Testing the Electricals

We plugged in a small 12V battery and started testing some of the circuits this weekend. As of now, the blinkers, hazards, brake lights, horn and ignition are all working. We can't actually start the car until some needed fuel line connectors arrive, but we were able to turn the motor over with the starter. Success!

We have a few more circuits to test, but since we haven't built the front lighting harness yet those will have to wait.

We need to fit some aluminum pieces around the radiator and get those painted. They're supposed to be in place before the radiator is filled. A brief test fit last night shows us this will take a little time to finish.

My assistant builder took the surface rust off of our steel side exhaust, and we gave them a couple coats of high-heat paint. They're looking great!

We should be starting the engine this coming week. We have a number of small tasks to tackle as well. The next major step is to put the body back on and start fitting the doors, the hood and the rear hatch. I'd like to get as much done as I can before then.

Grounding Ourselves

Lots of progress this week. We mocked up the gauges in the dash so we could build wiring assemblies. You'll have to take our word for that, as we pulled it back apart without taking any pictures.

We installed the battery in its tray and ran the main battery cables. We're not ready to connect the battery just yet, so the leads are still loose.

Our decision to use electrical relays complicated our wiring job a little, but will pay dividends. Relays allow us to use the cool switches we want to use without worrying about burning them out by running high-amperage current through them. A relay allows us to use a low-amp signal current to close a switch on a much more powerful circuit. We used them to power the blinkers, brake lights, ignition, and headlights. We will also have them for the engine fan, wipers, and remote door openers.

We also want to be able to remove the dash later if needed to troubleshoot any problems, and that means installing some extra connectors. You can see nine black cube-shaped relays and four white conectors in this picture.

This picture shows a small tray we made to mount four of the relays. We didn't want to drill any extra holes in the firewall, so we came up with the tray idea.

My assistant builder spent much of our time today installing grounds for our electrical system. This involves drilling a hole in the steel frame, sanding off the powdercoating to get a good ground, then installing the ground wire and hitting it with some paint to protect the steel from rusting.

If the weather holds, we're hoping to start the engine during the long Thanksgiving Day weekend. Our to-do list for starting the car didn't get much shorter this week, but the tasks on it are much smaller than they used to be.

So many wires...

Our progress on the electricals is far from finished, but at least you can now see our progress in pictures. You can tell by the number of fuses that we've removed from the fuse panel that we've been whittling down the wiring.

Our big accomplishment this weekend was to get the rear wiring harness finished! You can see it in the picture below as a dark line emerging to the left of the silver differential cover and working its way around to the fuel tank.


We had to redo the circuits for the brake lights, running lights and blinkers since we have fewer lamps than the original car had. We're planning to buy a license plate frame that contains white LEDs acting as a reverse light.

We turned our attention to the dash area and whittled away there as well. We pulled wires for the stereo and airbag system, as well as for the old instrument cluster.

before:

after:

Most of the wires are accumulating in a pile. We're not throwing anything away until we've proven the wires in the car actually work!

We're ready to start building the ignition circuits. Stay tuned!

Still More Electrical...

Lots of progress this week on the electricals, though you wouldn't be able to tell from a picture of the Coupe. Instead, I'll post a few pictures of the schematics I'm working on to document the maze of wires that are going into the car.

I dreaded the electrical work, but I'm starting to like it!

Much of the wiring inside the car is changing from the donor wiring because:

-we don't use a single instrument cluster with a series of "idiot lights", instead each gauge or light must be wired

-we aren't using most of the creature comforts wired into a modern car, so many of the original wires are going

-we have all new systems for air conditioning and windshield wipers, plus a remote-controlled door release (you may have noticed the car doesn't have door handles! :-) )

Creating the schematics gives me a way to check my logic and improve my layout without throwing away wire and expensive connectors. It also gives me something to use later if I have to troubleshoot a problem.

My immediate goal is to document the circuits needed for the ignition, then finish the fuel lines, install the battery, perform a complete test of the electricals, and start it up!

Plumbing!

The kit has been here for almost 90 days now. We're pleasantly surprised by our progress, even though the last few weeks have been slowed while working on the wiring.

The radiator arrived this week, and we didn't waste any time getting it out of the box.

I managed to wire up the starter relay and the starter itself. I also built circuits for the blinkers and hazard lights, and for the headlights, hi-beams and fog lights.

I still need to wire up the ignition and double-check all of the circuits before I'll be ready to put any power to it. Rather than risk burning out any of the components, we purchased a 12V power supply with a built-in circuit breaker. That should allow us to test all of the circuits before installing the battery.

Progress on Many Fronts This Week

We seem to be moving from one major system of the vehicle to another, always returning to work a little more on the wiring. Could it be that I'm intimidated by so many wires? Perhaps...

We received our driveshaft and installed it. The donor driveshaft is almost four feet long. An indication of just how small the Coupe will be is that the driveshaft on it is just over a foot long! After seeing how big the u-joints are, we may have to change or eliminate our plans for a second cupholder for the car. The cupholders are for things like cell phones and sunglasses since there is no storage within reach of the driver.

A neighbor's friend volunteered to weld up a custom accelerator cable bracket. The original bracket stood too tall with the replacement of our stock intake manifold. I think it looks great! We finished installing the cable right after this picture was taken.

We installed the ignition coil and the starter relay on the driver's side of the engine compartment.

We did make some progress on the wiring. We've pulled together many of the wires needed for the switches and gauges on the dash, and we have a rough plan to organize them. Of course, the plan might not be evident just yet...

We ordered and received a new ignition lock (the donor was a dud), a windshield wiper system, and a set of floormats. The radiator whould be here this week, and we continue to wait for the wheels.

As for the surprise? Well, we were expecting a visit from the owner of a Cobra Roadster this weekend to pick up some parts we didn't need. He decided to ship the parts rather than make the 800+ mile round trip to pick them up. I can hardly wait to drive my first 800 miles in this thing...

Steering and starting electricals

This week we installed the steering rack and the steering column.

We also started running wires... lots and lots of wires. Since we bought the donor parts on a pallet, we did not get a chance to see and label each electrical connector as it was removed from the car. As a result, it has taken some detective work and several wiring diagrams to figure out what goes where.

Making matters a little more challenging, the donor was a convertible with all of the bells and whistles. The Coupe won't need many of the items wired into the donor, and I will be removing many of those wires in the upcoming weeks. The process is called a "wire diet" and should result in having far fewer wires to cram under the dashboard. Space under the dash is at a premium since we purchased the air conditioner kit.

This is the dashboard aluminum. It came with the holes for the gauges already drilled. There is a smaller switch panel that sits below the center guages and above the transmission tunnel. We will need to mark and drill it for the various toggle switches that go there.

Next week we will have a special surprise in our update! Stay tuned!