Out of balance

I'm having trouble getting the batteries in balance so that they can be charged.
When I fire up the charger, I get some BEQ1s lighting up yellow and in 90 seconds one goes red indicating overheating.
Some batteries are around 13 volts and some are just under 12. They should be 13.2 volts when fully charged, and they are shipped charged. I blame this on my shorting out of the nose rack that melted one of the batteries. I think that drained the other 3 in the pack and the replacement battery has a higher charge.
My plan is to charge the low ones one at a time with a 12 volt charger and drain the high one a bit by connecting it to the SLI battery and turn on the headlights.
My cheap meter isn't exact enough for me to tell what's really going on, so I ordered a Fluke on eBay.
More on this later...

While I was charging and draining the batteries I did some more wiring.
I traced out the wire to the Tach and hooked it up to the Zilla's Hairball and ran a new wire from the dash down to the hairball for the Check Engine light. The stock wiring for Check Engine goes to the ECU, which was located under the front floor board on the passenger side. Doesn't do me any good there, so a new wire was in order.

I did a little more dressing of the wires after that.

With these last two wires hooked up I could finally chop out the rest of the wiring harness. This actually was kinda fun. After chopping, I wrapped up the ends with tape so that they won't short anything out. It looks a lot cleaner and there won't be anything to rattle around when I hit a bump.

Paint and a few wires

Today primered and painted the top rack in my backyard. We are dog sitting for some neighbors this weekend. Hope I don’t have dog hair on my rack.

While the paint is drying between coats, I ran some wires from the hairball out to the box where the contactor sits. I need a pair of wires to turn on the contactor (actually only need one hot and a ground) and a pair on the power terminals of the contactor so the Zilla knows that it’s on. I will also need a pair of wires for the Zivan to tell the Zilla that the car is charging. This is intended to stop you from driving away with the car still plugged into the wall. I’ll hook this up later. I used a 4 pair network cable and crimped some ends on it. I’m not sure what gauge wire is needed for the Hairball (there is nothing in the manual, and I didn’t want to bother Otmar with more questions right now). I believe the wire is fine, and if not, I can double the leads up, or run something else, not a big deal.

More Hairball wiring

I've got some of the wires figured out for the hairball, but the one that's stumping me is the starter wire. I traced it out in the wiring diagram, and sure I have the right wire, but, with the key on it gives me 12 volts and when you turn the key to start, it drops to zero. It's backwards. I tried tracing it back from the clutch switch (the interlock that makes you step on the clutch to start the motor) to the relay under the hood, to the fuse block, to the wire, and they all are backwards. Very strange. Maybe it has to do with the ECU being removed?

Anyway, today I decided to stop messin' around and went to the key switch, where the voltmeter showed that the wiring worked as expected - zero volts until the starter switch was activated, and then it hit 12 volts. I used a tap to connect a new wire right of the switch and down to the Hairball. In the picture you'lll see a bright red wire going to a yellow tap. Why didn't I think of that before?

Hairball wiring

I had an hour of quiet after work and decided to start on wiring up the hairball. The hairball is the device where the low voltage wiring connects to the Zilla. I think it's also the brains to the Zilla, the controller of the controller so to speak. Anyway, with the help of my wiring diagram and a little sleuthing, I was able to locate the starter wire, a wire that the key controlled in the "on" position, the alternator light on the dash, and the Tach (I think - need to check on that one). Most were long enough to reach to the hairball, but a few needed a little extension. I also connected the Pot Box (the throttle control) to the hairball.
That's as far as I got.
More on this later.