Re-mount

This weekend I got the motor mount fixed and some welding done on the battery racks. The motor mount was more trouble than I thought. It came off fine and Bruce cut some excess off the top and bottom of one side, and then gave me some rubber to glue to the inside to help it grip the motor. The bracket James made for it is great, but it was making the mount sit a little off, so I hammered at an angle piece to let it sit a little straighter. Then I added a couple pieces of 1/8 steel between the bracket and the mount to help straighten it more. Also I expanded some of the bolt holes to raise the bracket higher by just a bit.

Motor mount and bracket re-installed

Bruce welded a couple pieces for me as well, so now I can move forward with finishing the battery racks. Unfortunately I have decided to cut the racks down to be more like battery trays, so a lot of James' hard work in making them is going to be cut away. Sorry James. I am going to strap the batteries in using two of the vertical supports on the racks, but cut the other two vertical supports off the firewall rack. The bumper rack will probably remain as is but I am going to bolt a flat piece of aluminum to the top of the open area so I can remove it to get the batteries in while it is installed.

Bumper rack with metal welded to bottom for mounting

Firewall rack with two brackets mounted to the front for Control board mounting

 During the week I will clean up the racks with acetone and drill the remaining holes needed. Next weekend I am shooting for cutting my 1/8" aluminum sheet to the size I need for the control board, cut the racks down, and start painting them, although I need the weather to cooperate.

Riveting

So I ordered a $20 tool to install the rivnuts since my homebrew version did not do so well in tests. This tool performed adequately today and I have added two rivnuts and a support bar for a battery rack to the car. One of the rivnuts was off just a tad, but not enough to hurt anything, so I installed the support bar. I also cut a few pieces of angle iron to use as brackets and, at one point, my thumb got a little too close to the angle grinder. I am missing some skin but all is well.

I also ordered some Stainless Steel bolts, washers, and nuts for various things, as well as some nylon spacers I will use in securing my control board. I still need some nylon washers for the bolts on the control board to isolate the control board from the body of the car. Not everyone does this but I thought it would be a good idea.

Support bar for Firewall Battery Rack is installed

With the unfinished Firewall Rack sitting on it

It doesn't look like much, but today was a big victory for me since I made and installed the support bar on my own. (Except the RivNut idea, which JRP3 from diyelectriccar gave me)

I am hoping to take my racks and the little bracket pieces I made to Bruce's next weekend to do some welding. I may ask him to drill some holes in the angle iron as well, since he has a drill press and can do it much easier than my hand drill.

After that I will move on to cutting out a big piece of aluminum for the control board.

I am definitely the Tortoise

The estimated hours left on this project is around 130-150, but at my rate and skill level, it will be like 250+. I have managed to get some things done though. I took some photos of specific spots where I am having trouble and posted them to diyelectriccar.com. I got a bit of feedback which was helpful. Also, Bruce came over and we discussed my motor mount and battery rack mounting. He gave me some suggestions and I have started working on them. Here are a few of the pics I took of the motor mount and battery rack situations.

Motor and Motor mount bracket James fabricated

Another Angle

Face of the motor and second shaft

Overall view of the bay

Firewall - The circled items are things I need to remove like fuel lines and water lines to the heater

Here is where the firewall rack will be. Mounting the top to the three circled bolts with some brackets

I will run a piece of angle iron across the bottom and secure it on either side with bolts going in to Rivet Nuts

The other side - Rivet Nuts are an awesome invention allowing you to place a threaded rivet into a blind location

Front Rack location - probably weld some steel to the bottom of the rack and then use the rivet nuts again to secure it

Other Side

Shot of the clearance I will have between the firewall rack and the tranny/adapter plate - about an inch

Mock-up of component board location.

So I have realized that my conversion will definitely not be as pretty and neat as others. I am ok with that as long as I get it done. I am not going to be messy about it, but I don't have CAD software to make perfect mock-ups and my measurements are ballpark-ish, not to the millimeter. In the above mock-up of the component board, the Red is the aluminum board outline, the green is the planned angle iron needed for support and mounting, and the yellow is some sort of raised mounting location. Originally I had toyed with the idea of putting hinges on the firewall side of the component board, so I could lift the front and get to the motor easily, but I decided to just bolt it in all around.

After Bruce gave me some ideas, I went to Home Depot and bought a cheap angle grinder, some angle iron and a contour tool. This is the beginning of the support bar that spans under the firewall rack. I cut the angle iron to the length I needed, but part of the angle iron will run into the side of the frame so I needed to cut a curve in it to match the curve in the frame. The contour tool helps with this. It is like one of those things that has a bunch of metal pins in it and you can put your hand or face or whatever in and it outlines it. That is what the contour tool does except just in a straight line. I pressed it up against the frame and it made an impression of the curve. Then I used it to draw the curve on the angle iron so it will match the frame. Took the angle grinder to it, and although it wasn't pretty, it looks like it works perfectly. I will post photos of this next week.

