Early Chimaera - Battery Replacement

[andrewcheesman]

Has anyone seen this before?

I just replaced the battery in my '93 430 - was expecting the drop-in battery box situation.

Instead, I ran into a different setup entirely - see photos. My battery lives in a fiberglass box that's more or less molded into the body tub and raised up off the floor of the car, with the fuse array sitting below. The battery is held into the box and enclosed by a fiberglass faceplate which bolts to the rest of the battery box; post extensions (if that's the right thing to call them) connect to the battery's posts with cables, and poke through the fiberglass faceplate to connect to the wiring loom.

Replacing the battery was straightforward (detach faceplate from battery box; hoist the battery and face plate out of the footwell; detach faceplate from old battery; installation is reverse of removal) but the size tolerances of that fiberglass box were extremely picky - I ended up testing three batteries b/c the first two ended up having a plastic rib or foot or other superfluous design feature that prevented the battery from sliding into the box easily.

Is this a standard setup for early cars? Could this have been an aftermarket alteration? I see links to a replacement battery box faceplate so maybe it is semi-standard?

[Daryl357]

My 93 was the same. I don't remember which size battery I used but did have to carefully cut off one of the locating wedges on the base of the battery for clearance.