S13 battery tray removal

[2Fass240us]

In my quest to save weight and clean up the engine bay, I decided to get rid of the battery tray. Because it sucks and it was rusty.

Cutting to enable separation of the vertical part:

After the vertical piece was removed:

After drilling 1/8" holes at (most of) the spotwelds:

After drilling 3/8" holes at (most of) the spotwelds:

Using the cutting wheel to partition the tray:

Taking out the pieces:

Using the same cutting wheel to remove the rusted part:

Blam!

The battery tray pieces laid out, all 1.2 pounds ( )of it:

[EstoMax]

wow nice job,

i did the EXACT same thing on my car, not as elegantly though

i used a crowbar to pull the spotwelds off.. now i wish i woulda used my head. afterwards i dremeled it and put some black spray paint on to keep the rust away (my engine bay is black anyway)

looks nice though, you should relocate ur intake there, colder air can get in thru that hole

heres 2 pics of an s14 job

[EstoMax]

and after

[kane2g]

nice, I was actually going to take a stab at that next. Nice to see that someone else got the hard part done, all I need now is some nice weather

[2Fass240us]

i did the EXACT same thing on my car, not as elegantly though

I'm not so sure "elegant" is the right word, but thank you for the compliment!

looks nice though, you should relocate ur intake there, colder air can get in thru that hole

For the KA or SR? I would imagine with the SR or KA-T, that wouldn't work...

Nice to see that someone else got the hard part done, all I need now is some nice weather

It was somewhat hard, mainly because I'm not the most patient person in the world. Labor-wise, the most difficult thing was finding and drilling out the spotwelds. Some people recommend using a specific bit for removing spotwelds, and others say to grind the metal down until you break them. But I didn't have the money for the former, and didn't feel like trying the latter. My way worked well, except for lots of holes in the metal.

[kane2g]

My way worked well, except for lots of holes in the metal.

I'll take a couple of small holes over a rusty unused battery tray

[2Fass240us]

I'll take a couple of small holes over a rusty unused battery tray

me too (obviously)

[j-z]

i took my rusted *** tray out last week. it looks much better in my engine bay without. after i took it out i had to get rid of all the rust that was on the panel underneath it. then i sprayed everything a nice black. after a while of looking at my engine bay, i realized that the fuse box now looks outta place looking like the empire state building standing by itself. i relocated all of that non-sense to where the batter use to reside. now my car looks like the way it shouldve came from nissan. yaayyyyy!!!

[2Fass240us]

i realized that the fuse box now looks outta place looking like the empire state building standing by itself. i relocated all of that non-sense to where the batter use to reside.

I ditched one of my fuse boxes and relocated the whole harness to underneath the dash!