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.

A little grinding

I took a couple hours today to clean up the top rack with a grinder to get it ready for paint. There are a lot of odd angles and brackets on this one, so it took longer than I expected.

brackets and mounts

Saturday I got to do a little bending and welding to finish off the mounts for the Iota and the Zilla, plus I got the battery straps mounted on the motor/cowl rack.
I wanted to attach the Zilla using a separate bracket so that other brackets could be used if another controllers was called for. The braket mounts to the rack, one of the rack brackets and a miata hole near the shock tower. I used flat head machine screws to that the bolt heads wouldn't interfere with the Zilla.
The Iota was originally going to mount with a bracket, but after some experimenting I found it could fit against the passenger side of the rack really nice. I welded up 4 tabs for it on the rack and drilled them out for flat head machine bolts so that the bold heads won't gouge the batteries.
Lookin' good.

Brackets on the motor rack

Got a chance to do some welding today and went after the brackets for the motor (cowl) rack. I decided to offset it to the passenger side so that it could be as close to the cowl as possible (making room for the brake booster). This also will give me a good location to mount the Zilla - just ahead of the booster. The front brackets weren't very tricky, but the rear ones had to be angled to align with some existing holes in the frame rail. The one on the passenger side had to sneak under 2 brake lines also, so it is angled and shaved on the top.

At any rate, the holes all line up and the welds look good. Next is to weld some tabs on the driver side to attach a bracket for the Zilla and on the passenger side to attach the Iota.

Oh, you might notice a little green box behind the rack. It is the Zilla's "hairball" (its wiring box). I screwed it to the firewall a week ago. After I get everything mounted I'll get started on the wiring.

Chop and section?

So I was all set today to weld on the brackets to the motor/cowl rack so I could get it grind-ed/painted/bolted in like the other two.
But there was a problem...
I noticed that the edge of the rack was right over one of the motor terminals.
The terminal will have a rubber boot on it, but it will be carrying 156 volts, and if it were to contact the rack it would dump that 156 volts to the body of the car.
Yes, it's not very likely to happen, but the rack is a little wider than it needs to be, and I think I'd feel a little safer if it wasn't directly over that terminal.
So outcomes the sawzall.
It wasn't as easy to cut through the welds as I thought it would be - they must be stronger than I thought.
Comes out the rack was an 1 1/8" too wide. Now it will be nice and snug around those batteries.
he picture are awful (still using my daughter's $10 digital camera), but you can see the before and after shots of the terminal next to the rack.
I'll have to get those brackets on next time...

Radio interview and cowl rack is done

A friend of mine works at a local radio station (KFOG) and came by to do a short piece on my Miata project and my neighbor's veggie oil burning Mercedes diesel. He said he's send an MP3 of the final piece and let me know when it airs. Hopefully I won't sound like a total goof.

After the interview I was able to squeeze in a few hours of welding and got the cowl rack finished. I can't mount it until I do the motor mounts, though, so it's just laying there on top of the motor in the picture. Cowl rack is probably a poor name as it really isn't as close to the cowl as I had envisioned it... I'll have to come up with a better name, but for now, *it* is done.