eboggs_jkvl

I thought this might be of interest on the forum. It is a external magnetic connection for a C-Tek to my C7. I do not worry about driving away wit the C-tek wire still hooked up to my car. Nor do I worry about the trunk being closed with the wire sitting in the weather stripping to do something nasty to the C-Tek, the stripping, or the paint. It is on the front of my car and if I fail to disconnect it and back out of the garage, the magnetic connection simply falls off and drops to the garage floor.

The first part is my work on the C7 with the stock grill. The last 3 pictures show the connection on my C7 with the Z06 grill.


Well, now that I have a C7, I kept my battery maintainer equipment from the C6 to use on the C7. Ok, nothing is ever that easy, right? Well it wasn't. The C7 has absolutely no place to mount the connection to the car. No area is flat enough to mount the connector. So, I improvised! :p

EDIT::: I changed my grill to the Z06 style so.... these pictures show the stock grill setup and the last 3 pictures is what I did for the Z06 grill.

First, I took apart the connection to where I had the connector, front washer, bracket, rear washer, and fastening nut.





I then pulled the European tow hook piece of the front grill. Top row, 2nd rectangle. Grasp it on the center side and pull out toward you. It is held in place by two fingers on the top and one finger on the bottom







I used the washer ring as a marking guide and located it under the grill section and marked it with pieces of masking tape.






I used a cutting wheel on my Dremel to make the initial 4 cuts on the grill panel.










It was almost perfect but needed a little tweak. I put a grinder wheel on the Dremel and removed a hair width of material from the 4 studs. I kept doing that until the barrel slid in nice and snug onto the grill section.



The grill width would not allow me to use the rear washer but it fastened very solidly with just the locking ring. When you fasten it in place, set the notch on the connector to point horizontally toward the passenger headlamp.







Now, run the wire into the square opening next to the air temp sensor. It was large enough to take the end connectors and the inline fuse with no problems. When you have most of the line pulled through into the engine bay, return to the front to shove in the remaining wire and then snap the grill panel back into place.




Here is the wire coming from the ATS hole





Route the wire under the air breather duct and get it back to the area of the ground connection.

This is the ground point that I will use for the wire.





This is the positive battery connection I will use for the wire.




a wider shot.




Here is my positive wire attached. When I tightened it down, I made sure to turn the wire to be a 90 degrees and pointing straight toward the fender. If you don't do that, the cap may not close back down onto the positive post. Note!! The handle sitting in the way of getting a socket on to the nut can be pivoted up and out of the way. There are two tab releases that allow the handle to pivot up. I moved it just enough to gain straight access to the positive nut with a 13mm socket

2 views.









I used black loom tubing to cover all my wiring. I tapped all the ends to keep the loom in place and I fastened the loom to the pipe running near the ground with a wire tie. I was worried that the wire might blow up into the fan belt and make a mess.











The final 2 pictures are my car sucking in electrons from the C-Tek battery maintainer!












Didn't screw anything up and I feel much better with this device in place.


Another modification to my 6 day old car!


UPDATE::::

Since I changed out my OEM grill for the Z06 grill, I had to redo the grill connection. Here are the pictures of my new setup.









Note: The prongs on the inside will touch the metal of the frame using this location. I bent the prongs as flat as I could and then put a piece of velcro on the frame and glued it in place under the prongs to act as an insurance insulator against getting an accidental short.


Elmer

KenHorse

Curious to see how those contacts hold up....

eboggs_jkvl

Same parts I had on my C6, I just reused them on the C7. I have to clean the bug gut hits off for a good connection but other than that, no issues since 2008 or so with the parts.

Elmer

Mako72

Nicely done!

4thC4at60

Am on my sixth Corvette (since 1990).... approaching 800,000 miles in Corvettes since January of '90 - never a problem with "keeping the battery topped up" as I drive mine.....

Elk

Excellent idea and well done!

mcoomer

Not a mod for everyone, but as a MacBook Pro user I definitely like my MagSafe power adapter. Get it close to the power adapter and it snaps right into place. Still, have to agree with some of the other comments about protecting the contacts. I'd worry about road grime shorting those contacts eventually. Maybe you could fashion a magnetic cover with a gasket to seal it off when not in use.

dvilin

Just plug my maintainer into the rear port shut the hatch can not get any simpler than that.

ShagVette

Haven't done this mod yet, but a while back when I was researching it, found they do have a small cap cover available.

owc6

Great job!

If I didn't drive mine every day, I would be all over this.

Added benny is if you forget to unhook before driving off, it just pops off.

joemessman

If I was mechanically minded I would do that for a fun and useful project. Excellent. But I'm going to have to stay with my window sticker placard reminding me it is plugged in on the driver side window. Now if I could just remember to slap the placard on the window.

Kevin A Jones

Simple enough to just plug into my trunk charging port and call it a day.

DALE#3

I know the winters are long.But Dam.Put a 2x4 behind the rear wheel for a reminder to not move.

Vetteman Jack

Excellent write up. Way to think outside the box and come up with a good mounting solution for the battery charger.

John Harry

I put a piece of cardboard on the outside of the driver's side windshield. Takes a second, can't miss it.

acroy

Very slick!

Those contacts are 'hot' all the time - ever had them short & pop the fuse?

eboggs_jkvl

Contacts are wired directly but need the magnet pull to "engage" them for the charge. SO, you can put a VOM on the 2 contacts and get no reading. If you disconnect the magnet head from the c-tek cord and put the head on the contacts, you can get the 12v reading from the battery on the leads from the magnetic head.

Elmer

eboggs_jkvl

How about a 40 gallon metal garbage can upside down with 25 empty aluminum beer cans stacked on top? Put that in the path of the car and that'll remind you pretty good too! My way is automatic, it just falls to the floor and does not tax my brain cells to remember to disconnect before I break some stuff!

Elmer

V Vette

Excellent! Thanks...

~Stingray

How does this work? You plug it into the back port then hook it up to the battery. Wouldn't this be using the battery to charge the battery?