My throttle-box (AKA pot-box - short for potentiometer box) is here!
It was a birthday present from my mum and it arrived while waiting for the motor so I went about finding an ideal spot to install it.
Sure beats socks & undies for a birthday gift huh? :)
The first problem I encountered was the fact that it's obviously designed for the American market where the accelerator cable pops through on the other side of the car's firewall.
This means that in a left-hand-drive EV, the accelerator cable goes from the left side of the car, through the firewall, turns right and connects to the throttle-box arm. When the gas pedal is pressed, the arm is pulled towards the driver. Simple stuff.
Now take that pot-box and have the same cable coming from the other direction and you'll find a problemski!
I tried to mount the pot-box so that the arm is on the top but I didn't have any luck. The engine bay side of the right wheel well was the obvious choice but the surface had no flat area on it.
In the end I settled for mounting it next to the latch for the bonnet release but had to mount it upside down.
Depending on where you are in the world, it's still considered the 'right way up' if you're in the northern hemisphere!
As you can see in the photo below, I also mounted a little L bracket for the accelerator cable to run through to stop it moving about too much.
One main problem I had was getting the overly flexible cable to stay put while I fastened the washer that held it in place. Unfortunately the coupling I threw together doesn't look as high-tech as I wanted but that's the best the hardware store had to offer.
Some sort of clampable double-O thingy would have looked better but that nut/bolt & 2 washers idea works very well. The cable refuses to come off no matter how hard I try. It moves very smoothly off the accelerator pedal too, just like the engine's still there.
While I was in the hardware store buying the nuts & washers I found a box of battery hydrometers heavily discounted and grabbed one for $4!
I taught myself how to use it (bloody simple too) and quickly learnt that my old spare battery that I rescued from a bin weeks ago has one dead cell, so it's putting out just under 12 volts. Still handy for testing electrics & things but no good to start a car with. I'll be using the hydrometer a lot in the future so was pretty chuffed to find one for so little money.
A few days after I'd installed the pot-box I was contacted by another kiwi who's starting his own EV conversion up in Auckland. He reminded me that here in New Zealand it's a requirement to have an additional spring connected to the pot-box, in case the pot-box internal spring fails and the car gets stuck at full throttle.
So after that news I scooted down to the hardware store again and grabbed a shiny new L-bracket and a shiny new spring imported from the USA and connected them to the pot box. Everything went fine and now there are three springs in total from the gas pedal to the firewall. Crikey. Do converters in the USA have these odd rules too?
Luckily after all that the pedal still flows very smoothly and springs back well. Overall a good job - Have a look at the video of the pot-box progress below:
