Ok, I have been crawling under the Fiero all day, drilling and tapping holes so I just can't do it (conduit) anymore today. The morning started out by driving to Ace, Millersport Hardware, and finally Home Depot to try and find Unistrut. Once I got home, I crawled under the car to take measurements but decided that the existing hangers that are being used will work fine if they are clamping onto the conduit instead of directly on the cable, so I came back out from under the car and went to work on trying to get the last conduit gland out from behind the battery. This involved putting some cardboard over the top of the rear battery connections and climbing back as far as possible so the conduit gland could be accessed. I put some needle nose vice grips on the flange and tried to move it but it was solid. Back under the car with a hammer to use to try and tap it up through the hole. When I went to tap it I found that the two holes were empty and the conduit gland that would not come out still had the nut on it. So after using a screw driver and hammer to loosen the nut, went back up topside but the conduit gland would still not come out because it was wedged by the negative battery cable that goes to the controller. After taking a long screw driver and prying the cable a little, the gland finally was free and could be removed.
Back under the car to look for a new location that was accessible, to put the conduit glands. After finally finding a good location, I crawled back out to get the drill, hole saw, conduit glands, and a punch to center punch the plate so the drill bit wouldn't drift. The holes I put in the front deck plate seemed too large, as it seems the hole saw actually drills a larger hole than it's diameter, so this time I went with a smaller hole saw. Before the first hole was drilled, the batteries started running down, so had to go real show to finally get the hole saw through. After drilling the hole I found that the plate I drilled had another plate coming in at an angle behind it, that would make getting the nut on the nipple hard and the cable gland nipple would not quite go through the hole. Again, off to Ace Hardware to get a 3/4 pipe tap, as tapping the hole would solve both problems. While I was getting the tap, the drill battery was put on the charger, so back under the car to drill the second hole and tap both of them. The fresh batteries did the trick and the tapped holes worked like a charm.
CORDLESS DRILL AND HOLE SAW
3/4 IN TAP
Then the conduit was pressed in the rear conduit glands and run through the existing hangers. The hangers were a little too big, so I must have purchased 1 in instead of the 3/4 in that is needed. Also, two more holes will need to be drilled to run the conduit under the new deck plate where the front conduit glands come through. The conduit was left a little long for the final fit. after it is run through the new holes and in the morning, it will be off to Ames hardware again to get some fitting for the new holes.
CONDUIT RUN TO REAR OF CAR
FRONT OF CAR TO PLATE THAT NEEDS DRILLED
By then I was beat, so after sitting on the porch and having a nice cold Pabst Blue Ribbion Beer, it was time to take a short nap before taking my wife the the QFM 96 radio station Food Truck Fest.
PBR BEER
QFM 96 RADIO STATION FOOD TRUCK FEST
FOOD TRUCKS!
Last month the Fiero EV Build Blog had the most page views ever, so I thank all of you for visiting!
PAGE VIEWS
Continued tomorrow,
Randy
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