remote battery terminals
 

Bought one of those portable jump starters. Now I need to come up with some remote battery terminals that are accessible (not under the hatch, 'cause it won't open with a dead battery).

I looked at PepBoys, and found nothing. A crude idea would be to cut the heads off a couple stainless 5/16" bolts, drill 2 holes through the back of the seat (to the storage area underneath the seat), and put nuts on either end, to keep the "terminals" in place. Concerned about shorting-out the terminals, if something metal happened to touch them.

Any better ideas?

thanks,
Mark

Boat US or West Marine have them.

Kook,

I can open mine with out power not easy and have to prop it up my Seebold wont though

My buddy did this after he learned the first time his batteries went dead and he couldn't raise the hatch to get to them.

His back seat had a "divider board" in the middle making it two separate "areas". he ran one post to one side, and the other post to the other side to prevent anything from touching both posts at once. He also found some type of plastic "box" to cover the positive terminal just in case. he secured th box with a couple screws and was done. Not sure if he ever used it, but at least he has some peace of mind.

I used a tupperware container for a plastic cover for the Circuit Breakers in my under seat compartment. I cut a hole in the lid, and screwed that down to the back portion of the seat compartment, and the bowl part of the tupperware just snaps into the cover (securely mouted) and it will take a seriously hard hit from an object to knock it off, but it twists off easily.

Also, I can just lift my engine hatch up. My cylinders have an inner liner sleeve that alow full manual movement when the hydraulics have no power. It came factory from Sonic like this.

Summit Racing and Jeg's have these terminals. They are sold in set of Red-Positive and Black-Negative with the vinyl colored caps. We used these all the time in Drag Racing applications and they are designed for through panel mounting. I mounted mine just under the rear seat panel on the starboard side. They tuck up under the front edge of the seat and are out of sight until you need them.

Foutain boats came with this set up right from the factory you may want to contact them. I bought the same box you probley have, mine came with two chargers, one wall the other is a cig adp. If you have a dead battery, plug one end in the booster box and the other end in your cig lighter and you will be able to open your engine hatch. This way you will not need to do the set up with the terminals! Last year a mechanic left the lights on in my boat and I connected the booster box to the lighter, raised the hatch and then connected the booster box to the battery to start it and it worked fine. HOPE THIS HELPS AND SAVES YOU MONEY

You can get the stuff at boat us. The other alternative that I like is have you ever seen the plugs that tow trucks have on the front of them for jumping cars? They work very well. MAKE SURE YOU FUSE IT. No matter how you do it. If you do short it out that way it will blow the fuse and not damage anything.

Jon

Actually Audio, because this has the potential to be a high amperage circuit, I'd use a fusable link instead of a fuse.

Cord if you are going to try and start the motor with it you are correct. However you have to take into account the size of the wire you are going to run. I think that most people just want to run say a 10ga or so wire to get the harch open then you can move your jumper to battery. If this is the case the fuse should be fine. They are easier to replace then a fusable link no???

Jon

You are absolutly correct. Replacing a fusable link is a pita. Guess that I was just thinking that I'd prefer to fry a fusable link that blow a sensitive fuse. If the fusable link burns up, the actuator will be at least a foot up. That'll be enough to get into the engine bay. Guess that it's really a matter of preference as either once will be better than nothing.

Like Audio said, I've got two 10g wires spliced to my hatch motor that are accessible when the hatch is down. If the battery dies, I take the cap off the two leads, hook the portable battery charger to them and up goes the hatch. Then move the charger inside.

Actually came like that from the factory, which was a nice touch. But it should be real easy to do. Just be sure to cap the leads, as they will be live anytime you press the hatch button.

thanks for the responses. I'll look at Jeg's and will also consider the simple idea of running some 10awg wire to the hatch cylinder pump.

If all you want to do is raise the hatch, I just got through installing two units in friends' boats and we decided that slotting the bracket that the actuator bolt goes through would be a good solution. We let the unit down and marked the angle of the actuator on the bracket, then raised it up and marked it again. We then picked a spot to mill the slot in the bracket. Slot is located as close to parallel to the actuator when closed, except the slot is rotated enough that the pressure angle when open isn;t near the slot. This way, if the batt is dead OR IF THE ACTUATOR FREEZES WHEN DOWN, you can get a man-grip on the hatch and lift it hard enough for the actuator to pull out of the slot. No "normal" forces will pull the actuator out of the slot, except if you try to guillotine somebody in half with the hatch by closing it on them - it will pull out then, a fine safety feature for those inclined to smash victims in half with their hatch.

My batteries went dead this year, couldn't lift the hatch by hand, way too heavy. I just popped the hatch switch out of the dash and ran jumper leads from a newly uninstalled battery (sitting on the floor of the boat) to the hot and ground on the switch. Pushed the switch and it opened right up. I have to admit, the hatch switch was easlily accessable. Yours may not be.

yep, my switch is accessible. Never considered that route.

You can find what you are looking for at any good auto parts store like NAPA its what tow trucks use to jump cars

What are you guys going to do if your hatch motor freezes up and won't work. Had this happen and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas.

Look up a few posts - mcollinstn's post . I printed this out. We have a machine shop at work. May not get to it this year, but I will certainly try this mod next season (got enough things I need to do to the boat already).

This is the way Baja does it from the factory...

another...

Thos pictures leave me confused - I'm not sure what I'm looking at. :confused:

First picture is inside the engine compartment where the pos & neg cables terminate to a SS bolt. Then they run a bolt thru the engine bulkhead and under the back seat removable cushion and cover it with the rubber caps (second picture).

doah! I C now. This is kinda what I had in mind.