New battery time, and boy did that escalate quickly.

[The_Bishop]

After 5 years my Walmart battery decided it didn't want to do battery things anymore, so I went off to get a new one.

Turns out that group 75 batteries are a bit tough to come by. Closest I could get is a 8475 AAA battery from Napa, which a quick eyeball measurement at the store vs the group 75 I had, they looked to be the same size. The 8475 had better reserve and CCA, so score!

Left them the core, brought the new battery home.

Now my '98, probably like 90% of the fourth gen cars out there, has the front battery retention lip busted off the coolant tank. I had fabricated a steel strap that was bent to go up the side of the battery, across the top, and bolt in to one of the brackets on the radiator support. In conjunction with the battery wedge, this held the battery firmly in place and worked for the five years I had the other battery installed.

The new battery is ever so slightly taller despite the dimensions supposedly being the same. Now the bracket doesn't fit. To make matters even more fun, the battery hold down bolt hole seems to be slightly stripped.

So... Out comes the new battery, and with a little finagling and cursing rusted hardware so does the coolant tank.

As for the stripped out battery hold down bolt hole - Thankfully I have a Rivnut tool with the slightly longer M8-1.25 Rivnuts to work in somewhat thicker material. To make extra sure it won't come loose or spin, I placed two small tack welds on it.

Under the coolant tank there's a worrying amount of surface rust, so that got wire brushed off and everything that looks like it is rusted or *might* consider rusting in the future got sprayed down the Rustoleum rust converter. This also included the area under the car that you access via the little door used to change the fog lights, because *surprise* there was some rust under the 'battery tray' there as well, and it's far easier to access with the coolant tank out of the way.

Back to the tank: A quick search on Amazon shows a replacement tank that's reasonably priced and I can have it by Saturday, so that's on the way. My hope is with the front lip being intact I can just use the standard hold down hardware and the top strap won't be necessary.

So, as we stand right now, The battery's on the side, the old coolant tank is waiting to go in the trash. The hold-down bolt hole is repaired with a rivnut and two small tack welds. The surface rust is all wire brushed down and treated with Rustoleum rust converter. Everything's all ready for the new tank, which will hopefully show up tomorrow.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[qwikz28]

That stinks about the rust. I know I recently ran a long bolt through the mount in and fished a washer and nut through the fender to get my battery clamped down. Not very elegant, but it worked.