Wednesday, November 4, 2020

A Necessary Mod? This Should Have Been An OEM Option...

In taking out all of the unnecessary and sloppy wiring that had been installed by others, there was one item I actually kept - kind of.  In fact given how quickly the battery tends to go dead in these cars, I think all GT-R owners should have one of these.

Ok not the best shot but here is how it arrived in its package:

I picked this one up in late 2011, but until I took my car to Worx I had simply used the included clamps to attach the leads to the battery, putting the CTEK charging unit itself into the trunk, and leaving the trunk slightly open to run the power plug to the wall.  

Nakamura at Worx had used the included direct connector (that connects directly to the battery) lead (circled in green below) and modified it.


And it was clever, right above the rear license plate there is an OEM rubber plug/grommet with wiring coming out to power the light bulbs for the rear license plate - and so it was easy to pass the wiring through this plug and leave the connector to be easily accessed (and then tucked away behind the license plate when not in use).

Green arrow points to the connector

The problem, however was that in order to extend it so it was long enough to connect to the battery he hacked this connector lead - in essence using the connector portion but dispensing with (cutting off) the in-line fuse holder.

If you look at the below, the arrow is pointing to the wiring he connected to the CTEK connector, which he then ran all the way to connect to the fuse holder he had mounted in the area next to the battery.  The fuse is still there, however it is now mounted on this fuse block, with other circuits (all positive side leads). So in theory this should work just fine. 

Green arrow points to the CTEK positive lead

But once I removed this fuse block, I was left over with only this really long lead, and without an in-line fuse holder; as with all things Worx I was really, really tempted to remove it, but since he had done a good job of tucking the connector behind the license plate, and then passing the lead through a rubber grommet into the trunk, I decided to keep it - but only after I improved it.

First, I had to restore the in-line fuse holder. After some searching online I found this:

So it was then just a matter of soldering this in, and then soldering a flat head electrical terminal (to allow a bolt to connect it to the battery) but the next problem was, for some reason the wiring he had done was unnecessarily long - so I ended up actually cutting off quite a bit off to eliminate excess. This then allowed me to zip tie it in a relatively stealth way to the OEM loom (green arrow).


You can also see how here I have wired up the fuseholder and then connected it to the positive battery terminal.

And the end result?

Yep, able to charge the car battery without opening the trunk lid, with no excess wiring taking up extra space inside the trunk - AND with the reassurance that the CTEK circuit is properly protected.  

More to come!