Where to put an Auxiliary Battery?

I have a pretty good handle on how to wire up an auxiliary battery, however, I'm a little stuck on where to put it to keep it out of the way. I thought about putting it on the passenger side where the air intake is, but there isn't really enough room with the intake in the way and putting a cold air intake looks like it takes up more room. There looks like there is lots of room under the bed somewhere but I' haven't the slightest idea where to start there.

Has anyone out there got a nice clean auxiliary set up that they can share. I've seen the columbia overland setup but it looks they they are using 2 smaller batteries, I'm not sure how that would work.

Ideas anyone?

 

I thought about fabricating a bracket and having it welded to the frame underneath one of the body panels of the rear of the truck. The reason for doing this was I didn't want to put it over the front axles nor consume space in the bed of the truck.

I'll revisit my idea in the next 6 months and see if I can make it work.

 

I am working on a dual battery setup myself, Check : I am following this install and the pictures confirm that 2 Optima batteries will fit side by side where the OEM battery was installed. I used 6-32 machine screws to build my tray instead of the pop rivits shown.

Eric

 

Went the Columbia Overland route. When you order call them to tell them you want the 2nd Gen. model as there is a bit of a difference. When I get time I'll get it installed but I am waiting for a few other electrical bits to turn up before I tear that corner of the truck up for the last time getting everything situated.

 

Thanks for the replies,

I've got a question regarding the physical size of the starter battery. The stock battery is quite large, what kind of implications are there if I replace this with a smaller battery like the Optima or whatever. Is it as good? better? I am going to isolate the two batteries and I believe the separator isolates them at start up as well.

 

I was thinking about this myself. What about using that area in the engine bay on the passenger side. My trucks got 3 bolts sticking up from above the wheel well and 2 areas to place screws against the side firewall. Looks like a perfect spot for an extra battery if you dont mind routing the wires.

 

Thats the area over by the air intake right? I tried stuffing a battery in there and it doesn't fit very well. I guess you could move some stuff around and maybe make it work. I'm going to play with this today and see what I can come up with.

 

I just read though this post. Awesome! I think I am going to do something like this. But I am still unsure about the size of the battery. Does the Physical size make any difference?