Hi,

I'm looking for some advice on changing up the batteries in my 99 Mariner 350. The old battery trays being wood are shot, and the batteries where held in pace with trays. Every time I went to check on stuff in the engine compartment, I kept getting stabbed with the battery tie downs.

My current set up is 3 - group 31 batteries. One for each engine and one for the generator. Moving forward, I'm going to replace one of the batteries with an 8D house battery. That will sit nicely in the forward bilge. The two remaining batteries will fit nicely in front of the generator. No issues with space.

My question is, how to secure these snap top style battery boxes? And, What to put them on? The 8D has a nice box with external screw holes. But, the smaller battery boxes are just a box and a cheep strap. I don't want to use the strap. They tend to adsorb oil, water and get grouse.

For the 2 - smaller battery boxes. I'm thinking, I would like to get a two of Stainless steel bars roughly 5" wide x 20" long (the distance side to side between stringers) and about 3/4" thick. Drill through the plastic boxes and tap into the Stainless Bar to mount the boxes. I would 5200 Caulk the bars to the floor of the bilge. The bars will leave room for bilge water to flow by and be easy to clean under.

My concerns are this. I've now put 4 holes in the battery boxes for battery acid to leak out. I could caulk to the holes, but with what? All the battery weight is on the corners of the stainless steel bars. I could bed the stainless into some epoxy, but fiberglass and metal expand at different rates.

Please enlighten me with some suggestions.
Thank you.