Goodsy replied:

A lot of stuffing around to put a second battery up front. Easier to put in ute. The engine bay not best place for battery anyway, to hot and not enough room. Place close to cab (less vibration) and run at least a 10mm (I ran a 25mm) cable otherwise you'll have a lot of volt drop.

RAY replied:

I have seen several hilux utes with two batteries. They have fitted two 400 amp batteries side by side on the battery tray but turned round sideways.Looks good and works well, one for starting one for the fridge

DUNCAN replied:

My old lux came from the auctions with dual batteries and the air cleaning rotated to the back of the engine bay. I thought it was great the air cleaner sits higher than standard further back in the bay still managed to fit a safari snorkel to. The best thing was it looked factory.

DUNCAN replied:

Steve
I don't have any pics but I can draw one up and send it via email to you. Yes I do think it was modified.

Gazza replied:

Steve,

How you shoehorn the battery into the vehicle is not an issue I can comment on but i can say that I have used both engine bay mounting and remote mounting arrangements with success.

herever you mount it be sure to use some "convoluted" tubeing to double insulate the positive cable because a short cct is not a good look!!

I have some strong views on the configuration however which differ significantly from the mainstream.

It comes down to two differing philosopies on how to do it.

Most folks have a deep cycle battery for the fridge and seperate the feed to the fridge then use some pretty fancy controlling logic to keep it all charged.

My issue with that is

1) You stop for 2 days and your fridge drains your deep cycle battery.

2) During that time you listen to the radio or CD, run your water pump for water and the kids leave the interior light on.

What do you have??

Not one but two flat batteries!!!!, how does that help you???

Even if the deep cycle is still good and you do carry jumper leads, a deep cycle battery is not useful for delivering starting loads and may be damaged by a heavy start.

If you follow my method you will always have a fresh battery for starting, because I run everything off the cars main battery thru the original wiring and I have the spare cranking battery connected via a solenoid that is only activated when the ignition is on or starting so you pull in the soleniod to start and it stays on to top up the spare battery whilst running, when you turn the engine off the spare battery is isolated thus protecting it for a start.

Simple but very effective, only problem is when the main battery doesnt have enough juice to pull in the solenoid, in this case I have a switch to use current from the spare battery to pull in the solenoid and start the car.

This is such a cheap and effective method that it doen't get much support from the aftermarket 4WD suppliers who prefer to sell $500 switching units.

In either case both batteries should be checked annually or before depating on a remote trip.

Gazza.

Truckster replied:

I just bought the full house Piranha system for my GQ, and have plenty of good reports on it. Cant wait to get over knee reconstruction to fit it!

You dont mention what you want the Battery system for... Winching, Fridge/lights etc..
Parallel system is better for winching, but not for lights and fridge.


For the Surf though, try
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Toyota_Surf_Australia/ 200+ Surf owners.

werner replied:

Hi Steve, I have a 1994 4 Runner. I was in the same predicament as you. In the end I opted for a modified air filter from the one of the after market places as my mechanic was a bit pushed for time to do the job himself. (The second battery sits behind the passenger side headlight) The workmanship was quite shoddy with extremely sharp bends in the air tubing effectively reducing the airflow to less than the original setup.The vehicle should never have left the workshop. I opted to pay my mechanic to fix the problem rather than send it back to get fixed up under warranty. Now it looks like it was factory issued. So beware of some of these aftermarket places, their quality may be questionable. It turned out to be a very expensive exercise, much more than it needed to have been if the job was done properly in the first place. Enough of the gripe. With regards to the batteries, I run my fridge off the second battery, with the fluoro, compressor and video camera battery charger being run off the main battery. I use 2 N70ZZ (or current equivalent) batteries. The spare battery is charged up using a similar setup using the solenoid so that it is being charged when the engine is running. My mechanic has been using this system for quite a number of years without any problems. Much cheaper than these fancy kits as well. Hope this info is of use to you. Werner

Steve replied:

To everyone who has replied to my question I would like to say thank you.

All your info and feedback has been of great benefit to me in my quest.

Many thanks
Steve