Street Legal

Got the sticker

Charging at work today

Huge day for me last Tuesday and then today as well. ERX was inspected by the BAR Referee and registered. I decided to drive to work today and all went very well. I stayed on surface streets and it was about 25 miles. I do not have any meters in the car yet, so I can't push the range too much since I am pretty blind as far as how much power has been used. I can charge at work, so I should be fine going home. Lots of work to do still though. Meters, charge port in the gas cap area, paint, fix some metal on metal squeaking in the hatch where the batteries are, lexan sheet and carpet over the batteries in the hatch, adjustments to the controller to give it a little more pickup in 2nd and of course the radio. Many other odds and ends as well as probably going through the entire build bolt by bolt and make sure they are all still secure after this little shake down testing period.

It has been a long 4 years, but I have learned so much about electric vehicles, systems and cars in general. A great project and fun to drive. Once I get the car looking nicer and running well I will think about taking it to some EV shows, or conservation type gatherings.

Woo Hoo! Feels so good!

Rear Spring upgrade and Front Brakes

I used my first temporary moving permit to take ERX to Pep Boys on Monday and had the rear springs upgraded from the stock CRX springs to some slightly larger/stiffer Acura Integra springs. This lifted the rear about 2" and is perfect now. The tires were rubbing on the wheel well due to the larger wheels and the weight of the batteries in the hatch area. Once I sit my 250 lbs in the car, it sat real low and any bump at all would cause the rear tires to rub. I took the car around town quite a bit after the upgrade and it drove real nice. I could drive much more confidently and hit bumps without worry. I may need to raise the front slightly, so either a spacer or an adjustable shock may be in order.

I also hoped to upgrade the front brakes to Integra calipers and rotors, but they said the knuckles on the car were not a correct fit, so I need to investigate this further. Maybe I need to find different knuckles. I may also need the Integra Master Cylinder to take full advantage.

As I was driving around town and with the problem of the tires rubbing resloved, I was listening for other sounds. Mainly the battery boxes in the hatch are squeaking, so I need to tighten those bolts a bit, or get some nylon washers to minimize the metal on metal rubbing. I still need to line the hole I made in the hatch for the boxes with some sort of rubber or nylon so the sides of the boxes aren't rubbing against the hatch floor. I also heard the plastic interior pieces making noise which is easily fixed, since I have not completely installed those pieces, so they are moving around more than usual.

I bought a couple cans of Plasti-dip while at PepBoys, so I will check out how that works on my old cracked Fenders to see what the color is and if it might match my white paint. I also bought a can of Blaze Blue to see what that looks like. I am thinking of Plasti-dipping my entire car or maybe just the new fenders and the front grill. I still need to find out if it is ok to use it on Fiberglass and if I should fix the couple little dings I made on the fiberglass fenders before applying the plasti-dip.

Tomorrow I will try to set up the BAR referee inspection for early next week. If I pass, that will be a great day and another milestone in this horrendously long project.

I will try to get some more photos up and maybe some video so this doesn't turn into a completely text oriented blog. Holidays are a tough time of year for me to get work done on the car, so it may take me a bit, but I'll get them up.

Insurance, Inspection, Registration

I am trying to get the car registered so I can legally drive on the road around my town to test it out some more before I attempt a longer trip. It is challenging figuring out the process, so I am posting what I know so far. I will update this post in the future as things progress. btw, AAA is my friend. I don't have to deal with DMV at all.

1. In California, the car must be insured with liability coverage to drive on the road -  My insurance company won't insure it until it passes inspection and is registered. But, in order to pass inspection, by law, I must be able to drive the vehicle there. So, I have aquired a one year liability insurance policy on the vehicle through AAA. I probably could have shopped around and gotten a lower price or shorter term somewhere else, but it was convenient, fast and they were very helpful.

