Warren, you should look at small sized sealed electric wheelchair
batteries. I bought some to use as models and there is room for 6 of
them in the space under the floor on the sliding door side. They are so
thin that they would not reduce ground clearance on that side in the
slightest and the fit is not tight at all. At 22 Ah each that would be
132 Ah. Since 4 also fit in the driver's side battery compartment, the
total would be 10 batteries at 22Ah for 220AH total and NO LOSS OF
STORAGE and no cutting/welding of the body at the battery box. 10 of
them costs about what 2 Optimas cost.

Mark

Warren Chapman wrote:

> On Sun, 5 Aug 2007 21:12:01 -0700, Reinhard Vehring <rvehring@YAHOO.COM>
> wrote:
>
>
>>I am not sure though that I would be comfortable
>>emptying half of my starter battery.
>
>
> I like this discussion very much ...also being very protective of every
> square inch of storage spacy in my Westy.....I like the theory
>
> .....but will a battery at 12V even start the vehicle?? I've recently read
> that a normal cranking battery is 50% gone at 12.3V and dead at 12V....so
> does a deep cycle still have cranking power at only 12V.
>
> Another point,...if the batteries were of the type that could be safely
> discharged to 80%.... then could 30% more of the house battery capactiy be
> used after the cutout ....giving even more useful AHs.
>
> I also want to investigate cutting the floor out of the battery box and
> extending it downward to get a bigger/deeper (100AH) battery under the seat
> (s).  Not sure yet if it can be done.
>
> Warren C
>