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Just finished up cleaning up my rear most house battery bay behind the passenger side tag axle. 

Heavy rust was removed with wire wheel on my angle grinder. Sanded the entire compartment with electric DA sander to give everything a key for new paint. Vacuum to clean it up and wiped down everything really good with acetone. 
Put on a coat of Defender rust converter on all the rusty spots, you can buy Corroseal at the local big box store and it’s pretty much the same as the Defender. we had to buy Defender for a project at work and you had to order minimum of 4 gallons so we had lots left over. 
After the defender I coated everything with Rustoleum Professional paint in equipment grey. 

Battery tray was removed, cleaned with wire wheel. Same process as the bay, Defender on the rust and then painted with Rustoleum Engine paint silver. Left over from painting my Detroit 6v. 

Here are the photos:

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

[hypoxia]

Nice job, that was fugly.

[HoosierDaddy]

Wow. A messy job done well.!

[Richard]

So did I miss the LiPO conversion?

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Nice job, that was fugly.

Thanks, it needed some love. Still have another battery bay to clean up from all the lead acid batteries.

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Wow. A messy job done well.!

Thanks, yea it was fun cleaning out the bay and painting it, no way to not have your head in there while you are doing both. Had a mask on but I still had rust and overspray all in my hair and beard!

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So did I miss the LiPO conversion?

You’re seeing it, sorta. It may be a bit controversial but no conversion per se was done other than dropping in batteries. No issues whatsoever, actually have had Lipos since I got rid of those 8d lead acid batteries a while back. Myself and some of the other Wanderlodge guys have been running some experiments on these set up and it’s been working quite well. The lead acids and lithiums play well together even when being charged off the same charger. The lithium batteries have a good BMS and it handles taking care of the lithiums. The lead acids are just dumb and they take the charge they need and have been kept up well. The original heart inverter/charger will eventually get changed out to something more modern some day

[markkitch]

that looks great!

[rvguy]

Fixin to do the same thing in the same bay on coach 480.  Did you buy a new battery pull out tray assy ? If so can you tell me where you found it and part number.. TY

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Fixin to do the same thing in the same bay on coach 480.  Did you buy a new battery pull out tray assy ? If so can you tell me where you found it and part number.. TY

Tray assembly was removed, wire wheeled clean and then painted. I would imagine that Newell made these so you would have to have them fabricated if yours are in bad shape. Mine mainly had surface rust.

[Jack Houpe]

Looks great Jeff, lithium is the new norm.