2. Temporary moving permit - I have aquired two 1 day temporary moving permits from the DMV services at AAA. The permits are free. You cannot park on the street with them though. Only for moving the vehicle. The first I will use to take the car to Pep Boys and have the larger, stiffer rear springs installed and possibly the larger front disc brakes. This will help me feel more comfortable about taking the 9 mile drive to the inspection since the current rear springs allow the rear wheels to rub on the inside of the wheel well when I hit any kind of bump at all. The larger front brakes should give me some better stopping power which is nice since I have not installed the vacuum power brake kit yet. Thankfully, the car only weighs about 2100 lbs and is not too hard to stop with manual brakes at low speeds.

3. BAR Referee Inspection - Since my car has had an "engine swap," the Bureau of Automotive Repair must inspect the car and then they give it a sticker which allows it to bypass smog inspection. The website for info and locations of BAR referees is asktheref.org. I will use my second 1 day temporary moving permit to drive to Rio Hondo College and have the car inspected.

4. Register the vehicle - Once the inspection is passed, I can then go back to AAA and pay the registration fees to get my new sticker.

That's it. ERX will be road worthy in just a  few weeks. My plan is to get the springs and brakes upgraded on 11/18, and then get the inspection on 11/25 or 11/26.

This last weekend I did some minor work on the car. I made some adjustments to my charger to make sure it was turning off at the right time and not overcharging any cells. A couple went up to 3.75, so I lowered the cutoff voltage a bit. I also purchased a large resistor to drain the cells that were high just a bit. A few cells were a little low, so I will probably stick the single cell charger on them for a little longer. Eventually I will bottom balance the pack, but a pseudo-top balance is fine for now, as long as the charger shuts off properly. The couple times I ran it at lower cutoff voltages, it did turn off at about the right voltage, so I am happy about that. Currently, I have it set for 43 cells even though I have 44 in my pack, so it goes into Constant Voltage phase at 154.8 volts instead of 158.4 volts. This works out to about 3.52 per cell on average. The CV phase is fairly short since my charger only delivers 10 amps during the Constant Current phase and it turns off when it get down to about 3 amps in the CV phase.

I also washed the car and vacuumed the inside. That took some time. It has been a while since I have hand washed a car, and especially one that hadn't been washed in quite some time. There are still some spots that could use a little more attention.

Fenders and Hood attached

I am posting these photos mainly for the CRX guys so they can see the fiberglass fenders installed on the car. The good news for the EV guys following this blog is I am pretty much ready for BAR inspection and registration. It actually looks like a real working car now with all my, not so elegant, wiring covered up by the hood.

The fenders are still raw and unpainted, but overall the fit is great. I need to file down the u-shaped mounting point on the right fender since it sticks out a bit. See the 5th picture below. The front alignment of the left fender is is wacky, but not due to the fender. My headlight, side marker and the cross bar are a little jacked up over there, so there is a bit of a gap and the side marker sticks out some. See the last picture.

Fenders, Hood, Front Grill

Front View

Right Fender

Right Fender - Front alignment

Right Fender - Rear alignment

Right Fender

Left Fender

Left Fender - Rear alignment

Left Fender

Left Fender - Front alignment

I need to call the DMV and/or the BAR referee to figure out what they inspect and get an appointment to get it inspected. Hopefully I can do that this week. I also need to get life insurance so my wife will feel better about the whole thing. I won't be working on the car next weekend, but should be back at it the weekend of the 26th.

Still many things to do once it is registered. Upgrade the rear springs. Upgrade the brakes. Add the vacuum braking system. Play with the controller settings. Install the meters. Clean everything up. Fix the leak in the windsheild. Look for any other leaks in the rear hatch area. Buy and install a lexan sheet to cover the rear battery boxes. Oh, I could keep going and going I guess.

