Driving off road can of course be dangerous and a dead battery is really bad since there may be no one to jump start you. Also, I wanted to install camping lights as well as an Engle fridge and be able to run the lights at night as well as leave the fridge on during an trip without fear of running down the main starter battery. So I installed an Optima Yellow top as a secondary battery, a battery manager and a switch which allows me to jump start myself from the aux battery if needed. Above you can see where the second battery is located.
Once the cover is closed, no one would ever know it was there. I even installed a rechargeable Mag light which uses power from the Aux battery so I never need to worry about it running down the main. It's always charged and ready to go.
Here you can see the completed install. The rear fuse panel lends itself perfect to this install as it already has a 4 guage cable running to the main battery. This is where we get our charge for the rear, or feed power forward to jump the main battery if needed.
With the rear storage bin removed and all the surrounding trim, you can see a nice spot to place the second battery. There are a couple threaded studs that stick up so I put a battery tray in place which raised the battery above these studs and to clear the wire harness at the rear.
With the battery placed, I needed to figure a way to secure it down.
Fashioning an aluminium strap, I was able to make a nice tie down bar to hold it.
The front his held by a bolt with a flat topped nut (used in furniture making) so that it is flat enough to clear the trim piece when it is put back in.
The rear I threaded and just screwed in a bolt.
The battery separator monitors both batteries and always gives the main starging battery the priority. If the voltage from the front is over 13.8, it figures the front is charged and the engine is running, it connects the rear battery to get a charge. The minute you turn the engine off, the voltage usually drops and the rear battery is disconnected so it won't pull current from the front and drain the main battery. Two batteries tied together with no manager between them will continue to draw current back and forth losing power in the process until they are both dead. You must have some sort of relay or device such as this. I like this one because it also has a connector for a switch to force them to connect so you can allow current to flow to the front in case that battery is low. It actually has the feature to connect it to the ignition and upon starting the car if the front battery is too low, it wil automatically connect the rear one. I chose to leave it manual.
Here is the battery separator hiding next to the battery. Again there is a threaded stud there, I just used that to secure it.
Next up was making use of all this aux power. I found a fuse box online which seemed to match very well, was high quality and had a nice cover as well.
I mounted it just to the right of the existing fuse box and labeled it.
Again a shot of the whole install. For each circuit I want to run on the Aux power, I ran a wire from the Aux fuse block, removed that fuse from the Rear fuse panel and using a .25 spade just plugged in the wire to feed the ciruit which would have otherwise been fed by the main battery. At any time I can just pull that wire, replace the fuse and I am back to stock. I chose to run all three "cigar" lighter circuits as well as the Trailer Socket (which runs the auxilary lights.) I also run the flashlight, have 30amp connector for my compressor that run off the aux battery.
For completness, I made a label letting anyone who works on the car know there is a second battery. A similar label is up front by the main. Just in case a mechanic disconnects the battery and wonders why there is still power here and there.
I've considered running the radio, GPS or other systems off the aux battery but chose not to since they have fuses both front and rear, besides the idea is that I can run the fridge or camp lights as long as I want until the battery runs down (has never happened) without worrying about the low voltage hurting the other components in the truck.
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