Skip to main content

Ground Clearance

 Due to a measuring error the first iteration of the battery mounting resulted in a mere 8cm ground clearance. As you can see here, there's quite a bit hanging low. While I did 2000 miles like this, I did on occasions have a box to road conflict.


So with the weather getting warmer and the Easter break, I decided it was time to tackle this job, I had been putting it off, but an hour and a half and the bumper was off and the battery out.



I then jacked the battery box up as high as I could get it and test fit the slam panel and crash bar, looks like a decent gain in ground clearance. Happy with this I marked the height and started making new mounting brackets.


    
I covered the seams with a load of seam sealer for good measure and painted the box with underseal paint that I had laying around and then started to mount the box it the new location.


The battery box in it's new location, self supported by it's new mounts, tucked nicely behind the crash bar.


The result has been worth the effort, I can now take route with the massive speed bump without issue, the front is much cleaner (even better when the bonnet is fully closed). Very pleased I finally tackled it.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

DVLA Refusal to Update V5

 Now with over a 1000 miles done on electric, and over 6 months of to and fro, the DVLA are still refusing to update my V5 to electric and change the tax classification. Their reasoning in the VERA act, below, they have taken this to mean that on post 2001 vehicles the fuel type and tax classification cannot be changed. This is despite the DVLA website (https://www.gov.uk/change-vehicle-details-registration-certificate) making no reference to been unable to make the changes. LPG conversions, changes to disabled classification and conversions to a camper-van are all possible. Here's another part of the VERA act. The purpose of this post is to document my experience with the DVLA, so back in August 2021, the 2nd to be exact, I filled out my V5 to change the fuel type to electric and tax class to electric. On the 14th of October I was asked to provide more details, receipts, photos etc.  I was also asked to fill out a V627/1 built up vehicle report. Below is the first letter I re...

Instrument cluster and CAN Bus

 The car has quite a simple instrument cluster, and a single CAN Bus network.  The instrument cluster is mostly simple signals but a few are required to keep it happy. The cluster has a dynamic oil pressure warning, meaning that over ~800rpm the oil pressure pin needs pulling to ground otherwise the cluster shows an error and beeps. The RPM signal is on the CAN Bus, ID 0x280 where Bytes 2 and 3: RPM*4, I'll have my custom ECU replacement send out this signal. 2 Other CAN BUS messages appear to be required:  0x 488, this contains a counter,  Byte 0: Counter 0-F << 4 + 8, Byte 1-4: 21, 21, 7E, A6, Byte 5-6: 0, Byte 7: Counter 0-F << 4 0x580, this also contains the counter and some static data,  Byte 0: 0x80 + counter 0-F,  Byte 1, 2: 0, Byte 3: sequence 0x0f, 0x28, 0x7f, 0x28, Byte 4: sequence 0x1e, 0x10, 0x00, 0x10, Byte 5: sequence 0x70, 0x56, 0xf0, 0x56, Byte 6: sequence 0x0c, 0x48, 0xa7, 0x48, Byte 7: sequence 0x46, 0x90, 0x28, ...

DVLA Inspection

I decided to try get the DVLA to update the V5 to electric for the 4th or 5th time, but this time I was told I'd need an inspection before the change could be made. The inspection was by a 3rd party company.  The guy turned up and took a load of photos, looking for the changes I'd made, and tallying up the points against the points system they use to decide if it's radically altered or not. Your vehicle must have 8 or more points from the table below if you want to keep the original registration number. 5 of these points must come from having the original or new and unmodified chassis, monocoque bodyshell or frame. Part Points Chassis, monocoque bodyshell (body and chassis as one unit) or frame - original or new and unmodified (direct from manufacturer) 5 Suspension (front and back) - original 2 Axles (both) - original 2 Transmission - original 2 Steering assembly - original 2 Engine - original 1 Given that I had the original gearbox, suspension, steering assembly and only ...