Vintage trunk mount battery box project

Whenever I get back to work on my 1965 Mercury Cyclone I plan on putting the battery in the trunk. I want to keep it vintage looking so I have been collecting early mid engine Ford Econoline van batttery boxes, a plastic or aluminum one just wouldn't look right. I just recently picked up another top. The bottom on this one was so rusted when I tried to remove it it broke in half. Oh well. A buddy was over tonight working on his OT car in my shop so I figured I would make up one good battery box. For those of you not familar with these boxes the top and bottom start as the same stamping but get different holes and brackets welded on. The bottom has big vent holes which work fine on the van with it's matching holes in the floor but not so great for the trunk of a car. Plus the bottoms always have acid damage and usually pinholes from rust. I decided to take my extra top and make it into a bottom. It was actually pretty easy. There is a bracket on one end that you need to remove and put on the other box. I cut the spot welds for the bracket out from the inside of the box so I wouldn't be drilling extra holes in the bracket. It worked well and I smoothed of the remannts of the spot welds and rounded the corners. I thought about welding on the bracket but I don't weld so that ended that. Rivets are an option but right now I plan on just bolting the bracket on using the same screws and nuts as the spring latch. The rubber seal for in beween the two halfs was in good shape so I cut out with a razor blade, if I can't find anything better I will reuse it. I really like the way it turned out, the latch is tight but not to tight. Here's a few pics.

 

That's a really cool idea. I'm gonna try and scrounge some of those up.

 

Thanks! I forgot to mention that the top I used for a bottom is slightly different than my other two, the spring latch mounts on the vertical side instead of the horizontal side like my other two. The latch is almost identical but the "spring" part is a little shorter. Also this particular top has the "hinge" mounted on the bottom piece where as the others have it mounted on the top cover. This worked out better since I didn't have to remove it. I don't know if this is a year thing. I have p***ed up just tops before when the bottom was all rusted out, now I will always pick them up. I think I paid about $8 for those battery boxes before from the U pull it, the top I paid $4 for. Old Dodge A100's had a similar box but it was horizontal where the pieces fitted together versus the slanted ones on the Econolines.

 

If running battery in trunk always good to run a drain/air vent tube thru floor. Also, a remote easy access heavy duty on/off switch so that if there is a problem you can cut power quickly.