83 Mondial QV - EV conversion project using Tesla LDU

3x3. No worries. I'll look at the wire colors and narrow my search from there

Far as sunroof repair is concerned, I was told by the previous owner that they welded it shut. I have no idea what that means nor have I tested it by pouring water on the roof.
I guess at some point I will look for the manual mechanism or see how to access it.

Let me finish the electrical first

 

1) I'd never use the sunroof anyway. Its probably worth looking underneath but I'm not so worried about weight as I'll Gonna have plenty of torque to launch anyway. If the headliner was garbage (it's not - it looks to be in good condition), I might have considered asking my friend doing the body work to have his folks seal the roof entirely before repainting and then making a new headliner. I'll have to search here some more on this topic.
2) any tips on headliner removal?
I'm inclined to take it out now, and the leave it off until the car is repainted. I'm not going to a different color like you (just rosso Corsa again but this time with a clear coat) so completely stripping the shell before repainting matters less.

 

I've been spending the afternoon wiring things up.
- Horn, low beam, and high beam lights work again -- and this time there's no weird behavior with the relay constantly toggling when the lights turn on.
- The Engine/Trunk/Frunk release buttons work properly but they pop the new 10A fuse in the new panel; I may need to trigger them with relays OR add a resistor. I'll dig into this one later but I at least I know I have the right wires.

Q: When you turn on the low-beams, what else turns on?
- In addition to the lower level of light in the red housings in the rer, I suspect you want the corner lights (the small lights on the L&R front fenders and on the L&R rear fenders) as well, right?

Please confirm.
Thanks.

 

I know its a 16A fuse on the stock panel. What surprises me though is that it would sink so much current just to activate a solenoid.

---
Thanks for the guidance on what lights to turn on. Since I have a switch circuit from the center console mounted "parking lights switch" and a circuit from the low-beam lights I want to trigger without getting currents to flow backwards into the relay module, I ordered myself a pack of shockley diodes from Amazon.

 

Urs et al

Q: when aka under what scenarios should the interior trunk lights turn on? Mine are quite bright because they are LEDs now. I don't really need them but I have the wire pulled all the way to my new fuse panel so I might as well wire it in.

 

Thanks. I can wire them in to power on with the corner lights.
My next task will be to get the left and right turn signals working.
- I need to study your wiring diagrams to figure out how the turn signal stalk works.
- I did notice that the LR and RR turn signal wires run to the connectors on the firewall. I believe the wires then run to the turn signal stalk.
- My fuse panel takes a 12v pos for left or right as input and then sends power to FL,FR,RL, or RR turn signals as needed.
- I have two extra wires which connect to the red tail lights for parking mode pulled all the way to the front. I believe 2 were for powering the lights and 2 were for the check control functionality. if I need to extend the RL and RR turn signal lights, I can cut and use these wires instead.

 

Rewiring this car has become like scratching an itch. Once I've started, I just wanted to continue.

1) First, I decided to tear into the front wiring harness in order to a) remove some of the wiring that I no longer needed (Radiator Fan/AC compressor related), bundle in the vacbooster wiring, and clean up/label some of the connectors. I'm waiting on some grommets but the net result will be a lot cleaner both here AND in the frunk area where the wires emerge from the side fender liner.
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2) I also found some extra complexity that I didn't need in the rear of the car. Right now, there are two wires per side going to the brake lights for "parking mode" in addition to the third wire for the "brake" signal. Now, this probably makes sense when bulbs were all incandescent and had current requirements; I believe it wasn't for redundancy b/c communicating "Hey, I'm braking" is probably more critical than "hey I'm here don't run into me" and THAT function only uses one wire per light. To simplify things, I just modified the wire harness at the lamp holder so one wire supplies current to both bulbs. I now have 2 fewer wires running from the back to the front of the car and my harness going back to the car is complete.

3) I will repurpose a section of these two wires though for the Rear turn signals. That will be my project for this evening. Right now, they end on the firewall and then go to the turn stalk. I need to investigate how the turn stalk works and then run the wires as needed up to my new fuse panel to get that working.
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After that, its just the wipers, mister spray, hazard switch, and pop-ups and the 12V migration to a new panel will be done.

 

Oh, I'm a big fan of clear heat shrink tubing wherever I need to make splices. It might not look as clean but I can easily tell if theres a break by inspecting them.

 

Wiring is progressing smooothly. The turn signal stalks work (including the indicators on the tachometer/speedometer -- don't recall off the top of my head).

