115: Saturday 6th February 2010

First thing today the new Allbright contactor came in the post. Went off to my daughters football training, then got stuck in fitting the new contactor. I tried it first before I did any work towards mounting it. It worked fine and cuts the heater off no problem. The contactor has some threaded holes in it's side for mounting, so I put some aluminium angle onto the side of the control box bracket and mounted the contactor to it. Tested it again and it is still working fine. So now I have heating and demisting for the windscreen. That's another job ticked off.
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Next I set about the power steering again. I gave the motor a quick run to clear any fluid from the pump. I was convinced that the wrong grade power steering fluid was the problem. I checked the manual and the Probe system uses automatic transmission fluid. I had just over half a gallon of that and looking at it I could see it was much thinner than the other type I had been using. I fitted the pump back on and bled it then it started running slow again. I checked the battery voltage and it was really low, so I got out a back-up battery and then it whizzed up a bit, but as it bled some more air out it started running slow again. I have had it with this set up and I am going to look at getting a Toyota MR2 pump and some pipes made. It is a much better packaging for the space I have too. I connected up the replacement DC-DC converter and this worked fine, but since it doesn't fit in the space I had for it, I need to find a new home and run cables etc. This is just a formality. At least I now know it works properly. I guess I'll put the rear brakes back together next. It's too cold again now to carry on and we have friend coming over tonight, so I packed up.

114: Friday 5th February 2010

Not much to blog about today, but a good day all the same. I put the interior back together after the heater core transplant. I know the heater itself works fine, so I am just waiting for the contactor to arrive for the power switching. My new tailgate struts arrived today, so nice little job fitting those. The tailgate goes up on it's own now. So I can get rid of the block of wood that I used to have to prop it open, cool. More progress.

113: Thursday 4th February 2010

I booked a day off work to help my wife with her delivery job (she hasn't been well recently). Finished about 2pm, so back to the heater. I found the wire for the relay controls of the heater and figured out how to get the fan running with a simple link. I connected the 12v battery and checked the relay was working, and it was. Connected the heater to the 120v from through the relay and hooked up the 120v supply. I went inside the car, linked in the fan motor and then the heater. I had a nice blast of hot air, yippee (finally). Only problem was the auto relay was not robust enough to pass the power of the heater and it's contacts got welded together, so the heater won't switch off. Good job I fitted an Anderson connector, so I pulled that and cut the heater. As the relay was inside the control box, I thought about using a higher current relay. I made up the external circuit and borrowed the connections from the control box to bring the relay on. Tested the 12v circuit on it's own, fine. Connected the 120v supply and the same thing happened. Next I disconnected the 120v from the heater and removed this relay. I have now ordered a 12v Allbright contactor hopefully this will be able to run the heater and not weld the contacts together. It got too cold to work on it so I packed up early. Next job to refitted the interior. Fortunately all the control and power circuits are under the hood, so I can put the car back together and fit the new contactor when it arrives and that should then be finished.

112: Tuesday 2nd February 2010

I didn't start until quite late tonight. It's 9:30 now, so time to pack up for the night. I got the crashpad out, and the heater box. I took the matrix out of the heater box and replaced the 240v ceramic core with the 120v one that I got from a friend in USA. The connections on the new core were like spot welded on, so I had to chip them off before I could put it back in the matrix. Well the core was exactly the same dimensions and all the connections were the same too. Result...! I put the mesh cover back on the matrix, slid it into the heater box and screwed it down. Time for some relaxing, and tomorrow I will test it before putting the whole lot back together.

111: Monday 1st February 2010

Didn't spend much time on the car tonight as it was bitter cold outside. I started to strip out the crashpad. I removed the centre console, the steering wheel, the instrument cluster, the glove box and started unbolting the crashpad. I have a few more trims to remove underneath and at either side of the crashpad, then undo all the bolts, tilt it forward and disconnect, then it should just lift out so I can get to the heater box. Maybe tomorrow I can have the crashpad removed. If it is cold like tonight then I won't be working for long. No photos tonight as my batteries have all gone in my camera (it does use a lot of them) and my daughter keeps taking them for her xbox controllers.

