Already late?

Dag-nab-it. I figured with 4 days I could get the electrical pulled; heck I was thinking of even getting the dash-board pulled. But no.

In defense I will state that other electrical work got in the way:

Our street got a little carried away this year. Which for the kids isn't a bad thing. (And I must admit for the kid in me as well)

But now it will be two weeks before I get to work on the car. This weekend I'll be working like a mad man to get the garage prepped to move that car inside. I have to move some stuff into cabinet, that have to be built, that need old ones torn down to build the new ones. So I have room for the car. But I'll get to put an epoxy floor down, so that's a bonus.

I just have to get this before we have rain (we have 5 days of rain coming up soon).

Dusk before the dawn

Today's goal is the complete removal of the electrical system. Now obviously I'll need to put this back it, so this will be a removal, not deconstruction.

Fortunately I'll be taking a lot of pictures; so I'll know how to put it back in. Always a plus.

Wish me luck.

Where the rust is.

I knew that there was going to be some restoration. So without further ado; I present to you, The Rust.

The trunk. But just the back potion. This should be a quick job with a plasma cutter and a replacement plate.

Engine compartment, passenger side. Normally you can't see daylight. So this is through two sheets of metal. We're talking some serious restoration here.

Engine compartment, driver's side; fortunately there is no rust here. Just some ex-plant life. Gonna have to look at shop-vac.

Passenger compartment. Sweet, the rust never made it out of the engine compartment. This is completely solid.

Front storage. Other then being filthy, no rust to speak of.

Bonus! I found that the spare (in addition to being shredded) was a 5th matching rim, so the wheels are going to be far better than I'd hoped. Also; all four wheels on the car have disk brakes (I seem to recall the back brakes were drums as stock).

It all seems so easy

Tasks:
1) Disassembly (pull interior and misc external)
2) Assess body and rust repair requirements.
3) Drop engine and transmission.
4) Remove hoods
5) Remove doors
6) Sand blast
7) Metal work to repair rust (and there is some)
8) Prime frame and body parts
9) ** Install conversion parts **
10) ** Remove conversion parts **
11) Final paint
12) Install conversion parts
13) Wire conversion
14) Install batteries
15) Change batteries
16) Drive car.

Steps 9 and 10 are the deluxe build steps. It really should be done this way. But If I skip those steps I can get the car restored much faster. And once the car looks awesome; I should be re-invigorated to complete the conversion.

Get organized.

First and foremost I have fallen victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but the third one slightly less well-known is this: Never try to convert a car to electric when you have to restore it as well!

So I have two jobs to schedule out; restore the car and convert to electric. Aside from the work there is only one area where this posses a problem. After getting the restoration done I have to hack some of the newly restored car up to convert it.

Most notably the controller installation: I have to cut the bottom of the trunk open. The best way to do this, is before final body work and paint. But that would mean con-current work paths. And that my friend might be an issue.

Old busted and new hotness

It’s plan A time!

I’ve purchased a Porsche 914 and now it’s time to make it electric! The details are 144 volt AC system from EletroAutomotive.

I present Old and Busted:

(The car I bought)

Now I present New Hotness:

(The car I own)

They may seem to be the same car. But there is a subtle difrerence.