Heat or no heat

So I thought I'd assemble and install my brilliant PTC heating system. It consist of three 500W elements meant for 110VAC, a fuse and one of the temperature monitoring relays that came with the elements. Seemed to work really nicely like this, with no air flow going throught them. Almost scary even, because the elements quickly shot up to 100 degrees Celsius and kept on going until 200 degrees.

Imagine my disasppointment when I had them installed and found out they made nearly zero heat once in action. Oh, if I put the blower on first setting there was a little bit of heat, but not nearly enough to clear the windshield. I suppose I just have to give up and find a liquid tank heater to get the job done. Meh.

It wasn't a complete waste of time though, because now I have the wiring ready for whatever heating system I end up with. The smallish 80 amp contactor in the right is what controls it. The DC/DC converter wires come in from the left. The Kelly controller is sticking in from the top and motor wires go out to the left. That throttle pot system is a bit flimsy still and it will need another spring, but that's another improvement that might have to wait until later.

Loose ends

I was tying some loose ends today. Not that I'd run out anytime soon. One of them was tying down the battery box. I decided to do it this way for now and maybe change it later. Hopefully the inspector won't have a problem with this approach. Then again, it's not a huge issue, if I have to go for a more permanent fix. The thick black wire in the picture grounds the battery box into the chassis. It's not very pretty, but gets the job done. Another little thing to tidy up later, if there's time and interest.

As is usually the case with French cars, my Xsara also had it's spare tire under the boot, outside the car. I believe it's not required to have a spare wheel anymore, a lot of new cars don't, so I figured I'd take it out. It was a full sized wheel with sturdy mounting system, but I was still suprised to find out the pile of crap came in at a hefty 20 kg! Very nice weight savings indeed. Almost half the weight of my batteries.

I also picked up the Power Steering pump which had the piece from the old pump fitted into it's now stubby pipe, making it compatible with the plumbing in the car. This is to me the most favored solution since now I can keep buying Xsara plumbing and 307 pumps as long as I like, if they break.

A problem surfaced regarding the VAG vacuum pump. I don't know if it's by design or if the pump is broken, I'm guessing the latter, but once I got everything put together and running otherwise fine, the vacuum would escape through the hole in the pump which it uses to blow out extra air from the vacuum side. Bloody annoying. I took the cap of the pump and found a couple of seals, which seemed fine, and nothing else broken either. Maybe I can find a one-way valve that would keep the vacuum from escaping? That would fix the issue. The vacuum relay I got from ebay works as advertised.

The non-update

Not much to be told at this time I'm afraid. The lack of a warm, clean garage is slowing me down. I did get the Power Steering pump working though thanks to this blog post I found. It was just as simple as they told. Just connect the two big wires to the 12 volt supply and two of the control pins to plus and it ran. Ran quiet too. I think it will make for some excellent power steering. Possibly even better than what the car originally had. Now I'll just have to get the piping fitted.

Still trying to find an electrician who would check my high voltage connections. Well, it's not even high voltage really. It's really, really low voltage at around 80 volts DC, but the rules say they must be inspected. Apparently it's enought though that the eletrician checks just the high voltage circuit and general installation of high voltage components and the rest of the E100 paper can be dealt with at the inspection. That means I'm pretty much ready for the inspection. Well, maybe I need to install those charging plugs and bolt the battery box to the car, but other than that it should be all good.

The rest of the components for the brakes and heat did also arrive. I should now be able to construct the vacuum assembly for the brakes. Not expecting any problems there. Just a matter of some tubing, a relay and a piece of aluminium to keep them in place. I'm kind of hoping to get that done within the next week. Either that or the heat, which will consist of three 500 watt PTC elements. I will replace the pollen filter in the car with those elements and see if the result is sufficient heat to pass the inspection. Fingers crossed.

I'm also constantly thinking about replacing my expertly welded motor to transmission adapter with an industrial flexible joint. It may have to wait until later though. The thought of once again removing the motor is not extremely appealing at this point. I will need to improve the motor mounts though. Oh, such a long list of little things to do here and there.