Discarnect Fitted
Discarnect Fitted
Author
Discussion

stickylabels

Original Poster:

840 posts

109 months

Monday 6th April 2020
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Not exactly exiting news but with the car being off the road even longer and time to pass I thought I'd give it a go as my Cerb does like to drain the battery (somewhere in the alarm system I think) and this is a cheap work around.

1st problem was my battery is the other way around with negative sitting under the wing, 2nd was was there enough positive cable to route around as the disconnect system must work off the neg side. Undid lots of old zip ties across the bulkhead and did some very careful re-routing trying not to create any stress on cables. Ended up with just enough pos cable to be able to turn the battery around. Phaffed around with various trial fits until I was happy nothing could cause a problem, added extra sheathing for protection, zip tied back up and job done.

You can just with fingertips reach the connector via the hole in the bulkhead cover and the car seems happy enough on an up and down the driveway road test. Lets see if it starts tomorrow!!

sticky

Penelope Stopit

11,209 posts

126 months

Monday 6th April 2020
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Nicely done, but.....

Break the neg ?

Nothing needing a supply for memory ?

stickylabels

Original Poster:

840 posts

109 months

Tuesday 7th April 2020
quotequote all
Yes, they are designed to work off the negative terminal. They don't actually fit on a positive terminal hence turning the battery around as I can't get my mitts under the wing to turn the the thing off/on.

You can still retain some systems live if you wish, so my ctek terminals still work for charging purposes. The radio loses its memory which is no biggie for me and I'm not aware of any cells that require charge (someone will be along to correct that in a mo!) unlike my old e30 which needed some power for the check board cells for example. The alarm itself maybe used to have these but it hasn't made any noise in a long time and that is just fine!

cheers
sticky.

Penelope Stopit

11,209 posts

126 months

Tuesday 7th April 2020
quotequote all
stickylabels said:
Yes, they are designed to work off the negative terminal. They don't actually fit on a positive terminal hence turning the battery around as I can't get my mitts under the wing to turn the the thing off/on.

You can still retain some systems live if you wish, so my ctek terminals still work for charging purposes. The radio loses its memory which is no biggie for me and I'm not aware of any cells that require charge (someone will be along to correct that in a mo!) unlike my old e30 which needed some power for the check board cells for example. The alarm itself maybe used to have these but it hasn't made any noise in a long time and that is just fine!

cheers
sticky.
Ok then, nice job

E30 service interval boards with dodgy electronics or batteries, them were the days

Lost count of how many...............

Keep well

RUSSELLM

6,001 posts

264 months

Wednesday 8th April 2020
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My negative for the battery is under the wing, but I’d always presumed that was correct ?

The cover over the top of the battery, has a hole to reveal a terminal, and that hole is nearest to the engine.

I’d presumed that hole was for getting a jump lead on to the positive. With your negative then going on to part of the engine.

Edited by RUSSELLM on Wednesday 8th April 14:12

stickylabels

Original Poster:

840 posts

109 months

Wednesday 8th April 2020
quotequote all
Hi Russell, yes that’s how my one was laid out too. The terminal hole allowed access to the +ve terminal. I’d never successfully managed to jumpstart it doing it that way so plumbed in a couple of leads for a little booster cell I already had and the connectors for the ctek. So far seems to work just fine but until I can use it normally its difficult to tell and if not its not much work to return to normal. The disconnect thing was only around £6 off the zon so a lot cheaper than replacing expensive alarm bits I don’t want to hear anyway!

sticky