Phantom Posted February 28, 2016 Share Posted February 28, 2016 (edited) The winter weather is winding down and I've had the Z out a few times to be sure it is OK. During the winter I pulled the passenger side taillight assembly and sent it off to ZLEDslights for a warranty repair. One small LED had gone out. He turning it around in two days and it;s back in the car working fine. Today I pulled the stock "dual" gauges out of the car. The Voltmeter had become schizophrenic and either my oil pressure gauge or the sender is bad and since the sender was replaced a year ago I'm sending out the gauge to have it checked. APT Instruments - here they come. In the meantime I'm driving the car with a big hole in the center of the dash. Edited February 28, 2016 by Phantom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahsZ Posted February 28, 2016 Share Posted February 28, 2016 Lightening holes. Should be 2-3 mph faster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted February 28, 2016 Author Share Posted February 28, 2016 Figure it will save me about .001 sec in the 1/4 mile too! Drove the car that night and noticed I had a burned out dash bulb that will be easily replaced while its apart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted March 2, 2016 Author Share Posted March 2, 2016 (edited) Took the gauges to UPS on Monday to send them off and the car started behaving very strangely - rpm was surging causing it to buck while at a constant throttle - just before I arrived at the UPS store. Shut it down, delivered the gauges for shipment, and then went back to the car to return home. It wouldn't start - it would barely crank over. Couldn't see what the issue was under the hood and it had started fine at the house and run fine up until the last 1/4 mile from UPS. Called my son to have him come and jump me and settled in to wait. After about 15 minutes I decided to give it another try and it started right up and seemed to be running ok. I immediately headed for home and called my son letting him know I was trying to make it back on my own but I might still need him. As soon as I got onto I-82 it started bucking again and really didn't want to accelerate. Then I looked down and my tach said I was turning about 1,000 RPM when it should have been more like 3,000. Then I looked at the speedometer it said '0'. I have a CableX speedometer converter in the car so it obviously wan't working either. When I changed lanes i notice my signals seemed a little slow and the indicator light on the dash seemed dim. Long story short I made it home, just barely. Symptoms suggested I check the voltage on the 14 yr old Optima Redtop and it was a solid 8 volts. It evidently had imploded on the drive to UPS. I am totally impressed that the LS1 would even start and run in that situation. Good thing it did though as my son was also stranded at work with a loose battery cable and his truck wouldn't start. Have a new Braille GU1R coming my way. Edited March 2, 2016 by Phantom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted March 3, 2016 Author Share Posted March 3, 2016 Well, I guess it's like Texas Hold 'em - I'm "all in" for the Braille GU1R Lithium battery complete with side mount kit, hold down kit, and a battery tender designed for lithium batteries. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alainburon Posted March 4, 2016 Share Posted March 4, 2016 I hear that's a good battery, not cheap but then again nothing good is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted March 4, 2016 Author Share Posted March 4, 2016 We'll find out next week when everything arrives. In the meantime I need to go ahead and get the Optima out of the car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted March 7, 2016 Author Share Posted March 7, 2016 Got a call from APT Instruments today and the gauges I sent them are repaired. They recalibrated a couple and replaced a broken spring on the voltmeter. They are headed back today. Good news is that there was nothing wrong with the oil pressure gauge so the bad news is that it's either the sender, which I just replaced a year ago, or the wiring has a short in it somewhere.. They gave me a tutorial on how to trouble shoot the wiring so should be able to resolve it pretty quickly. Good folks. Reasonably priced and quick turn-around as they just got the gauges Friday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alainburon Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 Good to hear you had a positive experience with them guys. They were great to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted March 24, 2016 Author Share Posted March 24, 2016 (edited) OK - so I'm going to relate a story just to show how screwed up I can get when I'm dealing with electrical stuff. Hope you get a good laugh at my expense. Sooo.....in my third post on this thread I told the saga of the implosion of my 14 year old Braille battery. Interestingly, sitting on the bench, it seems to be holding about 12.1volts. Not good, but definitely better than 8 volts. So the new Braille battery arrived with the special battery tender required for Lithium batteries, the top post to GM side mount adapters and a battery hold down that it turns out I didn't actually need. When it arrived I checked it with my Fluke meter and it read 13.51 volts. That definitely confirmed Brailles statement about the Lithium batteries running a higher voltage. I then proceed to carefully attach the cable adapters to the battery making sure the positive marked one went with the positive terminal, etc. So far, so good. Those adapters probably weigh a quarter of what the battery weighs. Stout units. I then reworked my battery tray to ensure the hold down would hook in properly and then installed the battery. That's where things got interesting. Because of the location of the new mounts (higher than