This week the blog picked up another follower; Welcome Jerry! As always, questions, comments and suggestions are always welcome. The blog actually keeps ME motivated, as when it is cold in the garage or when I am just feeling lazy, it is my reason to get to work, so there will be something to write about each week. If you are doing a conversion and have a blog, make sure and let me know, as I spend quite a bit of time learning from other builder's experiences.
Saturday morning was spent finishing the 12 volt system meters and did not go without some setbacks. Holes had to be located and drilled in the face plate where the meters mount so I used masking tape and a couple of punches to mark the screw holes in the tape. I had put the tape adhesive side up and after the holes were located, placed the face plate on top of it, allowing the tape to stick to it. I drilled the holes on one side and then repeated the process on the other side, this time placing the punches though the holes I just drilled to make sure all four would line up. The other two holes were drilled and the plate was placed back on the instrument pod, then the screws were started. Of course, since the screws were counter sunk, the heads were sticking up quite a bit. In the past, when I have tried to countersink a hole in thin gauge metal, and have made the hole too big, allowing the bolt head to pull through, so this time I thought I would punch the metal down into the holes on a couple of washers to give me an indent for the counter sunk heads. This worked really well on a couple of the holes but on the other two, it actually punched the metal out, leaving me with a hole larger than the heads of the screws. I believe if I would have ground a point on a large punch it may have worked good. Oh well, on to plan "B".
Saturday morning was spent finishing the 12 volt system meters and did not go without some setbacks. Holes had to be located and drilled in the face plate where the meters mount so I used masking tape and a couple of punches to mark the screw holes in the tape. I had put the tape adhesive side up and after the holes were located, placed the face plate on top of it, allowing the tape to stick to it. I drilled the holes on one side and then repeated the process on the other side, this time placing the punches though the holes I just drilled to make sure all four would line up. The other two holes were drilled and the plate was placed back on the instrument pod, then the screws were started. Of course, since the screws were counter sunk, the heads were sticking up quite a bit. In the past, when I have tried to countersink a hole in thin gauge metal, and have made the hole too big, allowing the bolt head to pull through, so this time I thought I would punch the metal down into the holes on a couple of washers to give me an indent for the counter sunk heads. This worked really well on a couple of the holes but on the other two, it actually punched the metal out, leaving me with a hole larger than the heads of the screws. I believe if I would have ground a point on a large punch it may have worked good. Oh well, on to plan "B".
ACE Hardware has stainless steel, socket head button screws, so off I went to pick up some supplies to finish the project. Along with the screws, I picked up some rubber washers to fill in the gap between the face plate and the top of the screw hole, and some silver textured paint.
It was lunch time, so I stopped at J.Gumbos in Baltimore, OH to have some of their great gumbo and to taste a couple of their large selection of craft beers. As luck would have it, Fred and Heather, the owners were both there and as always, I had a very enjoyable afternoon at their restaurant.
Saturday evening the face plate was painted and after drying, the pod was reassembled. Sunday morning the pod was put on top the center console and power was hooked up.
FINISHED 12 VOLT METER POD
Saturday evening, the Better Place batteries from Israel arrived at EVTV in Cape Girardeau, MO.and you could see Jack and Brian filming the dis assembly of one of them on top of a crate in the middle of the shop.
Sunday was finished out trying to get the CX102 A meter to work and I was able to find the spec sheet on a website. It takes 9 volts but when trying to power it up with a 9 volt battery, nothing happened. I can either order two more of the CX102 A meters, order a couple from Light Object, or pick up a couple more like I used on the 12 volt system from EBAY.
Thanks for visiting,
Randy
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