Next up...the North Star battery replacement

Battery is the PL-AGM-31M I got in a group buy here, and it ran at Tacoma World as well. Seems Sears Platinum AGM's are no more, so it time to look for an alternative...a buddy recommended this.




Initial impressions are favorable. Build quality looks good, as does the warranty. It's a tight fit side to side on the length, and it's about an inch higher then the stock, so the OEM hold down doesn't reach.





The terminals don't reach either, so I bought some thick wall copper at Lowes, crushed it in a vise, drill out new holes for the terminals, and bolted it back together. Is it safe?...lol...we'll find out. (if you do this shit to your truck and it cooks it, it's on you) I only do these kind of things because, it seems to make sense, and I don't know any better. I did order solid 3/16" x 3/4" copper from Mcmaster-Carr, to redo it, although I think it's fine as it is. It's very solid, bolted to the separate pieces of the terminal, which really made it easy to do it this way.









I had some 1/8" aluminum plate laying around. I cut it to size, drilled out some small holes, and siliconed it in place. After that I took some rubber roofing I had lying around, and cut and fit 2 pcs. of that into place, to supply a little cushion under this monster.











After the battery was in place...Murphy's f'in Law never takes a vacation day, so the hold down bracket was short. I had some 1/8" x 2" flat stock, so I bent up a new bracket to fit, and added the ROAM garnish...just to piss Jeff off.





Any you old school Chevy guys may remember the under the hood light that was featured in the trucks back in the 90's...I saw one on Fleabay for 30$, so I always missed it. Now I just have to convert it to LED...it easily reaches the back of the truck, and is magnetic.