Build History (4) 15 May 2022 to 30 December 2022

 A month since my last entry, although it feels like little has been done, now looking back I think I have hade a productive month.
It had been my intention to lower the car to the ground before the batteries were fitted. This was for two reasons, that I did not want to have the car hanging with the extra weight of the batteries and I needed access to the chassis for the block and tackle. The only problem that I have now is that much of the time I have to work on my knees.
The Dashboard having been received needs the instruments installed, but prior to this some labels made. These wore made by my regular supplier of graphic labels Although this did not appear a simple job, due to all the switches being placed in somewhat random locations it was not easy, and whereas most companies would tell me to go away Lars did a great job. All the instruments were fitted, plugged in and pretty much all systems worked first go.
I had been making the Battery cooling manifold, this will sit on the back of the battery boxes with a fan that will suck air through the batteries if they get hot. This is now virtually complete.
The next major job was to install the batteries, but here I had an issue. Once the boxes were fitted, quite a long operation as they had to be precisely located as one of the suspension bolts holds the top battery in place. About a days job. Once the batteries were fitted Tim from EV Works checked that all was good to wire the BMS Battery Management System harness.
I was being super careful when connecting the wires with the harness wrapped in polythene sleeves to prevent shorting. when this was half done I caught one of the wires and promptly about 10 wires burnt, as did my finger. Equipment to make new fused harness is now ordered. two or three extra days will be required to make the harness. One other issue I found was that the two 25 pin plugs exiting the box with the BMS wires were male, live, pins so this had to be reversed. One final thought on this lesson is to wear fire protective gloves when working on the high voltage batteries. One little slip and your hand is by an arc welder.
A nice Christmas present arrived and that was the two drive shafts 9 months. 

After two months of traveling around Australia, consisting of two weeks at Burketown flying the Morning Glory Cloud, in my glider, that is now sold.
Arriving home there were a number of items that had arrived for the build, including The wheels that had Nankang tyres fitted by Morley Tyre Centre, two battery boxes that my friend Sid had painted, the dashboard that The Dashboard Doctor had vinyl covered (they had done a great job and although there was a bit of a wait, it was no longer than promised, unlike some suppliers who string out the delivery.) and Linier actuator for the electronic hand break (I had managed to destroy the previous ones.)

Once I got out or punishment mode (cleaning up emails and the many jobs at home, I started working on the car.
Laying up the mold for the battery cooling manifold and starting to make the hardware for the hand break.
Not much done but at last back on the way.

September 14 Still week 40 of build.
Very little has been done in recent weeks as I have been more involved in running a charity PingPongAThon. We raise funds and awareness of slavery around the world. We ran a Pong in the city of Perth on the 9th and 10th of September and raised over $11,000 dollars. I consider this a far more important job than building a GT40. Anyway, that is done now and will be followed by me driving to Burketown on the opposite corner of Australia, over 4,000 k trip. I hope to have a good flight on the Morning Glory Cloud. (a video can be seen on my Gliding page.)
In the meantime the GT40 is sleeping with the bonnet and boot lowered, to keep stresses out.
The wheels arrived a few weeks ago. Only problem now is finding some tyres to fit!

August 24 Week 40. (Although there are more weeks between the 4th and 24th I have been busy working with a charity I support Ping Pong-A-Thon that fights against slavery. So perhaps only a week working on the car.
Install wiring loom, Fuse box, Dashboard removed, Battery boxes fine-tuned and removed.

(Although there are more weeks between the 4th and 24th I have been busy working with a charity I support Ping Pong-A-Thon that fights against slavery. So perhaps only a week working on the car.
Install wiring loom, Fuse box, Dashboard removed, Battery boxes fine-tuned and removed.

Having braded the wiring loom it was installed back in place, I did find some areas appeared to shrink once braided and wrapped with shrink wrap, particularly at T junctions, making it necessary to extend some wires a little.
A rear fuse box was installed, (Later replaced with a Bussmann box that was waterproof and had 20 fuses.) this had two busses, one permanently on for items like security system (Dynamco), parking lights and battery cooling fans. The other side linked to any items that require the key turned on.
Note that the small monkey wrench is not intended as a permanent fixture, it is just to clamp the earth wire to earth bus, as I did not have a big enough crimping tool.
The dashboard was removed to send to the Dash board doctor in Melbourne, this was finished so there were no lumps and bumps that may show up once the Vinyl covering is on.
Note on the picture of the car minus the dashboard has a large yellow bag. This is to rest my head on when working upside down under the dash.

The rear battery boxes were also finally fine fitted and some plug holes drilled, together with thermostats.

August 4th Week 37 to 39. Continue coffee holder, Parking lights, Modifying Door pockets, Stripped and braided wiring harness, Removed battery boxes.

 Continue coffee holder, Parking lights, Modifying Door pockets, Stripped and braided wiring harness, Removed battery boxes. 

