Sunday, August 2, 2020

More LEDs and Upgraded Battery

Next to Titanium wheel bolts/nuts, the other thing I've standardized on all my cars is LED bulbs everywhere I can. They offer better illumination, generate little to no heat while in operation and don't draw as much current which for an old 911 is always a plus. 

LED interior dome lights

Replaced the glove box light too

I picked up some nice bright festoon bulbs from Superbrighleds.com and it was a nice easy swap. Visibility is night and day so using my iPhone flashlight to find things inside the car at night is now a thing of the past. 

New festoon LEDs 
Original bulb vs LED

When I changed out the headlight rings a few weeks ago, I noticed that the old gasket was broken for both headlights. This is no good as I don't want water getting behind the headlight. Picked up some new gaskets and swapped that in as well.

Fresh headlight gasket

One other thing I picked up earlier in the build but didn't get to install yet was the new lightweight battery. I wanted to wait until all the electrical weak points were taken care off before putting in a new battery just in case it got damaged from things like a malfunctioning alternator. My biggest reason for getting rid of the battery in the car now is because it's a standard flooded battery.  I'm always worried about those getting acid leaks and corroding the metal underneath it. I was a bit worried what I'd see under the battery today to be honest as I saw quite a bit of white powder around the base of the battery and even on the bolt for the battery hold down. First I had completely disconnect this old Summit Racing killswitch that the previous owner installed. I don't know why you'd install a kill switch in such a way that it actually blocks a battery from being changed easily but I was glad to see it go since it also prevented my frunk mat from laying down properly.

Old Summit Kill Switch

After taking off the crazy 50lb Group 49 Interstate battery, I was pleasantly surprised to see no real issues on the metal underneath it. I just had to clean off the white dust from the battery sulfation but no rust or corrosion was detection so at the very least, a battery had never exploded in this compartment before.

Old Group 49 battery

Nice empty spot for the new battery

For the replacement I was sure I wanted an AGM battery to avoid any issues in the future. I didn't want to go Lithium as I'm not sure if these old charging systems will do the right thing with more modern batteries. I also didn't want to go extreme light since this isn't a race car and I still wanted good reliability. I settled with the Odyssey PC925MJT (metal jacket) and bought the Rennline battery mount with killswitch. This battery is still around 25lbs so while it cut the battery weight in half, it's still got some heft to it. Not an issue on a car that's super light in the front to begin with. 

Odyssey PC925MJT

I really love how nice this mount is. The battery is held very securely and I can mount the battery kill switch right next to it.

PC925MJT in Rennline battery mount
New battery, mount and kill switch installed - 8-2-2020

I still have to replace all the external bulbs with LEDs and change the flasher relay so it'll all operate normally but this concludes the electrical updates to the car.