This weekend I am planning on finishing the support bar. I need to drill holes in it for the mounting points to the frame, add the rivet nuts to the mounting location, and bolt it in place to make sure the fit is nice and snug. Then take it off, clean the bar, spray paint primer, dry, spray paint final color, dry, and then bolt back into place.

Decision 2012

The flip flopping is over, the primaries and caucuses (cauci??) have concluded, the major parties made their nominations and the precincts are reporting their results. We are calling the race right now. You heard it here first. Little known blogging site ERXperience is calling the race and the decision is.....

Coming up, right after these messages....(NETGAIN MOTORS. HOME OF THE WARP, TRANS-WARP, AND IMPULSE MOTORS, INTRODUCE THE IMPROVED....)

...and we're back... so the decision is, I will continue the project. Yahhhh!!! I called a local EVer and he said he would help me out here and there. He lives a couple miles away and has a full shop of tools and he has a lead acid car which he is planning on switching to LiFePo4.

I have already started on a huge To-Do list and have gotten the front battery racks from James. I will be taking some photos and starting the process of figuring out how to mount the racks this weekend, as well as starting the design of the component board.

Crossroads

I am at the crossroads. My project stalled for a year for various reasons. I have basically two options.

1. Find someone in SoCal with EV build experience to help me finish the project. I can pay a bit, but not a lot.

2. Sell the project. This has 2 subsets.
a. Sell the whole project to a local person who wants to finish my build or wants all the parts and will scrap the car.
b. Part out everything and sell the batteries locally as I really do not want to ship them.

I am sad about not being able to get anything done this year but also realizing I may have bit off more than I could chew. If any of you live in SoCal and are interested in helping me finish, message me or email me at octagondd@hotmail.com.

If you are interested in buying my project, get in touch with me. I spent around $15K and will sell it for $9K OBO. All the parts are new and never used except the Motor has been mated with the Tranny and is installed in the car. I purchased a 144V kit from Evolve except for the controller. I purchased and built the OpenRevolt 144V 700Amp controller from Paul and Sabrina. It is finished except the end plates. I would probably just throw it in as a bonus if you want to play with it and decide whether to use it or not. It works as I have hooked it up to the motor with a 12V battery. Also, there is a serial port that communicates with a Win XP program and shows various things like throttle, Volts, Amps, etc. I have 45 TS(Winston) 160AH batteries. Check my blog out if you want to see the rest of the components, or check Evolve Electrics page for their kits

I really hope someone is interested in my project so it can either be completed, or moved along to help another project.

Dave

Hole in the Bucket

Happy Holidays! It has been a while since I have posted. We have moved and also confirmed we are having a baby, many changes occurring. A few things have changed on ERX as well. James made the motor mount and I got it attached and then got the car towed to our new dwelling. Unfortunately, I do not have a garage now, so the car is covered sitting in the neighbors entrance area to their garage. Luckily they just use it for storage. I forgot to take a picture of the mount, but James did a great job.

A couple weeks ago I started cutting holes in the hatch area floor for the battery boxes. I only made two cuts, and today I finished. I didn't pay much mind to the measure twice, cut once rule, so I made a wrong cut which you can see in the picture below. I had to make two more cuts because of it. It takes a while because I am using a simple compressed air metal cutting wheel and not a plasma cutter.

First hole for 20 Batteries

I then double checked my measurements and started the second hole. Once again, problems. I got the measurements right, but neglected to see that the axle was directly below the hole and not far enough down for my batteries to fit the way I want them, so I need to extend the second hole by another 3 1/2 inches.

Second hole for 10 batteries - See the axle there?

Here are a few other photos from the day. All and all, I made some progress.

I also took some measurements up front to see where I am going to put the remaining 15 batteries, and the control board with all the electric goodies on it. Hopefully you will hear from me before 3 months passes again.

Wheels turning

Exciting news today! We finally got the motor and transmission mounted into the car. The transmission is bolted in at two spots and James is going to make a bracket for the motor mount. The motor is attached to the transmission and is sitting on some pieces of wood and the jack is under it as well. Once he makes the bracket we can attach it to the motor mount and that part of the job will be done.

Motor/Tranny mounted

Plenty of space to the right of the motor. I could have gotten the Warp 9 instead of the Impulse 9.

 One of the critical issues today was something I have been worried about for a while. I didn't know how much clearance I had between the motor and the CV joint on the half shaft. There is about 1/4 inch gap between the motor and CV joint and less than an 1/8th inch between the CV joint and the aluminum adapter plate. This is not the greatest shot of it, but you can sort of see it is a pretty tight fit, but will work.

CV joint, Motor and Adapter plate

The greatest part of today was testing the motor with it mounted in the car. It was only a 12Volt test, but it was nice to see the wheels turn. Everything spun smoothly, even without transmission oil.

I will now move on to planning the electronics board which will be mounted over the motor. Probably on a piece of aluminum with piece of lexan on the bottom to isolate the high voltage wiring from the body of the car if a wire comes loose. Also, I will order the aluminum sheets for making the battery boxes. James may be able to cut and bend them at his school, but if not, I will have a metal shop guy in Burbank do it.