Has anyone come up with a simple solution to hold a battery in place on an older Tonti frame Guzzi? The little clips that the wire and rubber straps hook onto disappeared in a pile of rust many many years ago.
Modern smaller AGM batteries tend to rattle around. I have put a block of wood in before, but wondered if anyone has come up with a better solution.
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Hello Don,
I still have the rubber battery straps and hooks and so use them. I have my PC545 in there with a take-away box to hold fuses and other stuff on top to make up the strap volume. The sides I have a couple of pieces of memory foam of about the right thickness.
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Similarly I’ve used a block of dense foam that presented itself. It might have been memory foam, but I’ve forgotten.
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It is possible to use standard rubbers and with the appropriate size rod make varying lengths of straps.
I went OTT and made a metal bracket that bolted to the battery carrier either side and I welded a hook to that for the custom strap. I also made sure of ground continuity to frame and gearbox and then welded an earth post to the bracket so I only have two earth connection to battery. One to the earth post and one to the starter ( I welded an earth post to this as well) As I say OTT.
Id send you s picture but Im not at home at moment.
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I’ve used a bit of cork and some rubber matting as spacers on one of my bikes, and bungee cords to hold it in place
actually now i think of the bungee cord was just looped under the battery to make it easier to lift out, the rubber mats are the main thing stopping the battery moving around in the box
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I have one of these I bought a long time ago, but decided not to use in the end.
I didn’t use it in the end because it’s very slightly loose on the battery so it’d need some sort of rubber padding anyway. These days, I’d just glue some inner tube on the surfaces of the bracket.
Would you like photos of my set-up and the bracket if I can dig it out ?
I would use thick rubber packing from lorry mud flaps, there’s a lot of this at the side of most roads!
Otherwise somewhere for your first aid kit or your sandwiches? 
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Long cable ties.
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That would be great, thanks.
First three photos are of my battery set-up. I have the original rubber tray in the bottom, original rubber straps and hooks. The FT185 ( PC545 clone ) is less tall than the original battery so I put the takeaway box on top with spare plugs, fuses etc. This makes it slightly taller so I use the section of inner-tube as an extender band. You could use a different sized lunch box, foam, whatever. Top of second photo, the width is taken up by a piece of 3/4" thick neoprene ( black so doesn’t show up so well ), bottom of pic is 1" thick memory foam in pale green. Whole thing is held pretty solidly. You can see I route the engine and gearbox breatherr through here, so that uses some of the extra space freed up by the slimmer battery and the green foam spacer. Third pic shows tool tray still fits, just.
Last two pics are the Harper’s bracket. I’ve photo’d it upside down to show more detail. It’s supposed to bolt over the top of the battery to clamp it down and in place. It’s sized for the PC545/FT185 and is 180mm long, internal vs claimed 178mm for actual battery. The width is tricky. I can’t remember exactly how it’s supposed to go into the frame. I think the Allen bolt goes through the side panel mounting bracket from outside and then into the captive nut thingie which slides to give height adjustment. But that means the bolt/nut intrudes into the battery space, which isn’t great because it would then need foam or something to hold it sideways. Width from inside bracket to tip of captive nut is 88mm vs 86mm claimed for PC545. Perhaps it’s just supposed to hold it lengthways and clamp down on height to hold it in place sideways. Clearly these are in demand because I must have bought mine 10 years ago and they’ve had to have another batch made from the blurb on their website.
In your post you described the hooks etc having rusted away. If you mean the attachment points on the metal battery carrier that bolts into the frame, then a battery clamp like Harper’s is likely to be your best option because finding good ways to attach rubber straps to the chassis is likely to be tricky. If you mean the fittings on the rubber straps, while replaceable, I found just making new ones from coathanger wire wasn’t structural enough. It does seem they need to be pretty stout.
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Seems to be a bracket on the T3 with a hole suitable for a padded bolt that secures the smaller battery from sideways movement.
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Godfrey, I have these holes in lugs on my Tonti frame, (1974 850T) they are where the side panels bolt on. On the inside I have rubbers that keep the battery in place each side. When I get a smaller battery I will probably do something similar to you.
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I’d previously ordered some furniture leg rubbers that coincidentally fitted the head of that suitably sized bolt head. Also fitted the other unused metal protuberance of the rear brake pedal.