That is looking sweet!  Love the punched holes.

Still need to pull it back out and paint it and cut the J-hook down but here is the otherwise finished battery tray.



countersunk the bolts





used a rivnut and a 6M bolt for this side



its nothing really special but I threw a beadroll in the hold down, really stiffens it up



Now to start building cables.

That is looking sweet!  Love the punched holes.

Thanks, I can do from 1/2" up to 3"

Here is a crossmember I did on a Cherokee

Is that die punching?  Does punching the holes help add rigidity to something like your battery tray?

No its not a punch (they do have them), I just use hole saws then use my shop press and a dimple die set to dimple the hole. Dimpling metal reduces the weight and adds a lot of strength to it, of course the weight depends on how thick the material is and how many/size of holes you make. I cant find it right now but years ago one of the off-road magazines had an article about dimple dies, they took a piece of sheetmetal and propped it up on a couple pieces of wood and stepped on it and it bent, then they took a sheet and dimpled it and performed the same test, this time the metal bowed but did not bend.

These are not the ones I have, just an example, you can also get them with a hole in the middle of the die where you can run a bolt through it to dimple sheetmetal that you cant fit in a press.

https://www.amazon.com/Dimple-Die-Set-Inches-0-50/dp/B00K0TPNGM

That is really cool.  Got to have those racing holes to reduce weight!  I remember an old feature article in a magazine, and I believe it was a Dodge Dakota, and the owner went to town on it with a variety of drill bits and hole saws,  I can't remember how much weight he saved, but it was a decent amount.  He drilled holes in the door handles, which looked pretty cool, but also used the hole saw to knock coupon out of the door jams and other "hidden" areas.  Pretty crazy stuff.

finished the dual battery install, painted the tray with bedliner, put a strip of rubber between the battery and the hold down, built new #2 battery cables, installed the VSR battery "isolator". it cranks over WAY faster now





then I was playing with my new spot weld cutter and removed the (not sure what you call it) piece that holds the plastic trim on the side. Not as bad as I was expecting, sometimes there are rust holes behind here.



you can see though that its dented towards the front. I plan to add some rocker protection and remove the current steps.



I kind of bounced around on projects after getting the batteries done, I removed the jack holder from under the hood (again playing with my spot weld cutter) and will be installing the winch controller in that space. I made a bracket to hold the controller and I started working on the winch mount, but no pics of those yet.

if anyone wants that stock jack holder, just let me know.

Very nice battery/cable install!  Does your Sami have the hard start relay installed on the starter solenoid circuit?  Those spot weld cutters are handy, for sure.  Did you pick up a Harbor Freight special, or do you have something a little bit nicer?

Very nice battery/cable install!  Does your Sami have the hard start relay installed on the starter solenoid circuit?  Those spot weld cutters are handy, for sure.  Did you pick up a Harbor Freight special, or do you have something a little bit nicer?

Its a little bit nicer but its still an amazon special. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002XML5HK?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details

I have not seen a relay for the starter, but I am not sure.

I believe the hard start relay is setup to take load off the ignition switch.  Instead of the ignition switch providing the juice to activate the starter solenoid, it activates a relay that supplies voltage to the solenoid.  It takes load off of the ignition switch and can provide more juice to the solenoid.

the other night I bent up some scrap sheet metal and made a mount for the winch control box inside the engine bay where the stock jack holder was, took a couple nights of shooting it with bedliner and letting it dry. I mounted it last night but obviously the box isn't mounted yet, just sitting there to check out any clearance issues.









Started prepping the frame for the winch mount, I am making bolt on but trying to make it better than the 4 original bolts lol.

sleeved the 4 bolt holes with 1/8" thick tubing



capped the ends





as mentioned before I sleeved the tube crossmember with a piece of 1.5" pipe, I am trying to work out a way to tie into the crossmember to add strength to the winch mount (I have a plan but need to see how it plays out)

got the winch plate cut out, bent, and recessed for the crossmember.

its just squeezed between the rails right now, of course my goofball had to be in one of the pictures lol

I didn't get much time last night to work on it, had to get hay tarped before this storm that rolled in last night.

I did get the mounting holes drilled for the winch plate and got the grill cut to recess the winch in, I need to come up with something different for the front turn signals.

the winch is not bolted down, once I get the fairlead mounted I will probably slide the winch forward about half an inch giving it more room in front of the radiator, but I like how high and tucked in it sits.


13,000 pounds might be a little overkill for a Samurai lol but I already had it, it was this 13,000 pounder or another 13,000 pounder, an old Belleview winch, or a 2,000 ATV winch.

Looks sharp!