Running out of things to do...

That sounds good doesn't it?
Today I went through my "Todo" list I made over the break...

#1 - Bleed clutch. I bled the clutch once before, but it still wasn't working. This isn't that bad in an EV, since there isn't much shifting involved, but I will definitely need a clutch to get my 0-60 time. I have a self bleeder kit (a plastic bag and a hose) so, once I took battery #6 out and cold see the clutch cylinder, it took maybe 10 minutes.

#2 - fix leaky (heater) hose. I'm using the heater core as a radiator/reservoir for the Zilla. Only problem is, I didn't plan for this and bent up the metal end when I pulled the engine. I spent 15 minutes making the leaky one rounder so that the hose clamp would seal.

#3 - Pull 12v lead to temp gauge. Before the break I troubleshooted the temperature gauge and found out my 12v supply wasn't working. I pulled a new wire from the fuse box to the instrument panel and wired it up.

#4 - Fix Tach. The tach hasn't worked and I've been suspicious of the sending unit. It is a magnet thing that looks like a plastic cup that is supposed to fit on the nose of the motor. Mine didn't exactly fit, so i added some washers to the mount so that it would. It's buried under Zivan, so fixing it is going to be tough... First thing they teach you in mechanic school (I'm told) is to start with the easy stuff, and work up to the hard. The easy thing is to see if some knucklehead mis-wired it at the hairball. Yup. White and Red were reversed. To test it out, I'll need to put the batteries back in and cable them up. Easier said then done, but they're in and I left the handle on #5 so I can easily pull her out later. I turned the key on, step on the throttle and the tach needle starts to wobble up the gauge - nice!

#5 Fix ammeter. Like the Tach, the ammeter has never worked, but I was on a roll. I started by setting my meter to millivolts and connecting it to the shunt (this is hidden in the high voltage box). I'm not sure what it's supposed to read, but the shunt is rated at 50 mv, so I'm guessing it should show 0-50 mv on the meter. I put the meter where I could see it from the driver seat and gave her some juice. The meter showed 7, 11, then 17 mv, which was enough for me. I then did the same test on the wires at the instrument panel with the same result. Hmmmm. Maybe the ammeter is bad? I decided there were 3 possibilities

1. Wrong shunt. But they only come in 24, 50 and 100 mv, so I would think the gauge would still read something, even if the shunt was the wrong value...
2. One or both Leads fell off the ammeter, I pulled out the panel and removed the ammeter - all were connected and even did a continuity test on the leads to double check my crimping was good.
   
3. Defective gauge. I read the instructions from Westach, but there were no trouble shooting tips other than reversing the polarity if the needle goes the wrong way, but my needle never moves. I'll email them to see if there is another test...

The Zilla has a setting to display amps on the Tach. Later, when I had the gauges back in I tried it out. Works pretty good. The Zilla manual says tach shows the amps x 10.

#6 Fix light in temperature gauge. The light stopped working in the temp gauge, and since I has the panel out I removed it and found the light had slipped half way out of the gauge. That was easy. While I was at it, this gauge never fit in right, so I spent some time adjusting the mounting clamp so that it didn't hit anything in the panel. Fits nice now - no squeezing and cussing needed...

Now I was seriously running out of things to do while the batteries charge...
I decided to fix the driver side courtesy light. Some adjustments and contact cleaner and she works!
This is getting bad...

#7 Fix remote charge indicator. As you might remember, I put a charge indicator in the charge port (where the gas used to go) so you could easily monitor your charge without popping the hood. I had to extend the cable to get it to reach and it does light, but I noticed the LED blinked red when it should be blinking yellow... maybe a short? I'm hoping it's not the splice I did, if it is, then I got to pull the wiring out of the conduit under the car to fix it.
Starting with the easy stuff, I pull out the LED from the housing to check my soldering job. Well, the wires got all twisted up in the housing and shorted out. A little electrical tape should do the trick... I'm still charging the batteries individually, so I can't test it out yet, but I'm going to call it fixed just the same.

Back to the batteries...
I had charged up all the batteries up front before using the motor to test the ammeter and the tach. When I checked them with the meter, they were down around 12.6 where they had been above 12.8. One, #2, was at 12.45! That's a pretty substantial drop for not even driving the car.
I check the trunk rack and they were all around 12.8. Is it my bad #5 battery dragging down the batteries in the front racks? Or do I have more bad batteries? I have been suspicious of #2, maybe she's gone bad too? If I had the money, I would replace the whole lot of 'em.
We'll see what happens after #5 is replaced.