original), I had to "stretch" the positive cable a bit to reach it. In the process, unnoticed by me, the connector in the cable slid back down the polymer cap and I ended up not making a connection on that terminal. Continuing obliviously along I connected the negative cable and tightened it up using an adjustable wrench. Remember what mechanics say about adjustable wrenches? That thought crossed through my mind but I proceeded anyway. I finished it up and slid into the car to fire it off for the first time. Turned the key and ---nothing, absolutely nothing. Got back out of the car and started inspecting the battery. Checked it again at 13.51 volts but, when I pulled on the positive cable I felt it move within the polymer cap. Unbolted the positive cable again, checked it out, and realized what had happened with the connector so I pushed it back up into the cap where it belonged and got the bolt going properly thorough it and bolted it back to the battery. Of course, while tightening the terminal bolt down again, I accidentally grounded the wrench out to the car body with a mighty flash and the smell of ozone. I knew to be more careful but I wasn't. I surely was after that, though. Now, with a good positive connection, I got back into the car and slowly turned the key. Got to the accessory position and the fuel pump started and built up to pressure and shut off - sounding good so far. Then I twisted ti to start and got a "click" but nothing else. Superlative deleted!! Tried that a few more times and things got progressively worse until even the fuel pump didn't fire off. So now I'm thinking that something either happened to the ECU or another component when I drove the car on 8 volts when the Optima imploded or when I grounded out the positive terminal. Hands in the air in surrender I called the auto electric shop about 3 miles from the house, explained the issue, and asked them if they felt comfortable chasing down the problem on a hybridized car. Yup, no problem. Now I just needed to get it there which meant a tow and working with the tow truck driver to not bugger up the car when he transported it. I had also read in the Braille literature that I was NOT to try to jump start the car with a Lithium battery in it and I could just see that happening at the auto electric shop. In addition, I had the gauges off to APT and dash parts were laying all over the inside of my car. I decided to wait on the trip to the shop until I could put the dash back together. FWIW - APT did a great job on the gauges. Checked them all out, repaired the voltmeter, and recalibrated the fuel gauge. Oil pressure gauge is good so it's either the wiring or the sender - again. Ok - rabbit trail aside and back to the original story. I made a week long trip to Seattle just after the gauges arrived to help my younger son out, procrastinated another 4 days away, and then finally went out to face the music with the car this morning. Oh - one other thing - my older son, DarthZ, had taken a look at my installation and mentioned to me that he thought my negative (ground) cable was loose. Remember my comment earlier about the adjustable wrench? I was using it on a very small and soft bolt head and stopped tightening just as it started to try to round the head off. Coming to my senses I got a proper sized socket and attempted to tighten it further - and it tightened further - a lot further. Anyway, I'm back out at the car so I take the new battery tender off, set it aside, and slide back into the car to try one more time before calling the tow truck. Turning the switch to accessory the fuel pump fired off normally which was a good start. When I went to the start position I didn't get the click I'd gotten before. Instead, the engine fired right off, idled at 2,000 for about 5 seconds and then dropped back to the normal low idle. Oh wow! My car is alive again and nothing seems to be broken or operating improperly. I took it for a drive. The engine was smooth and very responsive, the voltmeter was working correctly, and the speedometer and tachometer as well as the lights were working properly too. Nothing but good news. Since I'm not certain when I'll be driving the car next I hooked the Braille tender back up and plugged it in and, since it's a 'smart' tender, it gave me a reading that says my brand new battery is "severely depleted". Another expletive deleted. I unplug the tender, allow it to reset, and plug it back in again. Same result. While I'm standing there, once more in panic mode, I decide to do something that I know I can do that will at least accomplish something. I then started to untangle the old battery tender - the one for lead-acid batteries - from the new one with the intent of stowing it away in a cabinet when I noticed something. Yet another expletive deleted. I had hooked up the terminal clamps from the old tender to the battery and the clamps from the new tender were hanging inside a cardboard box on top of my roll-around cart. Mentally smacking myself in the forehead repeatedly i pulled off the wrong clamps, hooked up the right ones, and the readings went to wonderful and I entered the euphoria zone again. You think maybe I should have let my son install the battery for me since he saw my problem right away and I could have saved myself a lot of anguish? You're probably right except he wasn't able to get his '71 Chevy 3/4 ton to start on Monday morning to go to work so had to have his wife take him and pick him up. Once he got home and started troubleshooting the connectors at the starter, the wiring, etc. he noticed that the gear selector wasn't in park. He put it in park and the truck fired right up. No problems. Guess it runs in the family. Couple photos of the new Braille GU1R. Edited March 24, 2016 by Phantom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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