Battery Tray Orientation ?

Hi all,
I am installing a new stock-style battery tray to replace my old rusted-out tray.
For whatever reason the new one has non-symmetrical holes drilled in it.
The old rusted one was non-stock, so I don't have any point of comparison with the new tray.

Which, if any, is the correct orientation for the new tray?

Option A (three holes towards the rad)
or
Option B (three holes towards the fender)
or
Option C - either way is fine.

I added a photo of the tray support too in case that helps.

Thanks in advance,
David

Looks correct

I'd like to know too as I'm going back to a stock battery tray as well.

Todd Z.

Interesting. Looks like they corrected their stamping to actually fit into a Bronco. When I first checked out the reproductions they were the right shape and size, but the holes were in the wrong place and only one would line up. I figured that like so many other things we get, they were actually patterned after another Ford product (likely a Mustang of course) and just presumed to fit a Bronco because they looked the same at a glance.

Looks like you have two holes lining up, and that's great.
Does either position put the tray closer to the inner fender apron? Or do both positions keep the tray at the same location? I may be making my own memories up, but I thought I remembered the originals as having a slight offset. Worked either way, but the position that put the tray further away from the radiator was the original position.

I like the battery a bit further away from the sheet metal of the fender though, just to make it easier to access the battery cable. And if you have the original Ford oriented battery with the positive terminal by the body, further away is a good thing!
If you had a '73 or later with the cold-air snorkel it was probably better to push it towards the radiator anyway. Without that snorkel though, probably either would work.
Yours looks more symmetrical, but it's hard to tell in the pics.

Do you also have the offset top clamp to go with the offset holes for the hold-down studs?

Paul

DirtDonk said:

Looks like you have two holes lining up, and that's great.
Does either position put the tray closer to the inner fender apron? Or do both positions keep the tray at the same location? I may be making my own memories up, but I thought I remembered the originals as having a slight offset. Worked either way, but the position that put the tray further away from the radiator was the original position.
Paul

Click to expand...

Those are great questions, Paul. Both holes do line up either way. I think the orientation with the 3 holes towards the fender might put the tray closer to the rad, but I will go and measure it and report back. My positive terminal is on the fender side, and I did put a plastic terminal cover over it (for that very reason), but still I would prefer to keep it as far away from the fender.

DirtDonk said:

Do you also have the offset top clamp to go with the offset holes for the hold-down studs?
Paul

Click to expand...

Yup I do. I'm kinda curious as to what their original reason to offset the hold-downs was, but I did get the offset clamp to go with it.

Now, to go measure and report back.

Regarding the battery terminal, most of us have swapped over to batteries with the opposite terminal orientation. Same group size, just reverse orientation.
In fact, one of them is simply given an “R” suffix to differentiate. I don't remember if it's the ones Ford uses, or the ones we swap in.
But the bottom line is it changes the positive terminal to the one that's away from the body.

The good news of using the type that you have is that it's very easy to disconnect the negative terminal first, which is what you're supposed to do anyway. And it also makes for cleaner wiring between the positive terminal and the starter relay.
So there is that…

Paul, your memory serves you correctly... Turns out there is a difference in the orientation.
Putting the 3 holes on the fender side moves the tray about an inch closer to the rad.
I put a circle on the photos below to show the difference.

Cool. That's actually a good thing because it gives you the option to choose. No real problem with it being close to the radiator unless you have something that needs to fit in-between. Or if you just want the room to work with. Puts the battery terminal in a slightly less awkward location.
Putting it further away from the rad gives maybe a cleaner look, more room to work with in the engine compartment, but tucks the battery terminal under the body more. Not a deal-breaker, but worth noting.

Just one of the many simple trade-offs that we get to think about and how mounting something now will effect our work (and sometimes our sanity!) in the future.

Not sure why the angle on the clamping design. But it might actually add strength and stability by moving each clamp location closer to a bolting point of the tray. The tray itself is fairly long and large in a truck like ours (they fit larger batteries easily) so the designers may have been looking to maximize rigidity for mounting something extremely heavy (and important!) like a battery.
That's my take on it anyway. Probably one of several possible reasons. Might even have been a hold-over from another application where making it square would have put the clamp studs and nuts in a bad location too close to other components.

Paul

One other thing I noticed, it seems like the indentation in the tray is a bit too deep. It's deeper than the indentation in the tray supports, so the tray doesn't sit flush on the supports, it rocks forward and back.
I'm not sure if these repro trays are all like that, or if it's specific to the one I got. I got mine from TBP, but from what I can see it looks the same as the one DC (and probably most of the other vendors) sell.

In my case I can solve for it just by reinserting the bolts that held the former tray back in place, so as to create four points for the new tray to sit flush on.

I was discussing the orientation with Slowleak over in Chat and something he said reminded me about a statement on my Bronco from Ford. In Slowleaks case his hold down rods don't line up with the bracket on the core support. He rotated it and it was a little better but he had clearance issues. He and I both made statements as to maybe the trays were used on multiple vehicle assembly lines.

He then made a comment about maybe it being this way in the event an owner installed a larger battery you could move it away from the fender. Wouldn't you know that my info sheet from Ford indicates mine came from the factory with an optional 'Heavy Duty Battery'.

I'm not saying for certain that this would be the reason for the tray going in either way, but maybe it was aligned from the factory based on the size battery?

https://classicbroncos.com/forums/showthread.php?t=312684

Interesting find! Makes sense that they would have had common trays for multiple vehicle lines, and put different holes in them to make them fit whatever they were going in, or different battery sizes/orientations. After all, it's just a tray. No one even sees it (except us haha) and no point having different ones for every different vehicle. Common parts keeps their costs down.