Battery box

I have started a sheet metal box to hold the battery. This will be welded in place of the spare tire and gas tank. I need 100 cells, give or take, and the squarest pack I could make with about that number turned out to be 7 cells wide and 14 cells long, giving 98 cells. I started with a pristine sheet of 16 gauge steel:
Which got a little less pristine as I taught myself sheet metal fabrication:

The finger brake at TechShop wasn't big enough to bend all four sides of the box, so I had to do some old fashioned whacking it with a hammer and a dolly to get a nice fold on the last two sides. I won't show any closeups of the hammer marks.

Next, remove the gas tank. I'm going to try to find a new home for this, as it is in good shape.



Next, I had to grit my teeth and cut a bloody great hole in the bottom of my car. Not an easy thing to do with a classic car with decent sheet metal.



The hole will be bigger in the end, but I don't want to get too excited about cutting and end up getting rid of some metal that would help hold the box in later.

Test fit!


Astute readers will notice the complete lack of welds. Unfortunately, Saturday is welding class day at TechShop. so I wasn't able to get a welder all day. I need to weld some separators between the rows of cells as well.