Battery Tray Question

I need a battery tray for my 66 cj5. Will the ones advertised for the 76-86 cjs work? if not could someone point me in the right direction?
thanks tom

 

any generic 12v battery should do you fine, so yep a battery for a 76-86 would be just fine.

if you really want to get a nice battery (and spend a little extra coin for it as well) you could go with either a yellow or red top optima battery.

all up to you and what you plan on using your jeep for. i personally run a generic 12v battery, nothing special. i spent about $40 from advance autoparts on mine.

hope that helps a bit!

- evan

 

you looking for the battery tray that mounts on the inner fender or on the firewall? ebay usually got lots of them.

 

whoops! i definitely read that wrong! I thought you were looking for a battery. Sorry about that!

 

Just curious, when was the last year they had the big bracket that was welded to the front right part of the frame? My '56 is like that, but I don't know when they changed it.

 

I would assume (someone correct me if I'm wrong) '71 would be the last year, as I'm pretty sure they changed the frame a bit when AMC took over, along with stretching the front clip a few inches to accommodate their inline motors.

Both my '57 and '62 have the same frame with the battery tray welded to the frame.

 

The tray I need bolts to the firewall

 

Ya you do, and soon. I would imagine any of the jeep parts suppliers would have a generic battery tray for sale.
One of my jeeps, has the battery mounted on the frame, which makes it hard to service the radiator and shroud the other one
is mounted on the firewall. I prefer the firewall mounted battery tray. Kind of gets it out of the way
Doug/Tucson

 

I made mine from 1x1 angle to hold a group 27 marine battery.

 

I know that the these links say they are for the later model jeeps but they sure do look similar to my '70 tray that will soon look like yours.

http://www.jeepdoc.com/catalog/partframe.asp?id=2193
http://www.jeepdoc.com/catalog/partframe.asp?id=2195

After further inspection, I notice that these battery trays for the later CJs don't have the other tubular support arm that goes down and left (to where the tub and fender meet). Instead, they have another arm that goes back up towhere the grounding bar should be. You might have to drill a hole or two, but I don't see where it wouldn't work. I hope someone else on this site can find the actual replacement because it wont be much longer before I will need one too.

Have you pulled a Sparky and searched the site?

 

I just put a new tray in my 68 cj. My old one looked similar to yours. I orderd a kentrol polished stainles steel tray from 4wd hardware. I had to redrill the holes a little larger to get it to match up with my original holes. It looks real nice and I think it will be a nice improvement of the original. I toped it off with an optima battery. It will be interesting to see how the optima preforms compared to a conventinal battery. I am hopeing that I dont see the corosion and leak isues with the older style batterys. A leaking battery sure makes a mess in the battery area of the engin compatment.

 

I would call and get the dimensions, batteries come in a lot of different sizes depending on the quality and life expectancy of the battery
Doug/Tucson

 

If you're wanting to stay as close to original as possible, I'd try Walck's 4WD first. If anybody has authentic repros, it would be Walck's.