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MG MGB Technical - Tricks for easy Battery removal

Does anyone have a trick or technique for lifting the battery out of the well under the back shelf? Possibly a tool that works well?
Tom Gillett

Tom - If the battery doesn't have a handle on it as most modern batteries have, go to your local auto parts store and ask for a battery lifting strap. It will have fittings on each end that slip down over the battery terminals and enable you to lift it straight up. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

Try a batery carrier (we made one in school).
Made up of non conductive strapping with a washer type fitting, the ID similar to the terminal posts, at each end. The the fittings are placed over each terminal and lock on the terminal when the center of the strap is lifted.
The principal is - slip a washer over the terminal and lift one outer edge. It locks and can easly support the weight of the battery.

Richard.
RH Davidson

I once remember mangling my fingers at the side of the road trying to lift it out for about 10 minutes - it had no upper flange - and then in a flash of inspiration, looping my belt under it and lifting it out it one pull. Funny how necessity becomes the Mother of invention... Bob.
Bob Elwin

I use a large plastic wire tie 3/8"x36" looped around the battery. After years in place it hasn't deteriorated.
Kimberly

An old mechanic showed me many "tricks". One was to use a box end wrench on a post of the battery, and lift. Size? 9/16" maybe for the negative post? Something that just fits over easily, and will cock when lifted. Very easy, and no extra tools to buy.

Peter C
Peter Caldwell

Peter,

just don't short that wrench out! I once knew an old mechanic who had a nasty scar across the palm of his hand from where he absentmindedly laid a wrench across the terminals of a 6 volt battery while steadying himself in an engine compartment. Your friend was obviously not the same guy. ;-)
Bob Muenchausen

Thanks for all the help. Surely with all these suggestions i'll get the thing out of there.
Thanks again.
Tom

A nylon string shopping bag works.
c cummins

Tom

I highly recommend the battery llifting strap that Dave D suggests. I bought one some 40+ years ago and it is still doing the job reliably. One of the most cost effective tool investments I have ever made.

FWIW

Larry

49 YT
58 A
69 C in restoration
72 BGT
Larry Hallanger

If you try box end wrenches to lift them be sure you don't let the wrenches touch each other. If you do the wrenches may do some arc welding.

Clifton
Clifton Gordon

Look here
http://home.zonnet.nl/carclub.ij-v5/plaatje117.jpg
wim

"If you try box end wrenches to lift them be sure you don't let the wrenches touch each other. If you do the wrenches may do some arc welding." Clifton - not may - WILL!!!
David DuBois

A crude solution I've used a couple times when I didn't have anything else at hand: a pair of vice-grips. Once again, you have to be d*mn careful not to let them short on the edges of the opening, but if you're careful, you can lift the battery out quite easily.

But this reminds me of the latest really stupid thing I've done. I've been in the process of reconfiguring the drive belts on my alternator, water pump and A/C compressor.

Working around the alternator - a Saturn/Delco unit with an exposed hot lead on the back - I had the battery disconnected until time for the first running test. Then I forgot to disconnect it again. In one of my moves around the back of the alternator, my metal watch-band managed fo find a very direct route from the hot lead to the grounded case. If we meet up at MG2007, remind me to show you the hole in my watch band! I got 2nd degree burns around most of my wrist, and in my moment of greatest discomfort I looked at my wrist and could not see the cause - not until my superheated watch-band had taken my wrist up to medium-well. Wow - I thought microwaves were fast!

You know all those instructions that start with:
"1. Disconnect the battery"?

Just do it!

Cheers,
Allen
Allen Bachelder

This thread was discussed between 17/04/2007 and 20/04/2007

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