GenII Battery Tray Cleaning Guide & Photos

[ViperTony]

I was working on my brake line on the driver’s side rear when I noticed a thick, white ugly substance caked all over my frame. The trail seemed to come from the battery compartment cover. Add the smell of battery acid and I figured it out…what I left unchecked came back to bite me. Further analysis revealed I had a lot of corrosion from the battery area and it began eating away at the paint and welds on my frame.

I’ll be using the Battery Mat from Eastwood as well as their Spray Paint/Mat kit combo. I decided that I will paint the tray area this time and Eastwood has a great kit a reasonable price.

Tools Required

- Baking Soda
- Distilled or Tap Water
- Goggles
- Rubber Gloves
- Scrub Brush
- Cardboard, drip pans, trays or whatever you got to catch the water from the cleaning process.
- Jack or Jack Stands
- 8, 10, 11mm sockets or wrenches
- Needle nose pliers
- 5/16” socket or wrench
- Eastwood Battery Mat (Optional)
- Eastwood Flexi-Black Rubberized Paint (Optional)
- Degreaser (Optional)

SAFETY

To get at the battery compartment on a GenII RT/10, you’ll need to remove the rear wheel on the driver’s side. This means either jacking up the Viper or utilizing jack stands (or a lift for you lucky ones). Please, please, please be careful when jacking up and working under your Viper like this. A

You’ll be working with acid…no matter how carefully you scrub the tray area you will get some liquid splashed on you. Save your eyes and skin by wearing goggles and rubber gloves. Trust me, its not fun getting this stuff in eye.

Procedure
I decided to clean the corrosion as well as paint the battery tray. This procedure will walk you through both tasks but painting the battery tray is an optional step and is up to you.

Step 1: Raise your Viper. The simplest way to do this is using the jack point located in front of your driver’s side rear tire. If you need more room to work with under the battery tray (like me), you could put car on jack stands, use ramps, a lift, etc, whatever your preferred method may be. I already had my Viper on jack stands for this procedure.

Step 2. Remove the driver’s side rear wheel. The battery compartment is located directly behind it in the wheel well. You’ll need a good breaker bar and ¾” socket to remove the lug nuts.

Step 3. Remove the battery compartment cover:



You’ll need to remove all of the fasteners located near the red arrows in the picture. You’ll need your 8,10,11mm wrenches for this. Remember, Right-Tighty / Lefty-Lucy. Additionally, there’s a push-pin type fastener located on the upper left-hand side of the batter cover. Use your pliers to pull out the plastic push pin in place. With all fasteners removed, work the cover out of the wheel well. You’ll now have access to the battery compartment and you can inspect the area for corrosion.



Step 4. Disconnect the battery and remove the battery hold down bracket. Use your 5/16” socket/wrench to disconnect the negative and positive cables. Start by disconnecting the negative lead first, followed by the positive lead. You should be able to move these cables up and out of the way. Use your ½” socket/wrench to loosen and remove the battery hold down bracket. Get a good firm grip on the battery and slide it out of the tray. Place it out of the way for now.

After I removed my battery, I noticed that the heat shield above the exhaust area had been hit with corrosion as well. Notice the white bird-dropping like substance here:



Step 5. Start cleaning. I used a mixture of baking soda and water to neutralize the corrosion. I mixed to a paste-like consistency. I decided to use a simple scrub brush from Griot’s since the areas to be cleaned were not that bad to work with. Steve used a wire brush on an electric drill to clean his tray. Bristle brush works well too. Important: Wear your goggles, rubber gloves and respirator/face mask. Now’s a good time to lay down some cardboard to catch the ‘backwash’ about to fall from the cleaning process. I used some of wife’s aluminum baking pans



Start scrubbing:


Step 6. Rinse. After you have finished scrubbing the areas its time to rinse. I used my trusty turkey baster and water to rinse the areas I just cleaned with the baking soda:


Step 7. Repeat steps 5/6 as necessary.


Step 9. Dry! I used rags to wipe down and dry everything I just cleaned and rinsed.

Step 10. If you are not painting your tray, skip to Step 12. I then sprayed Griot’s Engine Cleaner Degreaser (good stuff) on/under the tray in preparation for painting. The degreaser helps remove and remaining grease, grime that may be left over from the cleaning process. Lacquer-thinner, ethyl alcohol and Langka’s Paint Prep solution will also work well.



Step 11. Paint. Since I’ll be spraying the tray area with paint I fabricated a paint booth to catch the over-spray using Girl Scout Cookie boxes. Steve uses pizza boxes. Recycling at its finest here.


I’m using Eastwood Flexi-Black Rubberized Paint which is resistant to acid and most chemicals.


I think I applied somewhere between 7-10 coats of paint. This paint requires that each coat fully dry before applying the next coat. I decided to borrow my wife’s hair dryer to speed up the process. 10 coats or so later and we have:



Step 12. Install your Battery Mat. You may need to cut your battery mat with a pair of scissors so that it will fit in the tray. Slide the battery mat into place.


Step 13. Install your battery. Slide your battery into the tray. Make certain its resting against the battery temperature sensor. The battery temperature sensor is that round, black disc as seen in the pic in step 12. Reattach the battery hold down bracket and nut using your ½” socket/wrench. Then connect your positive/negative cables using your 5/16” socket/wrench.



Step 14. Install the battery compartment cover. Insert the compartment cover you removed earlier and fasten reversing the process in Step 5. Do not over-tighten the 3 fender-lip fasteners as you are screwing metal screws into plastic. Very easy to strip and they will fall out eventually.



Step 15. Almost done. Since we removed the battery we also reset the PCM after about 20 mins. As such, the PCM needs to relearn the “Wide Open Throttle’ voltage. This is a very simple step as described by Dave6666:

1. Turn key to on (don’t start the engine)

2. Mash gas fully and release 5 times.

3. Turn key to off and wait about 20 to 30 seconds.

4. Start car.

5. Enjoy...

Now we’re done. In all, it took me about 2 hours to perform this procedure. About an hour for the cleaning and an hour for the painting. Take your time with it. I found it to be very therapeutic.

What else can you do while you’re under there? Clean, clean, clean. You’ll probably notice (as in my pic above) that you’re battery compartment cover is probably a LOT more cleaner than the rest of your wheel well. For you Felix Unger types you’ll probably end up detailing your entire Viper.

Enjoy.
- Tony

[City]

Damn nice how to post! But I think I have to warn you regarding your use of the word "Yuck"! LOL

[dmerkle]

Good to know about the PCM re-learn... when it comes to "mash" though, is that a reference to potatos? Or should I really put her through the floor for this educational experience

[Detroit Muscle]

Excellent post, I will now be paying closer attention to that area.