Battery and windscreen washer reservoir relocation to trunk

Published: Monday, 20 February 2017

Golf mk2 is not exceptional in component location like almost any other hatch. No doubt everyone's aware where battery and washer bottle is located in any Golf. In case of mk2 it's in engine bay and to my mind it's not a best place for it to be.

First of all that place in mk2 is always dirty, it collects all the mud coming through the front grille. Add some of battery fluid leaks and taddaam that place will be ruined like in this example:

Secondly why not to move about 20kgs to rear and get a little better weight distribution?

Thankfully I was lucky to get body in a way better condition. It had just a few tiny superficial rust spots.

Ofcourse I cleaned everything in engine compartment, drilled down washer bottle and battery hangers and later repainted all around. As we have plan to bring these components to trunk let's find for a battery new location:

We also need to route a new thick cable to starter motor and alternator. I did also route a separate cable to feed fusebox. For starter motor I used cable which is dedicated to use for welding machines. As an alternative it's possible to use cable taken as a spare from any other make. In picture you can fuses used, but actually I strongly suggest not to use these at all.

Battery placed in new location for a test purpose to measure cable length correctly. To keep battery steady I drilled holes and fitted studs as you can see in picture. Since there're holes drilled in floor don't forget to seal it properly underneath.

To keep washer bottle in trunk there's an old bracket used from engine compartment:

To make installation to look more neat I'd suggest you to source this Golf mk2 early type reservoir. It would be nicely covered with trunk carpet while the only concern is capacity of it:

All of the fluid lines and cables are routed back to engine compartment:

I've mentioned already that I did repainted engine bay entirely and without battery and washer bottle it looks more tidy!

I also had battery coat taken from Audi A3 which I used as well:

Here battery is locked in place by using random aluminum profile with holes drilled in it. In order to achieve something better looking you might want to pick something from eBay like this:

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