A couple of years to go

I'm working to make sure this car gets another 30+ year, just with no gasoline. So maybe I might pass it along. But jeez wait till it's done!

Nice 10 – 2 style.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the she has already told me the car has to stay yellow. "For Bumble-Bee Tranformer Dad!"

Not. Going. To. Happen.

Hey is that rust, or are you just happy to see me?

Pulled off the side runners and finally saw what was (and wasn't) left of the car side. I have no frame flex or distortion so there's something holding the car together. It's just not the right side of the car

You know you might need that part of the car for later….. The sad part is when I removing the side panel, the jack point was interfering. So I put a screwdriver in the bend it out of the way… by hand.

The left side runner has a surprise for me as well…

I didn't know people took 914's off road. But how, that much mud get's into a side panel; I'll never know.

Taking things apart

As you may recall I'm going to send the 914 off to be Soda Blasted. This is a greatly improved version of sand blasting. This will take the car down to bear metal. Having never done this before the fine people over at Cal-Blaster have advised me to remove everything from that car.

"The less on the car, the better our access." So I'm removing everything.

Here's the front of the car, sans headlights and bumper. The fog-lamps and headlight frames were removed next.

The rear getting the same treatment.

Oh how those wheels turn.

It's not that I haven't been working on the car; it's just that I have been so busy, I haven't been able to update much. But after two people have mentioned that updating the blog might be a good idea I'm taking the hint. And hopefully be able to use a new tool to write the post (allowing me to post more often).

Where's Huston when you need them.

I've known about the rust on the passenger side engine, since buying the car. It's bad. But as I break the car further and further down, I'm getting a clearer picture of just what I'm up againest. And I see more dollars going into that part of the car than I had planed. "But it seems the plans are to be changed!" (And so are the sheets).

This should be a stright line. That strange fold is not suppose to be there....

It seems that it is so bad, that at one point the previous owner tried to jack the car up using one of the jack points, and it gave way. When I tried the back-up jack point, under that car; I found that it was gone as well. Well not gone, but someone had also tried to jack the car up there as well, and the whole section had folded up and retreated further up into the car.

At this point I'm not even too sure where to put the jacks to remove the engine... It could be the only thing holding the right side of the car together.

It's not, and I've been told to use the rear suspension points when removing the engine.

But, dang, that's a lot of rust.

Missing in action

There are more and more thing missing from the car every day. Which is a good thing… For now.

Gas tank and front hood; missing! Also worth note: all brake fluid is missing as well.

Rear trunk and engine cover: missing....

The engine's going walk-about next, but I'm taking a couple of weeks off for a walk-about myself. So soon.

Harry Houdini

What do you do with all the parts as you remove them and they’re waiting for media blasting? Well since I’m not going to kick a car out of the garage, I’ll raise them up.

Watch as they hover in mid air (and please god don’t let them fall!). The original plan was to pulleys on all corners; so one person (me) could raise and lower that parts as needed. In case more stuff had to be added.

Come on... smile!

One of my favorite jokes about electric cars is "There are more Tuckers on the road then EV1's." So you can imagine how interested I was when I saw that there are not one, but two restored EV1's out there.

The first belongs to WWU; and they have been very faithful in restoring this car.

The other belongs to UW Madison. They have changed out the inverter and charger, but kept (and were able to get) the original batteries.

While there are still more Tuckers on the road (49); there are now 200% more EV1's (2) than I thought. And Jay Leno still can't get one.

Now this is new.

One of my plans has always been to sand blast the car, and put on a new color. Nothing wrong with canary yellow; but it's a tad to 70's. Last night I saw this : http://www.calblast.com/ on TV.

Who knew? Use baking soda instead of sand. Unless they charge way more than a sand blaster, I am so going to do this. It's just too cool.

BTW the new color I'm thinking about is Audi's "Deep Sea Blue Pearl Effect". I think getting the running boards power coated black and the chrome trim should really look nice.

Silver lining on the gray clouds.

First the grey clouds:
Well Murphy had his way with me. I was planning to get the car into the garage as fast as possible. No reason to contribute to more rust. So I had to clear up floor space to move the car in. The soonest the new cabinets could be installed was yesterday.

Sure enough with the new storage space; I was able to move that car into the garage today…. of course it rained yesterday. Hard.

I live in So-Cal so we only get like five day of rain a year. And Murphy insisted the car get rained on one last time.

Well if that’s the only time Murphy shows up, I’ll count my blessings.

Now the silver lining:
Since the car got soaked I took some time today to further disassemble the interior and pull more carpet and linings out. And it really does appear that the rust is only on the passenger side engine compartment.

Oh, I found out what the technical term for the ‘shape’ of the trunk hood is; it’s “sprung”. There are two coasters the are suppose to provide a three point hinge. But the restrainers can rust away (or just get broken off). But that’s where the trunk rust I have came from.

No rust in the drivers side (just rain water) controls.

Front trunk has a light dusting of it; but most of the grim brushed clean.

Here's the rust that I'll have to fix. But it will really keep me busy.

Glamor shot with the hood off. Nice! BTW the spot of rust on the finder is really where the radio antenna used to be. That will be filled in; I'll be going iPod or maybe satellite radio.

I've been to the mountain top.

My Dad had a dream and he imparted that dream onto his sons. I now live that dream. May I present to you:

Two cars in a two car garage!

I would like to thank my wife and daughters (who graciously allowed me to park their vehicles behind the Porsche).

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.

It’s all about the Benjamin’s

This site is going to be used for my plan to convert a car into an electric car. Or, as those in the know put it: from ICE to EV.

However the job I had when I started making my plans has changed, and the huge sums of free cash that I planed to drop when away. But not the drive to make an EV (pun intended).

The plan is get a downer car, pull the engine, adapt a electric motor and mount a ton (ok one thousand pounds so only ½ a ton) of batteries. I had planed to do this to a Porsche 914; then a Mazda Miata.

I had planed to do an AC conversion; but now and thinking of starting with a DC conversion first. Just to get my feet wet as it were.

Maybe time for plan C….

Test post.