Replacing the Battery Box in our 1955 F100

This is the first of many blog posts that I will write about rewiring our 1955 F100 company truck with the standard 3-cell ISIS system. In my mind, the logical starting point of rewiring the F100 is replacing the Battery Box, since all electronics in the car are tied to the battery. Also, the Battery Box certainly isn't in the best condition. As you can see, the floor plate has rusted through and the front plate is only hanging on by a single bolt. Lastly, the actual plastic box the battery sits in (not shown above) was partially eaten away by leaking battery acid which the previous owner had tried to fix by placing multiple rags in around the battery to soak up the acid.

Clearly, there is some work to be done here. In addition to replacing the entire Battery Box, I installed a couple other components that will become part of the ISIS system of the truck. First, I installed a fuse box with 6 megafuses. These fuses will protect the set power cables running to each of the 3 cells, 1 MasterCell and 2 PowerCells, in the truck and are included in the standard 3 cell kit.

I also installed inReserve, our active battery monitoring system. This will protect the battery from being drained if we accidentally leave the lights on in the truck, and prevent deep cycling which is potentially fatal to your battery.

Above, you can view the end result. The fuse box is located on the left, and the latching solenoid and fuse of inReserve of the right. Today I will be working on making a good ground connection, i.e. chassis, for the negative terminal of the battery. This will complete the Battery Box replacement, although inReserve will not work until I install the rest of the ISIS system.

I'll be making more posts as I continue to work on the F100. If you are interested, please check our website for the video series associated with the truck.

Thanks,

Max