Fenders

I got some time last Saturday to work on my new fiberglass fenders. Each fender needed 9 holes drilled and a bunch of filing to give each hole a little wiggle room and allow for some metal clips to be inserted on a couple. I started this a couple weeks ago and it is the first time I have worked with fiberglass. I got a facemask and goggles and made sure to wear gloves. The first fender took quite a bit of time as I was still figuring out the best way to do the job. I chipped a couple spots with the drill, so I will have to have those fixed, but I have a neighbor who is good with fiberglass. The first key is something I saw on youtube, which is to run the drill in reverse. I have metal drill bits, so they are probably not the right tool for the job, but running the drill in reverse worked great and made sure I went slow and steady. I used like an 1/8" bit to make some starter holes, and then went to a 1/4" or so to expand them out. Then took a round file to expand the hole in either direction a bit so there is some play if the holes don't line up perfectly.

 Here is one of the chipped spots. I was drilling the starter hole and it went through faster than I expected and the drill smashed down on the top edge of the fender. I learned to measure and drill on the backside to avoid this problem on later holes.

Crack in top edge

Here are a few shots of the fenders and the holes I drilled. Not perfect work, but it will do the job.

Back side of Sousa Speed Fender with a couple mouting holes drilled

Full Fender

Front side of Fender - Very smooth - still needs paint

 At the front of each fender is a spot where the side marker lights meet the fender and a couple mounting holes for the lights. This was the hardest part of the job as it required a bunch of filing to make the hole that the metal mounting clips go in. Here a couple shots of those holes.

In progress filing out the opening for the clip

Top view with a clip in

Front view with a clip in

There is a u shaped mounting slot near the doors and I am still working on those. The fiberglass seems a little thick there, so they are not sliding in easily and are not very flush with the pillar at the windshield. I think I can file the back down a bit more and that should help. I don't want to take off too much though and make it weak.

U shaped mounting point

I put the fenders on each side and most of the holes lined up pretty well. I have a few spots to file and get the alignment better as well as the u shaped mounts need to be filed down some more, but overall, the fit is great. Next weekend I will finish that last bit of filing and mount the fenders temporarily until I can get them painted. I'll take some photos of them on the car so you can see the fit. Once they are on and I get the hood on, I can go get the car inspected and registered and let the real testing of the car begin. There are alot of items left to finish still, but getting it registered is a huge step for me on this long journey.

Booty-licious

I ordered some cell terminal covers from EVTV. It is a nice little poly-something or other that fits over a string of terminals to keep hands, wrenches, etc. away from danger when working on the car or showing it to people. Jack Rickard of EVTV calls it cell booty. I made my order right after EVTV had finished their annual Electric Vehicle Converters Convention and it seemed my order got a little lost in the shuffle. I alerted them that I had not received it yet and they promptly next day aired it to me along with a little EVTV swag, which was very kind of them. They do understand customer service and are usually very prompt. Here are a few shots of the batteries with and without their booty.

Before -Rear Pack is Booty-less

After - These cells can now show off their new booty in public

Full Frontal coverage

As you can see, my battery pack is now decent and can make public appearances without all the photogs clamoring for one last pic of exposed terminals. The front battery rack on the firewall may need some special attention as the height of the cell booty may be too high for the hood, so once I get the hood back on, I will need to adjust the booty to get it to fit just right.

It was pretty hot last weekend, so I didn't spend too much time in the garage. However, I did hook the charger back up and also put my Kill-a-watt meter on the outlet to see how many AC amps my charger was pulling before tripping the breaker in the garage. It was drawing 14.25 amps continuous, a pretty sizable load. Then I ran some extension cord into the house to an outlet that I hoped was on a 20 amp breaker. Turned it on, and it started charging away. It did not trip a breaker, so that particular outlet is probably on a 20 amp breaker. The cells charged for about 40 minutes before I had to leave, so I did not get to see how they acted at the end of the charge.