 I have still been working on the coffee holder, but there is still a lot more to do with it including making some molds and polishing up the carbon finish. More to follow in later weeks.
I worked out that there would be an issue with parking lights as the car is wired so that when the key switches off so do all the systems. So I have added another circuit direct to the battery that will allow the parking lights to be switched on or off independently of the key. Diodes were wired in so that there was no possibility of the key or the non key circuits interfering with each other. Diodes are my friend.
The door pocket has issues in that it interferes with the door lock, to the right of the pocket and with the wing mirror plugs. Last weeks photos show how it was shortened. The depth was reduced by cutting out about 20mm strip and then rejoining back together. Filling the joints and making them look perfect will be a time consuming job.
Two other major jobs have started the first almost completed, that being stripping out the wiring loom between the Tesla in the back and the electronics in the front, photo above, It has not been braided to look a lot better. Unfortunately the unbraded photos stitched together well but the braided would not stitch together. It is now being installed in the car.
The other job that has been started is the removal of the battery boxes in the back in preparation for final tweaking and painting. 

 I felt that I had reached a milestone at the end of last report, with the vast bulk of the wiring done. Now it was time to check that all the components were wired up correctly and the MoTeC programmed correctly. When I first started programming the MoTeC it was all done in a bit of a rush, jumping into all the features at once. Because of this I did not fully understood the programming of the system. There had not been enough repetition of one feature for good learning, therefor I did not believe that I clearly understood the system, despite the fact that I am quite happy with computer programming. So I spend a day with Glen at Auto Sports Electronics in the corner of his workshop cleaning up the system, deleting unwanted lines of code and sorting in a respectable order of functions. After a few hours I was feeling that I better understood the system.
Glen had another go at installing a new actuator for the hand break, but again we failed with the actuator over stressing its self, despite our best efforts to set an amp limit when pulling on the break. Another two actuators have been purchased, and a chat with a contact who understands electronics who may have some solutions. Let's see if it works in weeks to come.
Once I had wired the door I found that the cable that enters / enters the door was stopping the door shutting, a lack of planning or observation there! Rather than a major rewire a slot was cut in the door frame to allow the cable to pass.
I have started making a very critical part, not standard in a GT40 but an essential part for a GT40E, that being the coffee cup holder. I obtained the basic holder from a scrap yard and am building the surrounds with carbon, that I have laid up in sheets and cut to shape. Some molds will be made using blue foam. glass and filler in a few weeks to come.
The doors on the GT40 are quite deep and thus are large enough for some storage, unlike the rest of the car. An insert is supplied with the kit, that goes into the door, but unfortunately it impinges with the door lock system. This has been resolved by me making a mold and copy of door insert, Then cutting a slot in the insert, so as not to impinge on the locking mechanism, then filling it with the mold.
The reverse lights were put in place, they are mini estate lights.
One piece of wiring was completed, that being the wires to the micro switches that detect if the door is closed or open. As the information needs to go to both the MoTeC system but also to the Dynamco security system Diodes were put in line to both the MoTeC and Dynamco side. I lesson I have learnt where there is any possibility of back feed being sent to different systems.
I started bleeding the breaks but found a bad joint at the rear break sensor, requiring me to get a new pipe. After that I had the same issue with the front sensor, so more pipe made and bent. Let's see if when I start bleeding again there will be no leeks.
Although it will be some time before I get the car upholstered I had Tony to come over and look over the job. Particularly with chain supply issues we ordered the carpet so that whenever I am ready there will be no delays.  

Quite a lot of progress this fortnight. The mental battle has been trying to get the wing mirrors to work. The issue being that the joy stick does not have simple wiring. A normally you would hope that you had one earth return and an up, down, right, left. I will not go into detail but it is not simple. To get it to work requires two relays to work on series, but there was too much voltage drop thus stopping both relays working. I am working on some relays that have minimal voltage drop and can work in series.
I have also been working on the mounting of the wing mirrors. Naturally the wing mirror does not fit flush against the door, so I am making a glass fitting that will give a smooth line between the wing mirror and door. First I mount the mirror on the door, having wrapped it in silver foil to protect from the resin. Once lined up I wedge in some blue foam to fill in the gap, then glass around the blue foam. Once the delicate plug is made, clean it up and then make the female mold. The final product will be made next week
I had time to mount the air-conditioning Condenser in the front of the car.
The ability to have a coffee when you drive is vital, so I found a coffee cup holder at a local scrap yard and I am making a carbon fiber surround that I hope will look good.
When making items with glass and carbon it is a good idea to continue with a number of projects, as the resin mix can do the many jobs at once. The other glass project is resolving an issue with the storage containers that are mounted in the doors. They give me an issue in that they impinge on the door locking system, so I am going to shorten them a little, the first job is to make a mold of the end of the culprit and later cut it into the original part.
The other bit of glass work is shaping the bonnet where the right hand fuel filler has been removed. It is quite difficult to see that I get an aesthetic shape of this complex curve, get it wrong it could spoil the car.