Miscellany

The work has (as usual) got way ahead of the blogging. Trying to catch up.

Some miscellaneous items I caught up on.

In changing the bulbs from 6 vlt bulbs to 12 vlt bulbs, I had discovered that the taillight (pass side) was in extremely bad shape. Not only rusted out at the bottom from the worn out rubber seal, but several wads of tin foil had been wadded up inside with some gum or bondo. Check it out.

Before:



AFTER:


The signal lights on the front fenders have 2 bolts that attach them to the bumpers - so rusted they just broke off when I tried to remove the nut. So they had to get drilled out and replaced with new bolts. More uncovering that keep the process going longer than I want.

Also added the new running boards...


Basically the entire battery pack had been hooked up by this point with no melt downs. That was a big deal. Then I had to hook up the old wire harness (original bug electronics, former 6 volt system, now 12 volt system) to everything, and see if we were getting any juice.

The 12 volt system controls the 72 volt power system. When you turn the key, the 1st contactor closes to start the flow of 72 volts. When you step on the accelerator it closes the 2nd contactor and you have 72 volts thru the controller/motor etc. So I turned the key...click, first contactor...pushed the accelerator (car was up on jack stands) and click we get 2nd contactor and some wheels turning.

All sorts of excitement!

Might as well try the headlights...nothing. How about the horn (I had to replace that as well to 12 vlt), nope nothing. Parking lights come on, but when the headlight switch is pulled all the way, I hear the contactor engage. Alright, tons of weirdness.

I spent the next 2 weeks tracking down ground demons. Ended up pulling out headlights, checking for ground shorts, examining all of the wire loom, the old wiring, every connection. This sucked. A real head pounding against the wall experience. Finally my pinball electrician pal stopped by and helped my suss out the issue (be sure and check out his spot, http://www.ujuju.com - all pinball palace.) Turns out I had a bad ground to chassis connection. The area where the negative battery connector was attached to the chassis was too dirty and painted. A little filling and everything was working properly. Hooray!