Charger sitting in its future location but not installed yet

Hoping you can see the red charge light in this shot

I have not hooked up any metering in the car yet, so I have no idea how many amps are getting into the battery pack, but based on some rough calculations, I think the charger is delivering about 10amps at 150 volts to the pack. If the pack was completely dead, it would take about 17 hours to charge. I will only be using about 40% of the pack on my daily commute and I can charge at work, so it should take about 7 hours to get that 40% back into the car. I am usually at work for 9 hours or more a day, so this should work out well. Also, my work is planning on putting in some 240V level 2 chargers, so it may charge a little faster on those chargers. I will need to buy an adapter to connect my regular AC plug to the J1772 connector on the level 2 charger if I want to use it.

Next item to complete is drilling mounting holes in the new fenders and get them installed along with the hood. Then I need to get insurance and start the DMV inspection/registration process. There is still a bunch of other stuff to do after that, like upgrading the brakes and rear springs, but I really want to get it registered so I can test things out on the road without fear of getting ticketed or impounded for driving a non-op vehicle on the street.

Wired

I spent some time with ERX yesterday and got a few things done that were on my to do list to get the car registered. First, I had to fix the brake light wiring from the brake pedal sensor. The car was previously wired with a switch to disable the brake lights. Guessing some kids raced the car and wanted to go lights out if they had to avoid the fuzz. Did a little continuity testing to find the right ends of the wires and added some terminals. All good. One minor issue lingering which is the 3rd light on the hatch window. I will investigate that one later.

Second, I delved into the wiring for the horn. The horn is not stock and I was not sure if it worked. I don't recall testing that when I bought the car. I found the original wiring, hooked it up and it did not work. Then I took the steering whell off and found the connector to the horn was not attached. Connected it and it worked, so I am now making some good progress.

Next up was the windshield wipers. The switch on the stock does not appear to work so the previous owner wired up a basic on/off switch on the dash with some zip cord and electrical tape. Crude, but it worked. I wanted to fix the wiring and also add a 3 position switch so I at least have low speed and high speed. Found a 3 way switch at Pep Boys and ran some wires into the dash. Luckily the original main power wire with its fuse still worked, so I only needed to wire the switch and lo and high wires to ground. I found a bolt I thought would work and wired it, but was not getting a good ground contact, so I found another bolt and that one worked great. Now I have Wipers.

These were the three main tasks for the day and it took me most of the day to do it due to figuring out what was working and what wasn't and then performing Cirque du Soleil moves under the steering wheel and dashboard to find the right wires and add the terminals. It was 90+ degrees outside and 100+ in the garage, so I sweated off a few pounds. I am definitely sore today from contorting my body in so many different ways.

I had a an hour or so left at the end, so I thought I would hook up the charger and test out that system. It seemed to work until I clicked the garage door opener and tripped the breaker. Apparently the house lights and the garage power are on the same circuit. Not sure how many amps the circuit is since it is a very old style four switch sub-panel. The panel says the entire panel shouldn't exceed 70 amps, so maybe each switch can do 17.5 amps? I reset the switch and tried a couple more times, but I kept tripping it. I know my charger outputs only about 8amps DC at about 158V, but not sure what the AC draw is. The model I purchased originally was a PFC 2000+ which is supposed to be a 2kW charger, but the recent algorithm change I had done, the technician scratched out the 2kW and wrote in 2.5kW, so maybe the hardware can handle the 2.5kW and he just updated the software to that amount. I guess I need to get an ammeter and see what kind of AC current it is drawing. The spec sheet says 15 amps AC maximum, 12 amps RMS.

So, next stop is drilling some mounting holes in the new fiberglass fenders, removing the clutch pedal and cable, and putting the hood and front bezel back on. I should be able to get the car registered after that. Once it is registered, then I will have the rear springs upgraded and start the work on the larger front brakes and the vacuum braking system.

It's Alive Again

I had a couple hours available yesterday and I finished hooking up the control board and reset the controller to its initial settings. Gave it a few spins while on the jack stands and all was well, so I got the car down and went for a spin. Motor and Tranny are working well so far. I took a few drives down the street, then went around the block and then around a couple blocks. I tried 1st, 2nd, and 3rd as well as shifting while driving which takes a couple seconds without a clutch, but it works well and if I need to get up to speed quickly, 1st is quite useful. The most important thing is no noises from the tranny.

