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2nd Battery

When marshalling for car rallies, such as the Network Q Rally, I tend to have lots of items to power from the cars battery, ie. Radios. Scanners, CB radio, Phone charges, torches etc, so I decided to fit a second battery in the boot, in this case it is a 44Ah 12V battery, below are a series of photographs of the installation. To make the box I used 12mm MDF (Medium Density Fibre Board), a hint for anyone using MDF, if you are planning to use screws to hold it all together its a good idea to pill drill the holes first.

The spare battery is fed via a relay which is activated by a (+) feed from the ignition circuit, when a (+) signal is present from the battery the relay gets fed from the main vehicle battery, and then charges the 2nd battery. The relay has a (+) cable going to the (+) on the spare battery, and (-) going from the spare battery to the body of the car, and a (-) from the body to the relay. The wire I have used is 27amp from the main battery to the relay, 30amp from the ignition to the relay (I ran out of lower amp cable at this point), and 30amp from the relay to the spare batterys terminals (+ and -).

	The boot looked the best place to install the 2nd battery, I'd not found a use for the area other that using it to hide some jump leads.
	The trim removed.
	Trying to find the best way the have the battery sitting.
	The final choice. The negative terminal is closest to the wing.
	The MDF base of the battery box, I used the existing trim screw holes to screw the base down.
	This is the first MDF side.
	This is the MDF top.
	All the MDF sides together.
	The MDF battery box sprayed up.

2nd Battery - Circuit diagram

Moving the Alternator (HooDoo Style) Lada Niva 1700i

The standard location for the Lada Niva alternator is not the most easy of places to work as its a bit cramped.
With the alternator in this location it does tend to get covered in water/mud if the Lada is used off road, and this over time may lead to the bearings inside getting worn out.
The answer is to move the alternator to a more accessible location and less prone to getting water/mud inside it. The following pictures help to explain the process of re-locating the alternator.
During the installation of the alternator to its new location you must be prepared for a certain amount of fine tuning to get the exact fit.
When you remove the old fan belt you will need to unplug the crank pulley sensor and also unscrew it, so you can remove the fan belt.

Using the instructions either emailed to you from HooDoo, or downloaded from this site (Downloads > Lada Niva Alternator Modification - By HooDoo (John Pugh, UK)) you too can move the alternator!!
When you carry out this alteration could please email just to tell me what country you are from please....Good Luck...PS, a set of pictures taken in the original size are available on request but they are about 11MB in size.

	The is the bracket made from the instructions. This location used to have the coilpack mounted here, its been removed while the alternator is re-located. The fore/aft bar has also been removed.
	The is the alternator removed from the original location, and mounted onto the bracket. It is possible to use the existing wiring if you wish to extract the wires from the wiring loom and pull them back through as far as the bonnet catch. It will take a little while but it is worth doing.
	Looking down onto the alternator. The twisted bracket works best located on the other side of the top adjusting bolt hole. The reason for locating it away from the side nearest to the pulley is that bracket catches on the cooling fins on some replacement alternators.
	Looking at the rear side of the alternator. Please remember to re-attach the two brown earth wires from the coil pack !!
	This a better view of the twisted bracket going the other side of the alternator. The bracket will require a slight bend in order for it to sit correctly on this side.
	A change of view
	A close up top down view of the associated bracketry
	A zoomed in shot!
	A view from the other side showing the fore/aft bar back in place but turned upside down, as the original way will not fit anymore.
	The coil pack in its new location. The coil pack is attached to one of the bolts for the Rocker cover and a nut and bolt on the twisted adjuster bar, a new hole will need to be drilled. You will need to extract from the wiring loom the wires needed that plug into the charcoal canister (Green and Purple) i think the wires are as seen in picture 4.
	This the top down view onto the coil pack. The bolt that has the gold colour washer uses the existing hole on the coil pack plate but needs a hole drilling through the twisted adjuster bar.
	This the view onto the coil pack from the drivers side (RHD). Showing the bolt that has the gold colour washer in better detail.
	A different view onto the coil pack from the passenger side (RHD).
	This is the coil pack and the wiring for the alternator charging circuit (Pink wires) and the wire for the 'Not charging warning light' These are the wires that will reach if you remove them from the wiring loom very Carefully !.
	The wiring tidied up and cable tied (zip tied) to the fore/aft bar.