110: Sunday 31st January 2010

I took the power steering pump off again. The plan is to modify the pipework and use the Citroen pump and reservoir as this is the correct pump for the motor. This might not be as powerful as the Probe pump, but it should not overload the motor. I am not fussy about the steering so long as it is comfortable to drive. My old Fiesta has no power steering and I am sure this will be better even with a smaller pump. The main difference is that the Citroen pump is designed to work from a 12v motor compared to the Probe pump that is designed to be belt driven by an engine. I took the banjo connection of the pump and removed the connector that the banjo fixed to on the pump. The Citroen pump has a threaded connection directly to the pump. I was hoping the connector from the Probe pump would go straight into the thread on the Citroen pump, but it was not to be. I now need to get an adapter or have a short pipe made. I then set about changing the heater. I decided there were a couple of niggly jobs I wanted to do with the heater controls before I stripped the interior out of the car. First was to make the heater relay so that it would only work when the blower was on. I decided to try to figure out why the engine module connection that works from fan positions 3 & 4 was not working before. I stripped the blower control switch right down to the contacts. I realised that the connection was direct to ground from positions 3 & 4. I can only assume that where I was picking up the connection at the other end of a loom something was not right there. I know that this special engine connection only went to the engine controller and since this has been removed I just cut the wire and gave myself enough to connect just behind the heater control panel. I put the switch back together and connected the blower connection to the heater relay and it now works o.k. I also wired this in series with the spare button on the panel, so both connections have to be made in order for the heater to work. The button had an LED indicator on it and that was not working either. I checked through the circuit and found that my original assumption about the connections were wrong and I picked up a supply and tried running through some resistors to make the indicator work. It did and I tried some different resistors to get the brightness about the same as the others on the panel. I then disconnected everything and took the panel into the garage to solder it all in place properly. I then rewired it all back in the car. Now the indicator comes on when the both switches are closed i.e. the fan is on position 3 or 4 and the button is latched in, with the ignition key in position 2. At last some progress. I intend to now take the interior out to get the heater core out of the heater box and replace it with the new 120v core. Hopefully I will get my brake calipers back this week, so I can fit these on, bleed it all, and get it back on its wheels. Just the power steering problem to solve then and it will be ready to put in for and Engineers report and MOT test.

109: Saturday 30th January 2010

I now have the replacement DC-DC converter and the 120v ceramic heater core. The DC-DC converter is an updated version directly from the manufacturer, but the case is slightly wider than the one I had before and this means that I need to make a new bracket as this does not fit in the battery hold down bracket anymore. My friend in America has sent me the heater core, but he also kept all the wiring and switches intact and sent it all to me connected, so I can match the wiring to what I already have. It looks about the same size as the 240v one that it will be replacing. Today I was trying to get the power steering working properly. I bled the pump by adding some fluid and working the steering from side to side. This made little difference and the motor was running very slow and getting hot like it was on load all the time even when the steering was not being used. I took the system off the car in case the pipework was stressed where I have moved the pump several times. I slackened and refitted it all back together. I ran the pump on the bench with a battery and then it was fast and ran freely. I put the system back on the car and bled it again, but it was still very slow once the air had gurgled through. The fuses blew this time too. I ran it with a jump cable and it ran slowly still. I am concerned about the amount of load on the motor.

108: Sunday 24th January 2010

No football training on Saturday as my daughter was ill, but every time I went to do something I started coughing again. Rubbish week! Today I felt a bit better, but still coughing a bit, I decided to push on and get some work done. First job to check out the power steering cooler pipe. I jacked the front of the car up, got my lead light and no sooner had I got on the floor to look, it started raining. I got out my rain cover and set it all up just in time for the rain to stop, go figure! The cooler pipe was absolutely rotten. I found that to renew this I will need to remove the front bumper. For now I re-routed the pipes and by-passed the cooler. I put the last of the fluid that I had into the reservoir, but it was not enough to fill it. It was too late in the day to get some more as the shops were then shut. Next job to replace the brake vacuum pump. When I took the vac pump off I realised how difficult it was to get to the nuts from under the brackets, as I had to remove the Anderson connector from the bracket. When I put the pump back, I put the bolts through from underneath and fixed them with a nut so there were 4 threads sticking up for the pump to drop on to. This was much easier to fit going back on. I re-fitted the Anderson connector and connected up the pipes to the vac pump. I had the vacuum gauge on the T piece and linked out the vacuum switch connection to see how much vacuum was being pulled. This was now pulling down to 20 inches mercury (0.065 MPa). The old pump would only pull 15 inches mercury this is the minimum needed for a good brake. So I removed the vacuum gauge and fitted the vacuum switch to the T piece and wired the switch connections. When I powered this up, the pump ran for about 15 seconds then cut-out as expected. When I pressed the brake pedal it took about 3 seconds to recharge the brakes. The switch is set to come on when the vacuum drops below 15 inches mercury and go off when 20 inches mercury is reached. This is what is happening. I routed everything and secured the pipe clips then had a quick run up-and-down the drive and the brakes feel really good (especially since the rear brakes are worn out). I also switched on the power steering and the for the first time I was able to get back on the driveway in one go as I could actually steer the car. I believe the 12v battery is dead or dying as it is not holding a charge. The power steering pump has quite a heavy current demand on the 12v system when the car is stationary. I will try this again when I have it topped-up with fluid. Finally I turned the car round and jacked up the back end of the car. I then removed the rear brake discs, pads and calipers. I will be putting new discs and pads on the rear. I had new ones on the front not so long ago. I am having the calipers checked to see if they are serviceable. The left caliper had the hand brake jammed on for quite some time. I hope it can be released or else I will need to replace the calipers as a pair. This is an expense I can do without, but there can be no compromise on the brakes. I shall receive the DC-DC converter on Friday. I got a friend in America to buy me a ceramic heater and send it to me. I should receive this some time this week. Next weekend I will need to remove the interior to get to the heater again, so I can fit the new heater ceramic core. The reason I had to get a friend to send me one was because I cannot buy 120v ceramic core in this country (for a reasonable price) and what I can get is a 240v ceramic core or a 110v infra-red heater, but this would melt the heater box. The 240v heater I have now just does not give enough heat when connected to 120v. I worked this out to be 375 watts, but with the new heater I should get about 1500 watts of heat. This should be nice and toasty, but more importantly it will keep the windscreen clear. After this I just need to get the windscreen replaced and I am all done. I can feel it getting closer now.

