Odds & Ends Part IX

It's getting to the point where most tasks on the car are little "one offs". Here's what happened yesterday.

1. I determined a place for the shunt that Link 10 meter will use. I haven't mounted it yet because I need one other thing in place first. But I did run the wires that go between it and the Link 10 meter. I also ran a couple other wires for the meter. I haven't mounted the meter yet but I'll probably do that today. The Link 10 meter will be the car's new fuel gauge. It tells you how much power you've used and how much you have left.

2. To secure the battery boxes down to the frames they'll be sitting in, I drilled some holes in them that line up with the bolts in the frames. In other words, the bolts will run through the bottom of the box, then the frame it sits in and down to the supports we'd welded in place months ago.

3. I built the bracket that will hold the accessory battery. It's going to sit in a little pocket in the trunk on the right hand side. But I can't have it flopping around, so I built a bracket that will tie it to the frame. I didn't mount the battery is place yet because I'm waiting on some cable to arrive so that I can tie it to the car's existing 12 volt system. Once I get the cable and lugs I can finish that up as well as tie the DC to DC converters to the 12 volt system.

4. Oh, and I replaced the after market gear shift knob for the original that has the "M" logo on it. This particular Z3 is an M version; but only to the extent that the gear shift knob and the steering wheel say "M" on them. Nothing else on the car has anything in common with the true M series Z3. I can't understand why BMW would water down the reputation of their performance brand by doing something so silly. Probably the idea of some pinhead marketing flunky.