Saturday, February 11, 2017

Just an update.

I just wanted to add a couple of pictures on the current state of the car.
Moving day.  Had to get it into storage.

I forgot how nice the color is in the sun.

By the way; this is the charger I got (it's been in a box).

Some details about the charger profile.

Motor, adaptor and transmission all installed again.  There's room in the bay to mount the charger and inverter.

The front battery pack.

And the rear battery packs.

Saturday, October 04, 2014

Final battery pack installed.

Here's the final battery pack installed.  There are some installation pictures I'll add some additional pictures of the installation later.
They were taken on a different camera; and have to be recovered...

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Quick bling shot

I found a great deal on 914 compatible halo-gen headlights on E-Bay so I snapped them up before some else could (I'm noticing a trend here).   I have already installed the old light (which will SUCK volts) so these will be added after the car is complete and I am going thru a final check lists.  But it's nice that I have them (and some else doesn't).

Final shot of the engine mount

I swear!  The last time I tried to document what this assembly looked like it was a blurry mess.  So I wanted to make sure I had plenty of pictures this time.

Second rear battery box installed. Whew!

 I flush screwed the attaching bolts.  So they would not interfere with the batteries.  Worked like charm.
 And the other side as well.
And finally a fist full of dollars.  OR a trunk full of batteries.  There's still the front set to install.  But I have to remove the hood to have the room to work on it.  And I have rule; only one hood off at time.  It minimizes the chance of scratching the paint.

Paint and prep the second rear battery box.

 Everything gets a nice coat of rust-tol-lium.  Paint it black indeed.  The larger set of angle iron are for mounting the charger and inverter in the engine bay.  Should be fun.  I've measured and they will fit...
 Here's the first flange installed.  Finally closing that huge rust hole in the trunk.
And the second in.  I had little hand helping out while I worked under the car they held the bolts in place.  Definitely a two man job (or a one man, one daughter).

How do you wire all those batteries together?

 You get a whole bunch of braided cables!

 I got lucky and scored all the smaller one on E-Bay; for a ridiculously low price.  But now they are mine; so you can't have them!  The larger ones I ordered from Evolve EV out of Australia.  Great product fantastic price...  But about that shipping.  I paid less to ship all my batteries (3 creates) to my door, then 74 of those jumpers.  It just about doubles the per-unit price!  Great product, but someone local really needs to start making these.

Not so with the larger jumper cables!  I had a local battery shop make them up for me. Took a couple of hours and about $4 each.

This gets to the one bit of high voltage wiring I have not yet figured out...
I got one of these on Amazon $5 bucks or so, but I have no idea how to crimp the cables.  The guys at the battery shop said they could...  Then they saw the cable diameter.  It wouldn't fit in their crimper.
:(

Parts from the machinist arrive!

I need some part fabricated, so I contacted a local machinist since sometimes you need exactly instead of close.
This is the AC motor mount I created a while ago.  But after getting it all bolted in and tighten down; I really felt it needed to be welded to be 100%.  So here's the welded version.
 These are some flanges I need bent to support one of the rear battery packs.  I could have bent them of course.  But this is the difference between a shady tree mechanic and someone with a shop full of toys.  I guarantee I would not have hit those perfect angles.  And I wanted this cold bent to keep the strength of the steel.
These are some angle iron I needed cut.  I absolutely cold have done this good in my garage. But since we're "enjoying" +90 degree weather.  I just tacked is onto the job.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Well just moving along.

I finished up the passenger side door.  A lot of the door parts were left and right sided; but I failed to no label them as such.  So it's been a bit of a puzzle to get them all sorted out.  But now I can knock out the Driver's side.
I also pulled up some great diagrams for wiring I've been in need of finishing.  So I'll button up the console too.

Saturday, December 07, 2013

Where to put the... BUT!

Got my re-upholstered chairs back from the shop today...
And they are like brand freaking new.  Kenny's Upholstery did an amazing job.  The craftsmanship is second to none.  I tried to find a before picture of these sad seats.  But they where so bad I never took a picture.

They were so awesome; that I even took a afternoon and installed them into the car already.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Well that's the problem right there.

Took care of the remaining rust problem.  I had planed to mount the DMOC 440 and charger in the trunk; so I knew fixing all the rust during the painting would be a waste.
 But after placing everything into position.  The batteries REALLY wanted to be in the trunk.
So now the get their wish.
The DMOC 440 and battery charger are being installed in the engine bay where they can cool themselfs to their hearts content.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Just how much cutting?

I didn't fix the rust in the floor of the trunk; since I planed to cut it out to put in the conversion parts.
But now; I'm thinking maybe I don't have to cut as much as I was thinking:


 I got all kinds of inches to spare.



 

 There are no bolts in these batteries, so you have to imagine a half inch more.


So I think I'll cut into the trunk anyways.

Batteries included.

My brother wanted to pitch in an make the battery racks,  so I measured out some specs and he wielded them up.  Here's the first rough draft of them
So I got them and test fit the batteries into them to make sure; I could in fact measure the batteries correctly.
 The answer is... Yes I can measure things correctly.  I've seen his work before, so I was more worried I'd start converting metric to English and horse it up something awful.


But as you can see, even the pyramid to power is spot on!

Driving on sunshine.

With the upcoming car; I wanted to get a handle on using the electricity wisely.  So out came the solar panels!

All wired up and ready to start pumping into the grid.