On the Road Again

The ERX is back on the road and I have driven to work on the freeway two days in a row. A little bit of white knuckle driving, but she seems to be functioning well so far. Previously, I had heard some noise in the motor/transmission that occurred when I took my foot off the accelerator and also as the motor spun to a stop. I took the motor off to investigate the sounds I was hearing and here is what I found:

Coupler and Transmission input shaft

The coupler had walked itself down to the transmission housing and shredded the aluminum housing a bit. We cleaned that off and decided to do two things to stop the coupler from walking. First, my friend Paco, who made the coupler, said he would put a washer-like slug inside the coupler, so if it started to walk, the transmission shaft would run into the washer and stop walking down the shaft. Second, he drilled and tapped two more holes in the coupler on the opposite side of the two already in there for the set screws. Then we drilled two small divots in the motor shaft and put two set screws through the coupler into the divots. Combined with the lok-tite on all four set screws and the washer, I think this coupler will stay put.

After mating the motor back onto the transmission, we gave it a spin and still heard some noise coming from the transmission when the accelerator was released. The other noise we heard when the motor came to a stop was gone, so it appears we solved one issue, for now. I am still not sure what the noise in the transmission is, and it will probably eventually cause a problem, but for now, the motor and transmission are working well. Under power everything appears to be working as desired and as planned. I use first gear for accelerating from a stop and usually stay in 3rd on the freeway at about 60mph. It is running at around 3000 rpms at that point which I believe is the most efficient rpm for the motor.

The next major task is to either re-top balance all the cells, (easier, but risk of over-discharge and killing a cell or two if I drive too far) or drain them and do a bottom balance (harder, but safer in regards to over discharging a cell.)

My commute is only 42 miles round trip and if I have my meter set correctly, I can make that trip twice before recharging, but I will charge each day as it seems the cycle life of the batteries are put in jeopardy if I discharge them too far. Once I bottom balance the batteries, I can then do a full charge and do a range test without fear of killing a battery.

There are still a bunch of details to finish like finding a permanent solution for mounting the meters, permanently mounting the charger, putting a lexan sheet over the rear battery boxes, fixing the radio so I can hear some music, etc., etc.

For now, I am cautiously making my way to work and back and hoping the transmission holds out for a while.

Charging with new fuel inlet charge port