Learned something new today:Battery trays

[Irish1941]

So I grabbed a driver side battery tray few months back for my dual battery deal. Then remembered I already had one on the shelf. I put them side by side and was kinda wtf? Same but different.
Nice one is from an '87 K30 and other is from '89 Sub 4wd. Both small block, full load trucks.

Mounts are different. Still bolt up in same spots but K30 has extra "leg" on the support while the Sub tray has dual holes for mounting.

Tray itself is actually bigger from the Sub.

What I figured out after a bunch of back and forth on is the smog canister goes under the Sub tray and on the rad support for the K30. Pretty sure optional equipment meant bigger battery as well. Funny part, GM made no mention in my parts catalog of them being different.
Maybe you guys knew but I didn't know there was a difference!

 

[tRustyK5]

Is it possible one is a repro?

 

[Charlie C]

That makes sense to me. I have an 89 Sub, and I got a tray from an older truck. I had to move the canister to get the tray to fit right.

 

[diesel4me]

I noticed the tray on my 85 Suburban's battery holder looks larger than the ones on my other trucks with gas engines I had--but both my Suburban and pickup are 6.2 diesels,maybe they had different battery trays than your typical gas powered truck would?...

 

[Irish1941]

Is it possible one is a repro?

Good idea. Never thought of that just because rusty trays are fairly rare here.
I dug deeper and did find GM diagrams of both. Didn't find it the first time because I never looked past '87. I guess that K30 was an '86. The guy parting it out told me it an '87.
They list one from '84-'86 for C,K then another for '87-88 R,V and THEN other for '89-'91 R,V.
Then it hit me. '89 was first year for serp belt. They moved the smog can to inner fender so my first guess was kinda, sorta right.
I think way too much about this stuff...