So, back to focusing on a couple items that will allow me to get it registered so I can test it more on the street without fear of being ticketed. Brake light switch needs to be re-wired, and the wind shield wipers need to be re-wired. I will also be working on the power vacuum brake system as well as upgrading the front brakes to Acura Integra rotors and calipers which are bigger, but fit my car. The bigger brakes and the vacuum system together will give me some great stopping power. The rear springs need to be swapped to Integra springs to get a bit higher ride height since the batteries in the back are much heavier than the origianl gas tank.

That's it for now. I am pretty excited that the coupler, new input shaft bearing in the tranny and the motor mount are working well and the car is able to move again.

Motor mounted, noises gone (w/pics and video)

I put the last coat of paint on the motor mount bracket last night and had some time this afternoon to get it installed. Here are a couple shots of the bracket and a couple of it installed.

Motor Mount bracket

Other side of bracket

Bracket installed and motor is secure

Better shot of rubber motor mount and bracket

I removed the jack holding up the motor and the bracket worked great. It barely moved down and I can grab it and shake it and it is all solid. I hooked up the motor to a couple batteries to test it all out and here are the results.

Hopefully this will be the last of the drivetrain issues and I can move on to the power braking system and a couple more items standing in my way of getting the vehicle registered.

Tranny fix and Motor Mount

We discovered in my last post I could not change gears after fixing the input shaft bearing on the transmission. A couple weeks ago I loosened the three detent bolts which hold ball bearings against the shift shafts. It turns out I had tightened these bolts too much and could not budge the shifter. Once loose, I could freely shift into any gear. I tightened them back up to 16 ft/lbs per the manual and all is good. Tested the motor/tranny and everything seemed fine until the last couple times I spun up the motor, I heard a high pitch cyclical noise which sounded like something just barely rubbing somewhere. Oh no, not again.

Took the motor out again and spun it up. All is good. Hooked up a drill to the transmission shaft and it spun nicely. No Noise, so it must be in the coupling or the motor mount tweaking the motor a bit. Put the motor back in and held it there with a jack and all was good, so the thought is the motor mount. The mount was a two piece circular mount that goes around the motor and is held together with a couple large bolts and nuts. It is then attached to the existing rubber motor mount with a bracket my friend James made from 1" angle iron. The fit was never perfect, but I didn't think it would cause a problem. It had a bit of an angle that did not match the circular mount on the motor, so when the big bolts were tightened down, I think the motor alignment was tweaked a bit.

I decided to make a new mount and checked out some other CRX builds online. One guy used an L-shaped bracket that came off his garage door, and he just bolted it to the end of his motor and welded the other end to some metal that attached to the rubber motor mount. So I thought, that sounds pretty simple. I have some extra 1" angle iron and my neighbor can weld, so maybe I can do something simple with the angle iron.

Long story short, it works beautifully. One piece bolted to the motor, one piece running vertically up to the last piece attached horizontally to the rubber motor mount. It took us a bit to get the angles and lengths of each piece right, but it looks great and works well. We added a couple more pieces of straight metal to stiffen the whole structure and it is in the process of being painted. One more coat and I will install it in the car. I hope to take a photo of it this weekend and also take a shot of it installed in the car. It is lighter than the previous piece and is out of the way of some of my other components.

After it is installed, I will test the motor and tranny for a bit and make sure all the gears run well and the motor is spinning freely with no noises. I may then put the control board back in and take the car on the road to check it out. I still have to adjust the controller back to the original settings so as not to jerk the transmission around with the last settings I had in there. On the other hand, I may hold off on that and work on setting up the power vacuum brake system. We'll see how I feel. I think testing the car on the road is more exciting and may draw my attention more than wiring and hoses on the brake system.

