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 Battery Box Assembly

The last thing I tackled this week is the construction of all of the components of the front battery box.  The box holds batteries, but is also the platform for the auxiliary battery, the DC/DC converter and the relay board.  As with the contactor parts, I put the relays and the connector strips into another weatherproof enclosure.

Here's where things went horribly wrong.  The aux battery and DC/DC board mounts to the battery box via threaded studs and 1/2" long 1/4" bolts.  Unfortunately the holes were all the wrong size and the studs were not installed at the factory, as the instructions assume.  It took me a while to figure out the right stud to use, drill out the holes, install the studs, then moved forward.

Since I'm bolting a weatherproof enclosure into this area, I had to drill holes slightly below stock.  I also had to clean up the plastic welding bead on the inside joint.  I melted it with my soldering gun, then scraped away the excess while it was still warm.

Another big problem with the directions is it assumes a certain DC/DC model with bolt terminals on the top, not with a cable coming out the top like mine.  Reading ahead I see I'll have to double-lug some of the spade lugs to work around this problem, but I'm getting very flexible and creative now.

And finally here is the relay board in its enclosure, ready to have wires run into it.  I'll dummy everything up and figure out how best to run the wires into the box using probably three gland nuts.

This is the aux battery mounting area.  I'll have to pick up a battery tomorrow to be able to continue cutting and mounting the rest of the cables.  For the record, it's a U-1 style 12V battery, maximum size 7 3/4" L x 5 3/16" W x 7 5/16" H, with 1/4" bolt-on terminals.

Well that was the end of a long, hot week.  I think I need a break from the project for a while!