Can anyone please advise how an early Ruby battery is held in place within its battery box?
Mine is just sitting there under its own weight and battery cables without any permanent fixing, this has not been a problem to date but long haul trips are planned and think this may be more of a problem.
Cheers Denis S
"They'll all like that, sir."
The fitting appears not to be a problem - but, if you do want to fasten it down, avoid the Chinese-made, size-adjustable strap sold on eBay, etc. It looks OK, but a friend bought one and it's fit only to be thrown straight into the scrap bin.
Somewhere on this planet is a big pile of all the Austin Ruby parts that previous owners lost or were too lazy to refit. This includes battery clamps, spare wheel clamps and radiator flitch plates. The original Ruby battery clamp fits into two small holes in the sides of the battery box and has a couple of wing nuts on the outside, It holds the battery snugly against the front offside corner.
Ruby Battery Clamp.jpg (Size: 17.23 KB / Downloads: 278)
Having owned numerous Ruby-style cars over the years, including two one-owner low-mileage cars, I must admit I have never seen one of those before. Thank you, John.
My Ruby has two batteries for long distance driving and night nav entertainment. One is positioned by an original clamp as illustrated above, the other with a bit of angle and lengths of threaded rod, as described further above. Whether or not original cars had such battery restraint, anyone doing even the most gentle competition would need to show the scrutes that the batteries are safely held on.
I know we no longer have to submit our cars for MOT tests, but it is a reason for failure if the vehicle's battery is not properly secured. Just because it is held in place by gravity and a couple of sturdy cables doesn't mean it isn't going to part company with the car in a crash and either cause a fire or disgorge its contents over the passengers or anyone carrying out rescue duties, for exactly the same reasons as mentioned by Steve.
For the sake of a bit of threaded rod and some angle (I use a piece of stainless on the RP) - bolt it down. Don't tempt providence.
John C, I do have the radiator and the engine flitch plates, the bracket for the spare wheel and the key for the spare wheel cover, but not the battery bracket!
Looking at the picture of the battery bracket you provided prompted me to go check my battery box on Ruby.
I can find no evidence of any holes in the offside face of the battery box, in addition, there are no holes on the front face of the battery box in areas that would allow such a bracket to be fitted. There are a couple of holes, vertically one above the other fairly central on the front panel, these holes are not currently used, but are not be in locations that would accommodate such a bracket.
In addition the front offside corner of the battery box, where the battery would be pulled up tight against as John describes, is currently occupied by the speedometer cable, please see attached photo which shows the speedometer cable. There is a round piece of hose which is there to separate the battery from the cable! I am not sure if there is a different routing of this cable??
I cannot claim any of this arrangement to be original as it left the factory, but it is "original" as when purchased, with no bracket and speed cable in this same location.
I am not against having a bracket to secure the battery and take onboard the comment regarding safety, but would be interested to see what set up other Rubie have.