107: Wednesday 20th January 2010

Not much happening at the moment as I am off sick again. I went to the doctors yesterday and I have a chest infection. I picked up the prescription antibiotics and now trying to shake it off. I think this is because of the flu that I had a couple of weeks ago. Hope to be better by the weekend as I have lots planned. I am so close to getting this on the road now. I am still not going to rush anything at the last hurdle. I found out some more about the process of getting it all legal in the U.K. This is what I have discovered; once you believe you have the vehicle roadworthy, then you need insurance and to get this you need an engineers report. Not all insurance companies ask for this, but you will be paying extra for the sake of a simple report. You need to find an Engineer that is ministry qualified (such as an MOT tester) and they write a short report stating that they have examined the vehicle and found the conversion from a petrol engine to battery powered electric motor to have been carried out to a satisfactory standard for use on the road. Send a copy of this to the insurance company, then you can drive the car to a test station for the MOT test. It will need to be tested as a petrol car and not produce any emissions. Then a trip to your nearest DVLA office where you que up to be seen so that you can get your log book changed to electric and hence the taxation class changes. You will need to take any paperwork with you including invoices for the motor etc and any other information about the work done. The more information you take, then the less likely it will be that a further inspection is required. Hopefully then you can go back in the waiting room to get your new "Free" tax disc. It will be interesting to find out how much of this exists in my reality as nothing seems to go exactly to plan.

106: Sunday 17th January 2010

Today I fitted the 240v inlet plug for the chargers. I had to make 2 aluminium brackets to use the holes from the old fuel filler neck that I removed yesterday. It all fits nicely behind the fuel flap and shuts o.k. One problem I was having was that the fuel flap release was getting stuck in. You can see the little black plastic pin here in the photo. I took the mechanism out, stripped it down and re-drilled the hole that the pin goes through and it works perfect now. I understand this is a common problem on Ford Probes, but not this one now. I drilled a hole through to the trunk space for the cable and connected it up. I put some some tape round the wire to stop it chafing. I shall squirt some silicon sealer in there another time to seal it and stop any movement. Likewise with the gap at the side of the inlet plug.
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Next I cut the battery tray strap bracket down a bit as this was clashing with the trim inside the trunk on the sides. I then fitted the trims, fitted the battery tray, loaded the batteries and connected them. The battery tray is fine now and there is a good 1/2 inch clearance each side to the trim panels.

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Finally I cut the board that sits on the spare and the carpet to fit in with the battery tray. I got the replacement battery and now I have 10 good batteries. I also picked up some more battery caps and tubing etc. for the venting. I set the controller back to 120v and gave it a little try. Wow it really has got some get-up-and-go now. Unfortunately it doesn't stop so well. I changed the pipework around for the vacuum pump for the brakes and put a gauge on the other side of the check valve. Now the gauge was reading 15 inches Mercury (0.045 MPa). That is about the minimum needed for braking. It was much sharper with the pump running, but still lacking what I had before. My supplier in China has sent me a new pump, so hopefully that will all be up-and-running soon. All I need to do in the back now is make the strap to hold the batteries down. I have some angle iron left for this. Of course this will get a coat of fire engine red Hammerite.