Battery Tray Cleanup
I swear I took a “before” photo but now I can’t find it…
Used my whole bag o’ rust-busting tricks (heat, penetrant, Dremel, vise grips, EZ-out, etc) to remove the 3 bolts that secured the battery tray. The heads of 2 were rounded, and the head of the 3rd was snapped clean off.
I had to remove the splash shield and of the horns to be able to get the propane torch on the nut for the right-most bolt. I had to Dremel the plastic around the rear bolt, remove the tray and THEN extract the bolt (that was the one with no head). And the left bolt (the one on the bracket) snapped, even with heat, but fortunately I had Megumi’s rust-free bracket on hand as a replacement.
Scrubbed some rust and more Canadian Slime off and hit the area with POR-15:
I also reconditioned the tray itself:
Very satisfying to know I won’t ever have to fight it again to access that area.
I knew it was going to be a fight, so I developed a strategy and blocked off a few hours yesterday afternoon for it. I plan to swap over clutch hydraulics (master, slave & hose) soon and this was prep for that job.