I also went back and redid a few of my splices. Instead of just splicing two wires together, soldering them and covering with heat shrink, I actually terminated the ends in small ring terminals and then used a tiny bolt/nut to hold the ring terminals together. The result is stronger and cleaner looking than just two bare wires and a glop of solder which may/may not hold long term. I want to build this car properly so this is the easiest time to redo the work.

For the turn signals, there are already wires in the stock loom that output 12V depending on direction through the hazard switch connector and to the stock loom.
The rear turn signals actually go from the rear of the car to connectors on the firewall and into the turn signal stalk. I removed these wires and directed them forward since I will be using the new panels turn blinker relay vs the stock one. I needed a new power source to go into the wiper stalk. Everything works with the turn signal except one difference: since the relay is downstream circuit wise from the turn signal stalk, the indicator lights on the gauge do NOT blink in sequence with the turn signal lamps. I could fix this by splicing the turn signal indicator lights into the wiring going to the rear turn signals (so it would be downstream of the blinker relay)... but not sure if its worth it. I'll probably do it anyway since the splice is easy to add onto (its a ring terminal -- if I want another wire, I just add another ring to the stack and heatshrink again).

Next Step: Get the Wiper/Washer stalk working
- This is a minor thing but I might as well fix this stuff before reassembly of the dash.
Q: How does the Wiper/Washer stalk work in a stock mondial?
I see three positions: center, up, down.
I see two turn positions: on, off.

Would someone (Urs?) mind explaining the different modes?
Thanks in advance,
-g


Now that all the excess wiring has been removed, I've already started resleeving the wires in techflex and adding new wall grommets where necessary.
After the wiper stalk, I just need to get the hazard switch and the pop ups working. Then my 12V system is done.
I'll build the plate to hold my race gauge in place and reassemble everything.

 

Thanks Urs. I may build in some intermittent wiper capability using an external controller. None of the stock wiper relays will be carried over.


More random questions:

Does the hazard button on the central console illuminate? All the time or just when depressed?
I'm going to use my new panels built in hazard mechanism so I only need it to supply 12v when turned on.

Also, what color should the channel be underneath the wiper faring once you remove all the grime and crusted diRt? Black or body colored?

 

Did your paint guy strip the fully strip scuzz in the cowl gutter or just clean it and repaint over it? I'm not 100% sure if its a rubberized coating over the original colored body (mine is red) OR just a few decades a grime; underneath the dirt I have cleaned off, it seems too uniform to be grime that I suspect it may be a rubberized coating.

 

I'm getting the chance to work on this car every night so I'm making decent progress: the Project is moving smoothly.

1) I'm looking for a few new grommets. If I cannot find them, I might have to get a friend to 3D print them. They need to seal well but IMO they dont need to be fireproof because if the batteries catch on fire, this car is a goner anyway.
* Round Grommet where the shifter rod came in (1.75" ID)
* Oval Grommet for the firewall with the frunk (2.25" x 1.7" ID)
* Oval Grommet on the passenger side where the rear lights pass through (1.75" x 2.25" ID) 45x57.5
Once I get the front firewall to frunk grommet in, I can run my simplified harness through the new grommet and mount the relay panel in a more permanent position.

Hazard Switch
2) I figured out that I only need 4 wires for the Hazard light (illumination power, ground, 2 wires for the hazard on (I'll feed it 12V and receive a 12V positive signal back). All the excess wires removed from the harness and its ready to wire up.

Next, I tackled the Wipers
3) First, I tested the wiper motor. For this motor, I found 2 ground wires and 2 wires to make it move: one for a low speed mode and one for a high speed model. Since there are two positions on the wiper stalk, I'll set these up for now. If I want some intermittent or slower wipers, I'll look at putting a timer circuit on the first position. Something like this will likely work:
https://www.amazon.com/12VDC-Windshield-Wiper-seconds-Assembled/dp/B07R4G5Q3P

4) At the wiper stalk, I tested based on Urs wiring diagram and found that 12V comes in on the Blue w/ Black wire and 12V is sent out one of 2 wires depending on whether you are in the middle or lower position.

For some reason, my wiper stalks do NOT offer a pull forward mode. Instead, on this 83 car, its just upper/middle/lower lever positions AND twist the knob.

