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Shuttle Step + Frame Battery
Thought I'd post a couple pics here of how I mounted the batteries on my van despite having the shuttle step. I've seen a handful of people with shuttle vans on here so I'm hoping it's helpful. The backstory is that the PO had relocated the starting batteries (2 - it's a diesel) to the very furthest back corner of the van cabin. Being that I was planning on mounting bikes there, was getting some significant voltage drop on start up, and didn't want a dog to accidentally step on the terminals or knock something over onto them, I wanted to move them to the factory frame mount positions. The shuttle step makes this pretty difficult however. I had to trim out part of the step sheet metal in order to make room for the box, and fab a simple bracket to allow the battery to hang about 3" lower than the factory height.
I did hit a snag in that I was planning on routing the battery wires out and above the frame rails between the 2 batteries, as well as the starter/alternator. As it turns out that's a pretty tight area and only allows me to catch the upper two battery box bolts, resulting in an even lower mounting level for the battery box. I will be revising the terminals to be side mounts so I can run the cables at 90* and tuck things up tighter.
Overall I was able to eliminate about 9' of cable from the starting wires so the van starts much better now and doesn't have any weird quirks like locking doors during cranking. Despite only catching (2) of the bolts on the box it also stayed stable during a week long road trip involving some rough roads. The refined solution as mentioned above will only be an improvement.
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