Something absolutely required to pull off the ‘clean triangle’ look is a battery hidden out of site. This is easier said than done. I decided the best location was just behind the engine and underneath the swingarm. Here it is out of the way of any movement/interference from the swingarm (being forward of the pivot), it is out of site, and it is in a nice location to hook up the starter motor, ground and wire harness leads.
There was a spare hole in the engine casings that was not being used. I actually don’t know what is was/is for originally. Anyway it looks very beefy and strong enough to hold the weight of a battery and a metal box. I wanted the box to be strong but not overly heavy. I therefore decided to make it from two different metal gauges – a thicker stronger one for the load bearing faces/flanges, and a thinner, lighter one to encase the battery. I marked and trimmed the pieces of metal then bent them up in the vice. Then it was just a matter of tacking it together to see how it looked, then seem welding it around the edges. Once complete I trimmed the attachment flange slightly to look better when attached to the engine casings.
Now the battery is in place and pretty well hidden. Now it is on to the wire harness and relocating the other electrical components out of sight.
