[Alexwb72]

Hi All

I am curious to know if any one has installed the leisure battery in the engine bay of their T5?

We are just about to embark on our first conversion and although we are having a lot of work done by Revampavan, I wanted to tackle this part of the project myself.

I know it is possible to fit it under the front seats but I wanted to leave those areas free for future use and I'm not keen to build in a "battery box/cupboard" as we want the most uncluttered feel we can get in our van.

All advice and opinions gratefully received.

Cheers

Alexwb72

 

[triffic]

I'm fairly sure it's possible, as I can recall seeing previous threads about it here before. It's common in other makes of van (e.g. both my previous Tr4ns1t based campers had that setup), though on a T5 it will be tight and it may mean that access to the front N/S light assemblies is awkward. Ford make it easy because there is a battery tray on each side of the engine compartment on the earlier models, while VW make their standard position under the passenger seat, and optionally provide wiring for one there.

There are also a couple of other disadvantages: The battery gets both hotter (when engine's running for long periods) and colder than one inside, neither of which help performance/longevity. And the other is that generally it makes wiring to power-heavy leisure loads such as a fridge significantly longer and more convoluted.

An alternative (which I have on my van) is to put the battery at the back, hidden in the base of a cupboard, which means that wiring to the fridge is just a simple 1.5m of thick cable.

In reality there are pros and cons to each of the possible locations though, and I certainly wouldn't rule out one in the engine compartment on a future van.

 

[upspex]

I used to do a system that uses 2 x 36 ah AGM deep cycle batteries, one in each side of the plenum chamber (under the wiper motor). However, it was expensive and time consuming and as Triffic says, far from ideal in terms of the rest of the system.
If you want to have an efficient reliable electrical system then you have to give it priority. You can't regard it as an inconvenience.

 

[Alexwb72]

Thanks for the advice Chaps, Taking what you have both said into account and having a better look at the space, I think fitting the battery there is not sensible and a bit beyond my skill set. So under the seats it goes.

Alexwb72