Determining Battery Installation
Now the batteries have arrived we can get down to determining installation configuration. Thunderskies have ribbed sides for a reason; so when stacked there is airflow between the batteries. Some configurations I have seen ignore this and batteries are staggered flat together which is not cool as they can get warm!
Starion ventilation system box.
Removing the Dash
Nathan and I ripped the dash out to get to the ventilation box. This wasn’t so difficult with two people doing it. Behind the dash we could tell a host of monkeys had been there in the past, with bodgy wiring and leads going nowhere. The aircon drive system has just arrived so we’ll get that installed soon. A plate will have to be made up to position face of the aircon drive motor, power steering, aircon pump etc with ability to adjust tension.
The old and new heater core is shown below. The new one is smaller and no doubt not as effective but will heat up pretty quickly. I may upgrade to a water micro-boiler in the near future – more effective, this place a possible source: www.mes-dea.ch/
Old heater element and new one for Electric Starion.
Nathan’s installing a switch on the old lever that is attached to the valve on the old core. Sliding it across will have same functionality as before. The heater unit is now installed.
Heater unit installed in Electric Starion ventilation system.
Close-up view of heater unit installed in Electric Starion.
Other Stuff
The battery tank in the trunk area gets painted soon and the next thing to finish is the aircon interface and restore the dash.
And Nathan has kindly offered to install the remote door locks which I got from Jaycar, saving me the headache of doing it since one of the door locks was stuck and needed its own repair. He also says he’s worked out a good way of assembling the ‘fuel’ port as the mounting rubber infill posed a problem where it kept the fuel door flush with the body. The 20 amp powerpoint for the fuel port hasn’t arrived yet (I’ll be routing 20A to my garage soon as well). Nathan won’t work on the fuel port until it arrives as we don’t know dimensions (depth etc). More on this soon.
