Hi Barry,
This reminds me of my favorite sport car story (which didn't happen to me,
but I have to steal it and share it here).
A fellow I know, who owned a succession of sports cars through his misspent
youth, had an early Datsun Fairlady (predesessor to the Datsun 2000 Roadster,
Japanese knock-off of an MGB). It had an unusual single sideways seat behind
the two regular seats. This seat was hinged to the side of the parcel shelf
area and could be flipped up to expose the battery underneath. One hot, South
Carolina day in about 1970, he and his brother and his brother's girlfriend
decided, "It's too hot. Let's go to the beach!", Top down, they jumped in the
car, boys in the front, Jeanie in the back. He started the car, heard a noise
he described as "POOT!". His brother looked around and said, "Where's
Jeanie?". Jeanie was lying on the ground beside the car wondering where she
was, also.
Obviously, when he started the car, a spark lit the hydrogen gases under the
back seat and launched Jeanie into sub-orbital flight. He and his brother got
a big kick out of it, but it didn't do much for Jeanie's opinion of sports
cars.
Wish I had been there...
Tom Burke
80 Spit
In a message dated 11/14/2002 9:56:04 AM Eastern Standard Time,
bschwart@postoffice.pacbell.net writes:
> I am running out of space to put the battery in my 40 Ford truck, and am
> considering under the passenger seat. There is ample room to do this under
> the platform and is about the only place left as hard as that is to
> believe, but if you have ever seen a forty Ford truck you know what I am
> talking about. This would allow a nice installation albeit a slight
> inconvenience in service and replacement (but how often do you do that
> anyway) I seem to remember the MGB having the batteries mounted in pockets
> in the rear parcel area (the obligatory LBC content) but my concern is with
> the out gassing and fumes that batteries produce during running and
> charging. The truck is a closed cab vs. the MGB being an open car (without
> its top of course, although the BGT is closed)
> The box I would make would have vents, possibly one running under the truck
> similar to a draft tube (if you remember those) to draw fumes out and under
> the cab. Anybody see any problems/pitfalls with this idea?
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