BV boiling vessel cabling help

[teletech]

I have a Spartan and based on the schematics and the connector, I'm pretty sure I know where the BV is supposed to connect.

I also have a BV cable that looks fine as far as I know.  Thing is, I can't plug the one into the other because the key is rotated such that the right angle on the BV cable interferes with the hull.  So, either the connector on the junction box is rotated, the connector on the BV cable is rotated, or just possibly I have the wrong cable (though it mates with the BV fine and looks like it would work fine but for the rotation)?

The cable end appears non-trivial to disassemble to rotate, like perhaps the wires are potted?

 

[Mk3iain]

You could open the box and rotate the socket, that would keep the cable original and you could use any other bv cable.

To rotate the plug it is quite easy except for pulling the wires through the rubber grommets. Please see the pictures. It all comes apart once the wires are pulled through the grommet you can rotate the 90deg back-shell tacking care not to rip out a wire.  They are soldered to buckets that you can get to after pulling away the other rubber grommet at the plug.  Use lots of lube (Hellerine if you can get it) and just take you time working it a bit at a time.  The back-shell keys onto the segments you can see on the smaller inner ring so there are loads of positions it will lock into.

Hopefully that makes some sense....😳

 

 

[teletech]

I agree rotating the socket seems easier, I just didn't want to do that and find my cable was wrong and now I'd made the vehicle nonstandard and can't use other BV cables.

Thanks for the very helpful description and picture.  My 90 degree shell is one piece so I suspect of being slightly harder to pull apart, but otherwise it looks annoying but very achievable.  Funny they use the same wire gauge for the relay activation wires as the power wires.

[Mk3iain]

I have checked some other cables that are unused and the plug orientation varies, one is set at 45deg to yours and I have one with a straight plug and the socket end has a 90deg back-shell. They may be different part numbers but so much for keeping originality. It does not seem to matter.

[lowfat]

Just loosen and rotate the back shell on the plug. It’s a usual occurrence to have to rotate the back shell 

[teletech]

Thanks to those who reassured me it was fine to rotate the shell and to show the whole thing opened.  I rotated mine with a minimum of harsh language and subsequently looked up the part number and the ones I saw for sale and advertised as new had the orientation mine started with and also 180 degrees out, so it apparently is quite common. 

Not to get too far into CVR(T) specific questions here, but the junction box has a couple other connectors on it, the 4-pin (shown) and a 5-pin on the opposite side, of which only 2 pins pass through.  I've no idea what those are for, so any help there would be very welcome.

[andym]

Judging by the diagram, the 4-pin connector is something to do with the NBC fan and scavenge blower.  It seems to be intended to prevent the NBC fan starting unless the engine is running.

Andy

[teletech]

43 minutes ago, andym said:

Judging by the diagram, the 4-pin connector is something to do with the NBC fan and scavenge blower.  It seems to be intended to prevent the NBC fan starting unless the engine is running.

Andy

The NBC bit is clear, the confusion is the junction box the BV cable plugs into.  Two connectors that are undocumented on that schematic and also the main schematics I found:

 

Spartan_wiring_diagram.pdf

[andym]

I'm rather confused. Do you have a photo of the undocumented connectors?

[teletech]

18 hours ago, andym said:

I'm rather confused. Do you have a photo of the undocumented connectors?

The photo I posted at the top shows the BV cable adjacent to it's electrically-matched connector.  The connector on the right is one of the two undocumented connectors,

[andym]

That just looks like a pair of BV connectors to me?

[teletech]

On 2/11/2023 at 3:56 AM, andym said:

I'm rather confused. Do you have a photo of the undocumented connectors?

 

8 hours ago, andym said:

That just looks like a pair of BV connectors to me?

That would actually be pretty cool to have if the electrics would support it, but no.

One connector has an unthreaded body to go with the push-on BV cable, the other is a normal threaded connector.  I've attached pictures of the inside of the box as well so you can see that there are just two small wires passing through on the 5-pin-to-4-pin side.

[andym]

Very odd.  Note that the threaded end of a BV cable goes to the box, the unthreaded end to the BV.

Andy

[Mk3iain]

3 minutes ago, andym said:

Very odd.  Note that the threaded end of a BV cable goes to the box, the unthreaded end to the BV.

Andy

Would that give a parking slot for the BV cable and then give an output for something else ?

 

[andym]

It's a very strange box as all it really seems to do is convert a five pin connector to a four pin one. 

I'm not an expert on CVRTs - is it even a standard fitment, I wonder?

Andy

[teletech]

On 2/13/2023 at 4:54 AM, Mk3iain said:

Would that give a parking slot for the BV cable and then give an output for something else ?

 

Seems unlikely as the BV cable on that side doesn't provide power and clearly the junction box is supposed to do something with the connected cable.

On 2/13/2023 at 5:46 AM, andym said:

It's a very strange box as all it really seems to do is convert a five pin connector to a four pin one. 

I'm not an expert on CVRTs - is it even a standard fitment, I wonder?

Andy

It's on the schematics for the vehicle and both of the Spartans I've played with have it, so it's at least not a one-off.

[teletech]

After fussing around with the end to get the connector rotated, I discovered the threaded locknut was too small to fit over the unthreaded BV port.  I fired up the lathe and basically made a simplified duplicate of the part on the other end of the cable.  It now fits great and should work fine.

[teletech]

Of course, the universe seems to have a sense of humour... some days after I finally have a BV cable that should work fine, I was digging through my piles of CVR(T) CES and found a lovely FV605190/1, which is obviously perfect in fit and function for the Spartan BV setup.

I still don't know about the other connectors on the junction box, but the BV situation is well and truly sorted!