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Also working my new battery pack side project. Rear pack bench seat will have 2 x 6.7kWh and 2 x 5.3kWh modules. Hoping to use these parts I have lying around - contactor and fuse from BMW s-box

Contactor from Sbox likely wont survive quite a low current rating. Also check the coil spec to see if it needs an external economizer.

tom91 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 7:45 am Contactor from Sbox likely wont survive quite a low current rating. Also check the coil spec to see if it needs an external economizer.

Yes, clearly I haven't put enough thought into this yet. I looked up the specs, and it does look too wimpy, and is not economized internally so I'll pass on it.

I've seen various builds with second battery boxes having either no contactors, a single, or two contactors. Some being fused and some not. Is there a recommended option? I'm leaning towards a fuse and a single contactor, but interested in feedback from others

Fuse and single contactor is the minimum I would go for.

Making progress on the rear bench pack. Lots of wiring, slow going for me. All 8 bmb's now reporting correct voltages. I have a couple of thermistors reading temperature for now, will use the original Bolt temperature sensors which slide deep into the modules. I checked, and the Bolt sensors read pretty close to ambient temps.

On the HV side, current plan is to use a fuse mid row on the upper deck, and a contactor mid row on the lower deck (both between the left hand and right hand modules).

I have a nice run of HV cabling with connectors I got from a local friend who picked up some stuff from a EV company liquidation. It's 35mm^2. It's a smaller diameter than what I have been used to seeing on some builds, but I've seen differing opinions on what is needed. Modules will be connected (per picture) top left -top right-bottom right-bottom left

Welcome any feedback on the fuse & contactor configuration as well as the HV wire size before I get too far into these areas!

Getting close to finishing my rear bench seat battery pack a.k.a. 'the electric chair'. Added mid pack fuse and contactor, and was able to cut down and reuse bus-bar material from the original pack
Back on the Scout, I've been working on final welding and fitting of the roll bar, including seat belt bungs and load spreading plates under the floor.
I'm also in the market for some better rims and tires before I put some miles on this thing. Currently have the old Scout 5 x 5.5" rims with cheap adapters to the Jeep Wrangler axles which are 5 x 4.5" hubs, and decades old tires, so really want to get this all sorted before getting properly on the road. Planning on 31" tires to fill out the wheel wells and tempted to go mud-terrain tread mainly for the look, even though it will probably hurt the range somewhat.

I also realized that I cannot engage low gear, so I suspect I wired up the ECT connector incorrectly, and will need to sort that out.

I haven't changed out my oil pump bearings, and it's really noisy, so decided it is time. I have a spare transmission, so started changing out its pump bearings in order to do a quick rotor swap over onto the Scout:
That pump was clearly in better condition than the Scout pump, and it didn't quite turn out to be a quick pump rotor swap
It's all cleaned up and back together. It's quieter, but not as quiet as I would have hoped. The intermittent metallic rattly sounds have gone, and now it's just more of a drone.

Fixed the oil pump noise with a new set of tires

Finally got shifting working - turns out I did not have SL1+ and SL2+ wired up to 12V+. Wow this thing can accelerate in low speed! And with zombie release 2.30 it's really smooth compared to before. Hats off to the developers for getting zombie to where it is, truly amazing.

Now I'm running out of excuses to not start doing more bodywork. I also need mirrors and windscreen glass before I can hit the open road.

Started working on my doors - something I have been putting off for a long time. They are in really bad shape and I may need to look for a better set somewhere.

The hinges are frozen solid onto the doors with Phillips screws. I had to go all Scarface on them and 'say hello to my little friend' Noisy, but very effective