1954 Chevy Pickup | New Battery Box | Modified Brake Pedal

May 27th, 2003 : New Battery Box | Modified Brake Pedal | Lowering Blocks

There's a guy I was referred to who has a shop just about ten blocks from my house, who has earned a reputation for building National championship dragsters. I took my truck to him and had him take care of two minor details. First, the installation of a new, and very cool, brake pedal I ordered from Gennie Shifter Products. The original brake pedal came up out of the floor some nine inches -- way too high for my taste, plus it felt like I was trying to kick over a box of bricks whenever I needed to brake -- so I had him knock off about three inches ... then he installed the new Gennie brake pedal. Not only does the new pedal look great, but it's way easier to stop the truck now!!!
The Gennie Brake & Gas Pedals

Second, involves my battery box. When I first got the truck, it took me five or ten minutes to find the battery!

I finally discovered it was in the cab of the truck, under the floor on the passenger side - a very cool place for it, too!
The Old Battery Setup

And, as you can see, the old battery that came with the truck looked like it had been through three wars ... so of course, after doing my rewire project, I wanted to put the best battery on the planet in my truck, which meant an Optima Red Top. Problem is, the battery box wasn't wide enough to accommodate the Optima ... it needed to be just one inch wider, and since it's riveted to the frame of the truck, I had him redesign the battery box for me -- he did a nice job, too.

The New Battery Setup

You'll notice the battery hold-down is a piece of angle iron that I covered with red electrical tape ... all that metal made me very nervous, so I've since replaced it with a length of 3/4" PVC pipe; much safer!

Finally, he installed 3-inch lowering blocks to get the rear-end lower -- it still has a pretty good rake to it -- and this helped me get more caster in my front-end alignment.

Those lowering blocks measure 1 3/4 inches wide, 2 inches high and 5 1/2 inches long ... the U-shaped bracket sitting atop the lowering block adds another 3/4 of an inch, and the U-bolts are 10 inches long.

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