How to replace the battery on a 1994 348 Spider LHD

I had to replace my battery and did a lot of searching here and on the interweb first, but didn't find end to end instructions - so I figured I'd share what I did, to help out the next person. Note I'm mechanically inclined but not a mechanic. Also, I'm sorry I didn't take pictures, but I was too busy sweating, swearing, and hurting my back (I am mid 50's and out of shape).

First, you'll need a Type 34R battery. There aren't too many choices. I picked the Interstate MTZ-34R. This is not an endorsement, but I have terrible luck with batteries dying and not being able to be re-charged, and this one had a 4 year warranty.

The battery is located behind a panel in the front driver's side wheel well. You'll have to jack up the car, pull the front driver's wheel, and remove the panel to gain access to the battery.

Next, loosen the lug bolts a bit on the wheel. You'll need a suitable wrench with a deep 22mm socket.

I didn't have a floor jack, so I bought a low profile one (3-1/4 inch minimum), which unfortunately still did not quite fit under my car. I don't know if my car was lowered by a previous owner. The 348 owner's manual does not show jack points. If you search, you can find a number of options on what others have done. The consensus was to use a somewhat triangular area directly behind the front wheel well. On my car, there was a squishy rubber part near the front of this area, so I decided not to use that. I found what I could best describe as an upside down piece of U channel (less that 1/2" tall) behind the frame rail, about 8 inches back from the wheel well. So I used that.

But first, I had to jack up the car enough to get my floor jack under there. I used a compact scissor jack from one of my other cars (Hummer H2), on the edge of the frame rail, to lift the car about an inch. I wasn't comfy on fully raising the car on the frame rail.

Next, I'm going to describe what I actually did - but warn that I DO NOT ENDORSE this for safety reasons. I have a set of low profile jack stands, but I would have had to jack the car several inches higher than it already was, and there still wasn't what I felt was a suitable place to put the stand, considering the width of the floor jack. I had the car high enough that the rear wheel was off the ground. So I used my scissor jack to contact the frame rail with enough force that it wouldn't slip if the floor jack failed (and remember it was meant to lift a nearly 7000 lb truck). I removed the lever from the floor jack so it couldn't twist and release the jack. As I said, please find a safer way of supporting the car.

Pull the wheel. It's heavy. I removed the 4 lowest bolts so the top one would still keep the wheel in place until I was ready to have it awkwardly fall in my lap.

Stick a worklight into the wheel well for the rest of this. Remove the battery access panel at the front of the wheel well with a medium/largish Phillips head screwdriver so that you don't cam-out the screws. 4 screws.

Voila - there's the old battery. You will now need a pile of bricks or something else ad-hoc to make a temporary platform between the brake rotor and the battery tray, and approx. as high as the bottom of the battery tray. The battery cables are long enough to pull the battery off the tray, but not long enough to put the battery on the ground. There is a clamp holding the bottom edge of the battery to the tray. 10mm socket.

Slide the battery out onto your makeshift platform. Ferrari did us a great favor here, by putting the nut on the battery terminal clamp on the inside instead of the outside. The battery I was replacing was also an Interstate - and these have the terminals recessed into the top by about 1/2", and a piece of plastic jutting up between the two terminals. If you search for a picture, you'll see what I mean. What this practically meant is that I needed a short, thin wrench to have enough clearance to loosen the terminal nut without hitting the center plastic projection (think old school "ignition wrenches"). If you use an Optimal battery, you won't have this issue. Anyway, you'll need a 10mm wrench for the battery terminal nuts, plus a flat head screwdriver to help break the clamps loose via gentle prying whilst you try to turn the terminal clamps on the terminals to break them free.

Work on the negative (black) terminal first. Why? Most cars have a negative ground. So if your wrench is on the negative terminal and the other end hits the bodywork - it won't short out and throw sparks. Once the negative side has been disconnected, the circuit is broken, and you won't have to worry about the positive (red) side.

Remove the old battery. You may wish to use a wire battery terminal brush on the terminal clamps. Put the new battery on your pedestal. Connect the positive (red) side first, then the black. Put the battery back on the tray, and note that there are two tabs sticking up from the metal stamping on the tray bottom (to constrain the battery, side to side). These tabs are slightly more than 11" apart, and they just fit the MTZ-34R battery I bought. Re-attach the hold down clamp.

Next, re-attach the access panel. This is not quite as easy as it sounds, because there's a movable piece of plastic bodywork that goes under the access panel, so you'll have to use one hand to line that up with the holes whilst you try to line up the access panel on top of it. I suggest a magnetic head Phillips screwdriver that can hold the screw and free up one of your hands for holding all the bodywork in place. Do the two external screws first, and just put them in a few turns without fully tightening them. Then do the more internal two screws, because you'll have to pull the panel out a bit to line up the holes with the inserts the screws go into. Once all the screws are in a few turns, tighten everything down.

Remove your temporary battery platform. Have a lot of fun lifting and seating the wheel. Stick a bolt in on top, then one on the bottom, then work your way around. Tighten all of them in the typical 5 bolt pattern to the point where things are snug. Remove the jacks/stands, tighten the wheel lugs the rest of the way. Clean your hands, and start the car. Hopefully, you'll hear a vrooom!