3...2...1....abort

1. New coupler designed and created - Check (Thanks Paco)

2. New Coupler attached to motor - Check

3. Motor tested with low voltage - Check

4. Tranny opened and bearing replaced - Check

5. Motor and Tranny mated together - Check

6. Motor/Tranny tested at low voltage - Check

7. Motor/Tranny re-installed in car - Check

8. Tranny fluid added - Check

9. Motor/Tranny tested at low voltage in car - Check

10. Motor/Tranny tested at slightly higher voltage - Check

11. Test tranny by changing gears - uh, Houston, we have a problem.

So everything was going as smoothly as it could have on Saturday, other than the near triple digit heat, all the way until the point where I thought I should check the motor/tranny out in different gears to make sure we don't hear any weird noises. It apparently did not occur to me during the previous tests that the tranny was in a gear and spinning the axles and that maybe it should have been in neutral just as it was when I removed the tranny from the car. Somehow, during reassembly, I think I locked the transmission into a gear, so I can now go forward, but can't change gears or go backwards. The last item in the above check list should have been done right after number 4. 

So, now the motor and tranny are joined together and back in the car and I have to either find a simple solution for unlocking it from the gear it is in, or take the whole thing out again, open the transmission and figure out why it is not switching gears. There is some hope though. There are 3 bolts that have springs and a ball bearing on the end which tighten up against three shafts in the transmission which shift the gears. My hope is that since one of the shafts is engaged on a gear, that maybe that bolt is overtightened and won't allow me to move it to get back into neutral.

Here is a shot of the bolt holes where the bolts with the springs and ball bearings go.

Bolt holes for Detent bolts

Zoom in to read the text

The next shot is the tranny right before we put the case back on. You will notice that 4th gear appears to be engaged and that the detents in the shift shaft are deeper for when the shaft is engaged in a gear than the detent for neutral. This is my hope, that since it is engaged in 4th, I tightened the detent bolt, spring and ball bearing down too hard and now it won't let the 3rd/4th shift shaft move back into the neutral position.

Grinning and Bearing It

Got the tranny out of the car today. Pretty proud of that moment since my friend James took the motor and transmission out last time. I had to do it on my own this time. Fairly simple actually, since the tranny is all that is in there now. Just remove the wheel hubs from the struts and the steering control rods and then knock the half shafts out of the hubs. Take a screw driver and a hammer and give a whack to the CV joints connected to the tranny and there you have most of the work done. Climb under and undo one bolt and knock a pin out of the stick shift control arms and you are almost there. Then put a jack under the transmission and undo the bolts connecting it to the rubber mounts and lower it down. Thats it. I didn't take any photos of that journey, but coming next is the reason I got it out of the car. Broken Input Shaft Bearing.

Before...

Removed the cover to the 5th gear section

Close up of 5th gear bearing, selector arm and countershaft

5th gear bearing, arm, synchro and gear removed

Keeping track of the order pieces are removed

Remove bolts, springs and ball bearings from gear shift shafts

Main case removed - Differential on left, Main and countershafts on right

Over the top

Game of Thrones shot

Reverse is removed

My Neighbor, Paco, removing some bolts

Main Shaft and Counter Shaft removed - See broken bearing on upper right

Center of broken bearing removed - Real pain to get outer bearing case removed when it is broken

Shafts on the table - Notice bits of metal on cardboard - broken bearings that came out of tranny

Here is the outer bearing case stuck in its home - Paco saved the day and got it out

Put in new Input Shaft Bearing and started reassembly

Another Game of Thrones shot - Winterfell rising from the Flames

The work table

All re-assembled - Number 5 is alive

Spin the shaft and magically, no clicky clicky sound and the shaft doesn't wiggle about

So, theres it is. What a day. So glad we got it all back together and it appears it should be good to go now. Next weekend I will get some Transmission fluid in it and mate it to the motor. Then give it a low voltage test and see how it sounds. If all goes well, then it will go back into the car for some more testing. Pretty pumped about everything I learned today and how smoothly it went.