Begin by disconnecting the battery and placing on a trickle charger. Make sure the windows and boot are open before, otherwise it’s a real pain with no electrical power to get them open.
Lay a towel over the boot latch so it can’t lock.
These are the 2 bolts (or rather the holes that the bolts pass through) under the passenger foot well that need to be undone to allow the battery box to come out. The bolts simply screw straight into the battery box which contains 2 captive nuts bonded into the fibreglass.
Remove the passenger side foot carpet and then remove the carpeted panel with the black rubber/plastic centre standing vertically at the end of the foot well to gain access to the battery. Feeling along the top of the panel in the middle you should find a hole in the carpet. Push your finger through, hook it on the back of the panel and will pull out.
Carpeted panel at end of passenger footwell coming out
This can be a bit fiddly and uncomfortable but undo the connections from both battery terminals (don’t touch both terminals at the same time, with hands or spanner !). The negative terminal is towards the centre of the car with the positive terminal on the door side.
Update: Thought I’d add the following little tip. To remove the battery connections I knelt on the ground outside the car whilst leaning in. No problem there you’d think. Just be careful that whilst you have the spanner on the battery positive, try not to lean your leg against the car. It will naturally fall against the door switch about 3/4 of the way back along the door sill. This is the switch that activates the interior light when you open the doors. As you close the switch it connects the circuit. Problem is though that you are grounding yourself to the floor with a metal spanner on the battery positive terminal. Que a few sparks and some brown underwear ! Leaning so far into the car, as the sparks came I jumped so hard I nearly knocked myself out on the underside of the dash …
Many advise to mark the floor where the battery box is to facilitate its replacement, but as can be seen in the last picture, my carpet has been heavily indented by the box and I’ve never found this necessary when removing the battery before. This is up to you. (also note that the ECU lives alongside the battery box on the left and all the fuses are above).
Battery box on the way out. The ECU can just be seen behind the battery box on the left
ECU and loom without battery
Now simply store the battery where you want (preferably indoors of course)
Chimaera Body Off 