Wow, my last update was August. Time has really flown by.
This project is still very much alive. I've not posted anything because, frankly, I'm still trying to get ahead of the rust. Here's some of the gore for those who enjoy.
Cowl tank replacement.
Front inner fender cleanup.
Rear wheel arch cleanup.
Front frame rails
It's interesting what you learn about yourself doing projects like this. Mostly what I've learned is that I like doing things The Hard Way™. See below for what I mean.
I don't seem to have posted anything around what I'm doing on the LV side here. The original loom is a write-off. Absolute junk. I won't use any of it. What I need will be very far from what was originally there, so it's a ground up redesign (The Hard Way™). I'm breaking the LV stuff up into three chunks : front, rear, and lighting. You can probably guess for yourselves what each of those does. The plan is to make a PCB with all of the fuses, relays, and diodes for each chunk on a single board. Why not just get generic fuse/relay box from the breakers yard or Ali? I know if I try and make one up using just spade connectors and wire, I will 100% guaranteed get lost and make a mess of it. But if I design it up in KiCAD (where I can leave little notes next to things) I'm much more likely to get it right.
Here's the current version of the 'front' box. I'll definitely do another version of this board. The right angle connectors are a waste of space. I should have the pcb take up the full area of the box and use vertical connectors instead.
I mentioned before that I'm implementing my own BMS (The Hard Way™). I'm using BMW PHEV modules so I've lifted the already-reversed communication protocol from SimpBMS (thanks to Tom DeBree!). The rest is a ground up rewrite. I want to be really, really sure that this works as I intend, so I'm going to do a lot of testing before putting it in the car. I'm building a testing rig to simluate all of the possible inputs (voltage, temperature, charge request, etc.) and all of the possible state transitions. After a bit of head scratching, I realised I could use one board to run the actual BMS code, and another board to run testing code which simluates all of the signals (CSC messages, ISA shunt messages, ignition on digital input, charge request digital input, etc.) and validates that the right thing happens. I hope to completely automate the testing process. I have a lot more work to do on the BMS code. So, when I make any changes to the BMS code I can validate that it still does everything it's supposed to do very easily.
As I'm writing this, I'm thinking that I should also test unexpected resets of the BMS itself ....
I'm working on my own CHAdeMO implementation (The Hard Way™). I got my hands on the standards docs for all of the CHAdeMO versions up to v3. I'm going to try to make it completely compliant with the standard. I've got the first version of the hardware back from JLC. There are no doubt errors with this and I'll need at least one more go around. I'll likely create a testing rig like I have for the BMS.
The car will have CCS as well as CHAdeMO, so I'll need somewhere to put those two charge ports. I don't fancy my chances of adding charge port doors into the fenders and not making a total mess of it. Besides that I think it would look ugly. So the plan is to put the charge sockets behind the two tail lights. I'll make a door that goes over the original rectangular hole where the whole tail light assembly sat. The tail light lens and chrome will bolt to the outside of the door and look more or less original. I can then make a small tub to go on the inside which will be the mounting for the charge port. There won't be room for a filament bulb any more of course, so I'm working on a PCB that will sit inside the lens which has a bunch of LEDs on it. It's all a bit complicated, but hopefully the end result will be nice. The charge ports will be totally hidden.
I will need to extend the opening about 5mm - 10mm on the top and bottom to make room for the CCS socket.
After lurking on some conversations in Damien's discord, I'm also rethinking the rear battery location. One thing that this car is notorious for is, when rear-ended, the fuel tank gets crushed. If I were to put the batteries where the fuel tank goes, there's not a lot of car to absorb an impact before getting to them. It's a shame, as the batteries fit so well into this space - it's like they're made for it. But there's only something like 300mm between the rear bumper and the edge of the battery box. So, instead I think I'll put them in the boot, behind the back seat, over the rear axle. When I looked at this before, I thought I wouldn't fit all 6 modules there. But, dumb dumb that I am, I didn't consider just putting them on their side. Then they fit easily. So, the plan then is to make up a battery box, probably out of aluminium, and crane it in whole. This also has the benefit of it being further into the car, and further away from wet.
I'll still finish and use the tub that slots into the old fuel tank spot. Instead it will now just house the OBC, rear HV junction box, charge controllers, BMS, and some other bits.
I got my hands on an iBooster. Seems like it will fit nicely. The old booster is somewhere in my garage, I'm just not sure where. I can compare push rod lengths at some point, but there's a lot of other things to do before I get to that.
The car will be 60 years old next year - in June if I remember right. I'd really, really like to get it back on the road by then. I've been able to block out a few hours a week to work on it, so hopefully that'll accelerate progress a bit.
