Elecktrikery

Time to have another go at the electrics, I thought.


The original design had the fuses for the back end located neatly Out-Of-The-Way in one of the stowage bins. So neatly OOTW, in fact, that they were damned difficult to get to if Elly was loaded. Added to that the Masterpiece of Design that now allows us to move the Engel fridge OOTW neatly denies access to them. Rather than risking a hernia trying to move a fridge full of booze and other cold essentials, the fuses had to be moved.

 This entailed removing the passenger seat, so we did a few little modifications to the fixings for that, so we could get easier access to the battery box....more of that later,

The fuse box has now been moved from the back of the bulkhead to the front. While this reduces the rearward travel of the seat by a tiny bit, the ease of access more than makes up for that. While the seat was out, another 12v socket was added to make life a bit easier under the awning.

The socket is supposed to be waterproof and it might well be, but the cover doesn't seem to be a close enough fit to keep water out, so we'll see how it performs - Amazon, standby for a complaint if it corrodes. Anyway, I took the time to label all the wires in the battery box with plastic discs or bits of tape to make tracing faults a bit easier in future. I suppose I should really make up some kind of diagram to show where all the wires are going, but for the moment the photos will do.

The biggest pain if you fit seats that don't have removeable squabs - and that's the vast majority of after-market seats for a Defender -is that access to the battery becomes impossible unless you take the whole seat out. This is a nuisance. We had a think about our arrangements and, by slightly modifying the front fixings the seat can be tilted backwards just enough to get useful access to the batteries.

I wouldn't recommend this arrangement for any complex work, but to disconnect the batteries for maintenance it'll work well enough. With this in mind I disconnected the main battery prior to trying to replace the standard 65A alternator with our spare 100A unit. Unfortunately I couldn't get the bolts undone! I dunno why they're so stiff but the effort needed to shift them was beginning to round off the bolt head on the upper bolt and the lower one wouldn't move at all. Rather than risking sheared bolts or knackered heads I replaced all the wires and retreated. We'll have a re-think on this one later.

With the electrics disconnected, though, we had a re-jig of the dashboard.

The new-look office

Gone is the "eye-level" binnacle. Everything has been moved one level down since the altimeter that was in the middle level didn't work particularly well. This clears the top of the dash and I've put the ashtray back where it came from but modified it to be the mount for the OSM- and Tripmeter tablet. 

The ashtray with a mounting plate installed

..and a backing plate to hold a small tablet

The backing plate is the one we made previously that hangs from the mirror mounting. Used this new way it can be road-legal and might mean we can get rid of the Garmin for some of the time. The Garmin is still quite useful for Olaf routes though, so we won't get rid of it completely.

The "horns" don't need to be this big so they'll be trimmed off eventually, although often when I do things like that I find that I could've found another use for the thing I've just cut up - if I hadn't been so quick with the saw. 
The ammeter still hasn't been wired in since the LEDs on the T-Max system (the blackbox-with-yellow-writing) give me as much info as I need regarding the charging process. It fills an otherwise gaping hole- like the CHT gauge -  but I'm thinking of putting something more useful in its place, maybe an oil pressure gauge. An electrical one will be fairly easy (hah!) to fit and be a bit more useful. 

The move wasn't straightforward, of course, given that it involved disconnecting, re-routing and reconnecting wires but I only blew one fuse and everything works as before. I think....

The angled mounting for the gauges lets me see the faces very easily but I think I'll have to put some kind of blanking plate over the top and maybe underneath to stop stray light leaking out.

The front work light is now, at last, wired in. I debated whether to route the wiring via a relay but as it only draws a few amps I've run the power straight through the switch. It doesn't look very bright, though.

Finally, we got around to applying some of the stickers that people in the trade very kindly donated. A big Thank You to:

and

 for their support for our 2018 plans. 

We've got quite a lot of new kit on Elly and a lot of it has come from the suppliers mentioned above.