[darkpuppet]

Without pulling the bumper cover off my car, can anyone tell me what the dimensions of the stock battery are?

will save me from buying wrong sized battery only to find out once the car's in pieces.

thanks!

[schade]

seeing as the Optima 34R Red top battery is a direct replacement for our cars i was able to get the specs from there site. (to cold to go outside and measure)

10 x 6.8 x 7.8

its damn heavy to .. weighing in at 38lbs

if you have the time to do alittle more research you should lookinto a thinner lightweight battery with a mounting tray for it .. sorta like this

[darkpuppet]

schade,Jan 16 2005, 09:07 PM Wrote:seeing as the Optima 34R Red top battery is a direct replacement for our cars i was able to get the specs from there site. (to cold to go outside and measure)

10 x 6.8 x 7.8

its damn heavy to .. weighing in at 38lbs

if you have the time to do alittle more research you should lookinto a thinner lightweight battery with a mounting tray for it .. sorta like this
[right][snapback]79151[/snapback][/right]

if a small battery like that could run the alarm for a week without dying, I might consider it.

direct replacement does not equal size that fits in vortech battery tray.

We are currently on our 3rd hour of the battery replacement, and have resorted to modifying the battery tray to take out an angled corner that prohibits the fit of the 6 3/4" wide battery (stock is maybe 6.5" tops. that little bit is causing the most grief right now.

[meford4u]

We are getting the red optima next week. From what the boy has learned in his mechanic travels, it's the best bang for the buck and great for running the alarm when idle.

[darkpuppet]

Job start 3:15pm

Job end: 8:23pm

christ.... lemme tell ya.. if you want to take your bumper cover off, contrary to the service manual, take out your headlights and work from there... crawling under the car is a bitch, and the battery tray obscures all the bolts on the driver's side.

I should have taken pictures.. 2 people, 5 hours. I haven't eaten yet today because we thought it'd be an hour job tops.

batteries not included

[01-yellow-ZX3]

I can't see how it'd be possible to take the bumper off without taking the headlights out?

Its a bit late, but this might have helped ya:
http://www.focuscanada.net/forum/index.php...=8295&hl=bumper

[darkpuppet]

haha.. sort of wish I had remembered about that post.

But we started off following the directions outlined in the ford shop manual... it's actually not too bad doing it from under the car, if there wasn't a water resevoir or battery tray in the way.

So many bolts are stripped and whatnot, I'm wondering how the car holds itself together. I may have to hit up ford to get new clips/bolts to fix those the next time everything's apart.