Punch List

I'm down to the point where I have a few things to finish off to call the car "complete".  I have driven it several times but there are things that I need to take care of to make it really road-worthy and not be afraid of being noticed by the cops!

I went through all of the electrical systems and found the following don't work:

1. Use of blinker blows a fuse that powers most of the dashboard.  This is going to involve some remove-wires-and-test and a lot of blown fuses until I figure it out.
2. High beam lights don't work, but I think this is a problem with a known workaround of a dead high/low beam silver rectangular relay.  This didn't work when I bought the car.  The  high beam indicator light doesn't work and I assume this is related.
3. Hazard lights don't work, likely related to #2, but doesn't blow a fuse.
4. Compartment light doesn't come on when switch in door-buzzer position, but does come on in the other position.
5. Reverse light does not come on when shifter in reverse.
6. License plate light does not come on with headlights.
7. Wiper only works in "middle" position.  Low and high do not cause movement, but when left in high position causes the wiper motor to get extremely hot.

Other items that need attention:

1. Driver's side A-pillar is bent down by about 1/4" and the chrome upright in the door's window assembly doesn't fit nicely into the rubber gasket.
2. Driver's door window mechanism gets stuck when in the full-down position.
3. Passenger's door window mechanism stops about 1/4" below the targa gasket.
4. Need to figure out how to drive the 120V charger with the J1772 charger.  Extreme disappointment that there's no way to derive 120V from the 240V feed due to lack of Neutral.  Luckily I work with electricians and power electrical engineers, so I'll pick their brain for some kind of 240V-120V transformer solution.
5. Buy rear trunk hinges.  Rainbow body shop "lost" them somewhere in their shop.  Pelican doesn't have any stock, but they can get one of them from Porsche in Germany for a mindboggling price plus shipping.  The 914EV list suggests that I watch eBay as they come up for sale all the time.  Unfortunately now there are only front hinges for sale!
6. Get rear trunk hinges stripped/primed/painted by Rainbow.
7. Install rear trunk hinges, rear trunk lid and rear trunk lid latch.
8. Install rear trunk gas struts from Camp914.
9. Mount rear-view mirror on new windshield.
10. Figure out how to keep sun visors up when I want them up and down when I want them down.  I've tried butyl and wraps of electrical tape, but both end up sagging down.  There seems to be a bolt hole, but I won't clamp down on the pivot pin.
11. Finish debugging PakTrakr Android app and publish it into the Android Market.  More on this in a separate post.
12. Buy 3rd party floor mats.
13. Get a padded bag(s) to hold charging cable, Kill-A-Watt, fire extinguisher and tire jack.
14. Get agreed-value insurance to cover the full $40K of money in the car in case of a total wreck / fire.
15. Install pads in rear suspension to raise rear of car about 2".
16. Change California vehicle registration type to Electric by going to smog referee at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo.
17. Long-term: Buy & cut sheets of clear plastic / lexan for battery box covers

Front Indicator Lights

The next step was to pop in the front and front-side indicator lights.  I found that the silver overspray got these too, so I did a 1000 grit wet/dry sanding on the rubber gasket, cleaned them thoroughly, and treated the gaskets with Back-To-Black fluid.  I hooked up the wires on the side unit first, then snapped it into place.  I then hooked up the wires on the front unit, then mounted it with the bracket from behind.  This really brings the front of the car back to showroom-new.

Headlights Done - Really

I try to own up to my mistakes, so I have to admit I scratched the driver's side headlight cover as I was installing it.  Argh!

I tried to do a touch-up job on it, including wet-dry paper and everything, but I just couldn't get it right.  I took it in to Tom's and asked him to sand it down and respray it as he was doing the rear trunk hinges. Well the hinges are lost and will take a while to come in, so Tom sprayed the cover and gave it back in a couple of days.

I gently installed it and got it aligned.  Now the car looks symmetrical with the lights up and down.  Soon comes the front hood!

Headlight Reinstallation

While I was waiting for the PakTrakr extender cable, I decided to put the pop-up headlights back in.  Like every other part of this car, it's a finicky, multi-step process with lots of tiny parts.  Let me walk you through how I put one back in.

First, this is all of the parts associated with the mechanism.  I preparation for the rebuild, I painted the shroud ring black and the cover was painted along with the rest of the body.  The I cleaned everything with soapy water and sanded down any rusty or discolored metal.

The headlight area has a grounding stud, and it's important for quality electrical connection to clean it down to bare metal.  Check the integrity of the bundle of ground wires into the ring terminal and replace if necessary.  Mount the grounding harness and the headlight motor ground wire (not shown yet) to the stud.

I ran the wiring harness in a small strip of wire loom.

I placed the large rubber gasket on the shaft of the motor, and wiggled the relay socket through the lower hole.

Here I mounted the motor ground wire to the ground stud.

I plugged the red, green and gray wires into the connector.

I then placed the motor in place, aligned the round bracket with the holes and put the three bolts in place.  Wiggle the motor into a middle-position in the holes, then tighten down.  Make sure the motor it not touching the body.

I then placed the arm on the shaft and put the nut on loosely.

Next, take the light assembly and gently wiggle the tube onto the post mounted on the body.

Then, take the triangular bracket/post and slide it into the other end of the headlight assembly tube. Slide the bracket down near the three holes.

Take the triangular plate, place it over the three holes and run in the three bolts, finger tight.

Mount the connector to the headlight.  I found that both of my connectors were very fragile due to age, so yours may fall apart.

Make sure the light switch is in the down position.  Mount the connecting bar between the motor arm and the headlight pivot.

Tighten the pivot arm bolt.

Remove the connecting arm, then put it through the rubber boot and re-attach the pivot arm.  Be sure to put the snap ring on the end of the pivot arm.  Fit the rubber boot in place around the mounting plate.  Gently insert the headlight relay into the relay socket. below the rubber boot.

Use the headlight switch to test the pop-up action.  If it doesn't work, check that you actually plugged in the relay (don't ask) and then the fuse in the fuse block.  The lights should be able to work independently.

Tilt the headlight assembly up and hold it in place.

Snap the connector bar onto the headlight's pivot point.  You will have to exert a little pressure with a long screwdriver due to the rubber boot going through a slot to the headlight area.

Mount the plastic rubber boot cover with two Phillips screws.

Screw the cover plate onto the headlight assembly with two small silver Phillips screws, one on each side.

The fender side screw is a little hard to get to, so be careful about damaging your paint.

Place the headlight shroud into place and attach with three small Phillips screws.

 Gently adjust the plane of the headlight cover so it matches the little plate just in front of the headlight.  Tighten down the three bolts.

Test the pop-up action with the light switch about 20 times and giggle that it actually works!  I then zip-tied the 3-wire connector down and made sure the wires were all nicely tucked away.  In hindsight, I should have pained the motors black.