1973 Mustang Battery Support (Not Tray)

Hey All,

I'm looking to replace the battery support (not the battery tray) in my 1973 Mustang.

The piece itself looks like this (from the side):



and again from the top:



It originally sat in between the right-front inner fenderwell and the frame and supports the battery itself from underneath the inner fenderwell:



Anyone know where I might be able to purchase one?

I've been able to find plenty of options for the inner fenderwell but nothing for this support. I could fabricate one on my own if need be, but I figured I'd ask first.

Thanks!

72 fastback said:

You could try CJ Pony Parts they might have it.

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BarnStang said:

CJ shows it in the printed catalog, but not on the website.

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I called up CJ Pony Parts and they told me that they don't carry the battery support, unfortunately. As BarnStang said it's not listed on their website.

@BarnStang: Do you happen to have a part number of the part that looked correct in the CJ Pony Parts catalog? Perhaps the person I was talking with at CJ was confused or mistaken.

If I can't find a replacement part I'll just have fabricate my own, thankfully it's not a super complicated part just time consuming.

Thanks!

I just went ahead and made a replacement:



It was actually a bit of a pain to make but I think it came out decently. Rather than try and recreate the various ridges that added strength I went with a thicker gauge steel. The original piece was 18 gauge and I built my replacement out of 14 gauge.

Oh, and all the bends I was able to put in using my 6" bench vise since I don't have a metal break (for bending sheet steel).

Thanks for the help gang.

Thanks BarnStang! I was pleased with how it came out despite taking twice as long as I thought it would. You're probably right as well, it'll take 50 years for this one to rust out, so hopefully I won't be replacing it again.

If you do end up making one (or anyone else for that matter) I found the trickiest part to be the very bottom of the piece (bottom in picture) that has a slight "step" in it. Along this step there is a bend that goes up and down in addition to the more visible left to right bends. If you were to look dead on at that end of the piece you would see that the right-hand side (the shorter side) is about a quarter-ish inch higher than the left side (the longer side).

I was able to put in this bend by placing a 1/4 inch piece of steel underneath the right hand side (the shorter side) and clamping it to a bench. I placed a second piece of steel ON TOP of the left hand side and also clamped it down to the bench. This created the vertical bend or offest that I needed.