, I'll be watching for any moisture or crud-related issues.

It started up great this morning, any colder and I wouldn't have taken the bike  

Sorry for the delay Bobbert, I'm still waiting for that throttle cable from MotionSlow.  Anyway, I threw the bike together for the the side views.. Right:


Left:


I like how the battery all but disappears, though there is still some awkwardness to be worked out with the side tins.


diamond jim wrote on 01/21/10 at 19:33:39:

Thank you Jim, coming from you that's the highest forum-complement I've ever been paid.

h20skier wrote on 02/25/10 at 07:09:01:

The original battery was getting weak and I had to replace it anyway.  When I pulled it out and saw that it was half the size of a car battery, I knew a good AGM battery could be found that would supply enough starting amperage and not weigh a ton.  The AGM is also maintenance free and needs no vent tube.

I just completed this same mod, and I have a few question:

How long is your "idle time" that you can sit with the key on and the engine off before the battery gets run down?  I noticed that I had the key on for about 10 minutes while talking to family, saying goodbyes, and by the time I went to start it, I got the solenoid click.  I know it's a BIG downstep going from a 14AH battery to a 6AH battery.

A couple of notes for anybody at home thinking about doing this mod:
- I had previously swapped my airbox out for a cone filter, and I chopped the sides off of the airbox to keep my side covers.  If you don't like the thought of lengthening the cables, you can move a few things.  My solenoid is now mounted to the plastic bracket holding my CDI, allowing the positive terminal to reach easily.  I also moved the negative cable so that now instead of mounting to the engine, it mounts to where the old battery box used to be.

- The remnants of my airbox holding up the R/H side cover are about 2 inches deep, and I plan on putting a back on it, turning it into a little cubby hole where I can store my toolbag.  I always have a gerber on me, so undoing a couple of screws to get to my wrenches isn't a big deal.  

- If you aren't a great welder (like me) you can get away with doing this project with carriage bolts. HOWEVER, there is VERY LITTLE vertical clearance between the top of the battery and the rear frame support tube just behind the engine.  I'm not so worried about shorting since it's the negative terminal, but I'd be more concerned about vibration.

- I needed some padding underneath the battery to protect it from my ground down carriage bolts, and all we had was a thin bicycle inner tube.  This worked out great! I cut the tube in half long-ways and used the adhesive from a tire repair kit to create a boot to wrap around the sides of the battery.  I then used the same process to create a doubled-over boot that went front to back down one side of the battery, across, then up the other side.  Tuck those sides under the original wrap-around, and voila!  You have a little battery condom!

Note that turning the key on and not starting the bike can damage (read burn up) the cdi ignition module  ,on any savage/s-40 ,a costly mistake!