The battery on my '83 (first 7) is not anchored to anything. It's just sitting in the engine compartment, roaming around. How is it supposed to be fixed in place?

 

my '83 has a tray that it sits on and a metal clip that goes around the top of the battery attached to the rad. and to the bottom of the battery tray holding it tight in place.

 

Mine was the same way when I bought it ('84 12a).
I actually had a problem with it, when the battery "fell" and one of the wires had gotten caught in the fan and scared the **** out of my with a loud grinding noise.

After replacing the wire, I kept the battery in place with four bungie cables until I got a bracket for it from a local guy. Maybe for the time being you can use little bungie cables like i did. But I don't recommend it!

 

Here are the battery holddown components. You may also need a new battery platform (53260) too since the loop attached to it routinely breaks off with age, leaving the bolt clamp (70985A) nothing to hook to.


Good luck

 

When I bought my car it had one of those right-angled brackets in it (that connect onto the radiator), but the battery was small and damaged, so I replaced it. The new, bigger battery no longer fitted the bracket and I couldn't find a replacement bracket anywhere.

I tried Mazda parts companies, wreckers' yards, private sales - no luck. So I bought a no-name adjustable battery bracket from a local car parts shop. By that I mean the ones that have a bar across the top of the battery and a hook on either side that hooks on under the base of the battery. I had to hacksaw one of the hooks a little to make it fit, but overall it was cheap and easy.

Bye,
ScruffyChimp

 

mine actually struck the distributor and the rotor broke apart. The trailing parts tore off. I thought it was a bad coil till I took off the cap and a lot of **** fell out.

 

On mine after my little wreck (rear ended) the clamps had seen better days, and the fact that the battery was leaking acid everytwhere wasnt a lot better. so I went down to battery headquarters and they set me up with a new battery and hardware kit, its a universal kit but was $5

Hope this helps ya ...

 

Victoria British sell new pieces.
hanman

 

Thanks guys. I'll try to avoid the whole battery into fan scenario. I may try a universal thing first. I think the piece underneath where the tray goes is shot--that's probably why the bracket was chucked in the first place.