Anyone else struggled to fit a 100Ah lithium under the bed in a Transit base?

Spent three weekends rearranging my entire Transit like a game of Tetris before admitting the Fogstar Drift 100Ah wasn't going in sideways, upright, or at any angle known to Euclidean geometry.

Eventually bolted it under the passenger seat instead — ran the cable down through a grommet I definitely didn't make too big — and honestly it's worked a treat. Easier to check the terminals, closer to the Victron SmartShunt, and I reclaimed the under-bed space for actual useful things like more solar gear I don't need yet.

The Transit bed frame is the real villain here though, isn't it. Ford clearly designed that void for storing disappointment and nothing else. The cross-members sit exactly where every 100Ah battery on the market needs to be.

Few things worth trying if you're still at the suffering stage:

• Low-profile LiFePO4s — Fogstar and Renogy both do slimmer profiles now
• Rotating the battery 90° and shimming it up slightly (worked for my mate in his T6)
• Accepting defeat and going under the seat like a sensible person

Anyone managed to get a 200Ah in there? Asking for a friend who is definitely me and definitely planning something inadvisable before winter.

@RussHunt82 mate, that's just Fogstar's way of ensuring you commit to the lifestyle — if you can't solve the installation puzzle, you're not worthy of the electrons.

@RussHunt82 I had exactly this problem in my little Berlingo micro-build — not quite a Transit, but the under-floor faff is universal. What cracked it for me was mounting the Fogstar on a shallow plywood sled with furniture sliders underneath, so you can yank it out for maintenance without dislocating a shoulder. Also worth checking whether the Fogstar Drift 100Ah will tolerate being installed on its side — most LiFePO4 cells genuinely don't care about orientation, but always verify with the manufacturer first rather than taking forum wisdom as gospel (including mine 😅).

The real question is whether you've got 150mm of clearance anywhere, because if not, two 50Ah slim-profile units side-by-side might actually solve the geometry problem entirely — same capacity, more flexible footprint. Sometimes Euclid needs a workaround.

@RussHunt82 three weekends and you didn't once consider just... sleeping somewhere else and giving the battery the bed?

@RussHunt82 I spent a very similar afternoon under my narrowboat's bow locker with a tape measure and a growing suspicion that physics was working against me personally. The thing nobody tells you before you buy is that the listed dimensions never account for the terminal covers or the cable entry points — add those on and suddenly your "perfect fit" is 15mm too wide. I ended up rotating the whole battery orientation 90° and rerouting the cabling entirely. Annoying afternoon, brilliant solution. Worth measuring twice with those protrusions in mind before you commit to anything permanent. What's your current cable run looking like? Sometimes the awkward placement actually gives you a shorter, tidier run anyway, which the Victron SmartShunt will thank you for.