Therefore, I plan to use the knob twisting as these mechanism to trigger the mister.
- With the knob untwisted, I get a grounded connection. With the knob twisted, the ground is broken.
- This struck me as odd as its a bit different than every other "knob/switch/button" I've found on the car which is either 12V or Ground when triggered. I believe this is because twisting was not for the mister BUT to trigger a "double time" relay or something like that. I believe I can still adapt a relay to work using this signal BUT if not, its a small issue if I don't get the mister working right now (the whole mister pump/hosing needs to be replaced all the way to the nozzles anyway). The key at least is I know which wire I need to work with and HOW it works.

Next Steps
Figure out why the fog light button wasn't working like the rest of the buttons on the dash AND finally tackle those infernal popups.

 

1) Thanks for the tips on the gaskets.
2) Pull back/forward - its just a question of perspective. We meant the same thing about what its supposed to do. Now, take a look at this picture for comparison. There is no pivot mechanism in the Z plane (in/out in relation to distance to the wheel). Any movement like that would seem to stress the shaft that the stalk pivots on. It doesn't matter though as I plan to repurpose the existing wiring

3) Remember that I have my own fuse+relay panel because I decided to take out the stock one while its working (will resell it). It contains a lot of functions I don't need for the EV so while I'm rewiring things, I might as well pull it out. Since I control both ends of the link, all I really need is to understand the signal and then I can wire things however I want as part of converting the signals from all the various car buttons/stalks to something I can wire to my new fuse+relay panel.
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On a stock Mondial: Top is off. Middle position is intermittent, Lower is all the time as you have said. twisting the knob makes it go faster/slower as you have said.

On my Mondial, top is off. Middle is slow speed wipe, Bottom if fast speed wide. Twisting will activate the sprayer.

I merely commented that the twist mechanism seems a little counter intuitive. When you rotate the knob forward (or clockwise), I would think that activates the knob. Rotating backward (counter clockwise), deactivates.
What I found odd (again, just an observation, as I don't need to 'fix' anything), is that rotating CW disconnects the red w/ black wire from ground (Hi-Z) and rotating CCW connects it to Ground.

I already have a relay module that converts ground trigger signals to 12V positive for my panel. I just found this behavior curious.

3.5) Since I'm about ready to list this fuse+relay module (already past the point of reverting to stock), what vehicles used the same fuse+relay panel?
Mine came from an 83-85 US spec Mondial QV

 

Q: Can one of you folks educate me on the rear defroster switch and the foglight switch?
For starters, how exactly do they work inside? I found a reference that they are basically rectifier flip flop switches where you press once to latch and press again to unlatch. Well, engineering school was a few decades ago but i still recognize the rectifiers. Seems overly complicated for what it did (SPST switches have been around for decades for higher current applications than this one).
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I opened them both up because they weren't working as expected. Both switch modules have 2 wires for the LED illumination. The rear window defroster as 3 other spade connectors in the back and the fog lights have 2.

- The other three buttons on my dash are momentary switches for the trunk/frunk/engine release. They all work just fine so I rewired them without any drama.

- I was working to wire in the foglights but my testing didn't show that it worked like expected. When I decided to check the switch itself, i figured it should be a SPST (so there are two positions, ON and OFF, with the two contacts in the back either connecting or not connecting). When I push the foglight switch button though, the connections in the back are not bridged (pink and pink w/ black). Pushing the button again does nothing.When I opened it up, I'm having a hard time understanding a) why its so complicated with a small PCB vs just a simple switch and b) how its supposed to work.

- While I don't really have a good test to confirm if the rear window defroster itself is operational, I did decide to test the defroster button and it also seems broken. In testing the contacts of the defrost button, the blue wire seems to lead downstream to the defroster element itself but I cannot find any combination of the three wires that become connected when you push the button. Pushing the button again does nothing.

Does anyone repair these switches or make a replacement that fits in the same position while keeping the same fascade? I may go down that route.

 

Thanks. I haven't pulled out the mini PCB just yet to check each of the solder joins but I went ahead and cleaned the contacts with contact cleaner as Jim @ OddParts advised that this is the most likely source of 'inoperability'. if it doesn't work, I'll look at alternative solutions.

I still maintain that this rectifier switch circuit inside these switches is overly complicated for what its supposed to do. Since the result out of the module is the same (connect two wires out the back and illuminate), I may just replace the guts of the switch with something mechanical (and cheaper).
Building this into the guts of the stock button won't be overly complicated.
https://www.amazon.com/DMWD-Waterproof-Anti-Vandal-Latching-Mounting/dp/B09K3ZGKFF