Friday, July 23, 2010

Incremental progress, and design changes...

Most days I don't get a chance to work on the car. Get home from work, clean the pool, find ticks on the dogs, go to marching band parent meetings, stuff like that. But, every morning and every evening I walk past the pile of parts on the garage workbench and I think about one pending task or another.

Recent progress - bolted in the front battery box. Ran 2/0 cable from front to back in the conduits. Ran 6ga cable from front to back in a third conduit for the charger connection to pack positive. Drilled a hole between the gas tank area and the dashboard area and ran wiring for the car lights into the dashboard area. Wired up the brake light switches. Wired up the reverse light switches.

Since I'm making this up as I go along, some design changes are inevitable. Install one thing, then install another thing, then install another thing ("this looks like it will fit here nicely"), then install another thing, and suddenly you think "uh oh, I'm kinda running out of room here". I'm going to put the 12v accessory battery where the original 12v battery goes (under the rear seat on the passenger side) and I was going to put the DC-DC converter under the rear seat on the driver's side. But I ran out of room in the motor compartment for the multiple relays that control the main contactor, coolant pump, radiator fans, and motor brush blower, so I decided to move the DC-DC converter up front next to the charger in the old gas tank area and put the relays under the rear seat. I was a little worried about the DC-DC converter under the seat anyway - under full load it will probably be giving off a lot of heat, and if some kid's butt is six inches above it, I'll probably get an earful of complaining.

The HV fuse block for the DC-DC was next to the Zilla, and now it's by the DC-DC up front. Now the mounting plate in the gas tank area is getting crowded...

More pictures next time.