Battery Replacement & Hold-down

[GregM]

On my project MJ the battery seemed to be a bit marginal, plus it was missing the hold-down.  I ordered the currently available hold-down and when it came in I headed down to Sears to get the usual DieHard.  They confirmed that the battery was more or less toast.  I bought the DieHard Gold AGM so I wouldn't have to worry about it for a while.  I hung around watching the install because I've learned they don't always do it right.  Once they dropped the DieHard Gold in it was clear that it wasn't going to work, although that didn't seem to stop them.  It has kind of a 'doghouse' on top that gets in the way of the hold-down bar that goes across the battery.  Plus it looked kind of tall.  They were starting to talk about adapting some clamp assembly they keep in stock so o I said "STOP", lets see what the other versions of the batteries they stock look like.  They brought out their cheap battery, called the "Plus Start", which is half the price of the Gold AGM and it fit much better.  It turned out to be a little short, so I have to use about 3/8" of spacers on the hold-down rods.  It seemed to be rated highly but only has a one year warranty.

 

What I didn't check, and it was probably a mistake, is whether the regular DieHard Gold battery (the one that is not AGM) has the 'doghouse' on top.  I wonder if it would have fit better.  Looking on the Sears website the regular DieHard looks flat on top.

 

If anyone knows if the regular DieHard works without modifying anything, please post the P/N for anyone who needs a new battery and likes DieHards.  I'm into keeping my MJ as stock as possible so I'm not into carving things up in the engine compartment.

 

For those who are interested, the currently available battery hold-down seems to work fine.

[HOrnbrod]

Battery sizes are classified by groups. The MJ factory battery size is a group 58 series, and all group 58 batteries regardless of the manufacturer are supposed to be the same L x W x H. The slightly taller group 34 series batteries will also fit our trucks, and they have a higher CCA rating than the group 58's simply because of their larger size and plate area.
 

The factory hold-down works with either of these group series. Doing a quick search, it looks like they don't make a Diehard group 58 series battery.