Re: [VAL] Moving battery from rear to tongue

["John Sellers" <sellersj@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Bill,

Not knowing anything about the factory electrical wiring of a '69
Sovereign, but having installed a tongue mounted battery box, here's my
$.02 worth.

The tongue is a good place for the coach battery from the standpoint of
structural support and weight distribution.  The weight of the battery
is centered from side to side and mostly borne by the hitch.  There's
plenty of frame at that point to support it.

Airstream used tongue mounted batteries on several models in the 50's
and early 60's.  One configuration used a narrow tractor battery in an
unusually thin battery box.

Our 1960 Pacer didn't come from the factory with a coach battery.  The
only 12 V load was a ceiling light powered by the tow vehicle battery.
The rest of the lights were 120V, requiring ground power.  My upgrade to
this arrangement was a solid state 600 Watt inverter which allows us to
run the 120 V lights and some fans from the 12 V battery.  (600 Watts is
more than enough capacity; we use 13 W compact fluorescents in the 120 V
light fixtures, so the total l20 V load is normally less than 100 W.)

Last year while I was sandblasting and painting the frame I fabricated a
mounting base for a Size 27 marine battery box from 1" angle iron and
mounted it on the tongue between the front of the shell and the LP gas
tanks.  In order to make room for the battery box I had to move the LP
gas bottles forward, but only by 2 inches.

The hardest part is that you are going to need to pull a really heavy
wire from the battery to the 12 V distribution panel.  I have no idea
what your total 12 V load is on the Sovereign, but on our little Pacer
I ran #4 wire from the positive terminal of the battery to a new 12 V
distribution center under the dinette seat, where the inverter is
located.  (I put a high current battery disconnect switch in the line.)

You will also need to provide a low resistance path to the negative
battery terminal.  Since it didn't need to go very far, I just ran
another #4 wire from the negative terminal directly to the inverter.
I also grounded the negative terminal to both the steel frame and the
aluminum shell with #8 grounding jumpers.

In your case, I think you could use the steel frame as the ground path
back to the distribution panel.  Steel has higher resistivity than
aluminum, but the frame provides a heavy, continuously welded steel
conductor running the length of the trailer.  If you go that route, take
the trouble to make really good low resistance joints to the frame.
Since I was welding on the frame anyway I welded a nut to the frame to
attach the grounding pigtail.

On the other hand, I'm sure the factory put a coach battery on your '69.
If the battery is currently where the factory put it, I might be
inclined to assume they knew what they were doing and leave it there.
The advantages of relocating it may not be worth the effort.

Good luck,

John Sellers
WBCCI/VAC #1587
1960 Pacer
Dayton, Ohio