Reunited

Big progress today. The driveline is back in the car. James whipped up the "beam" to attach the motor clamp to the motor mounts. Badda bing badda boom and it's back in.

Now we can find homes for all the other pumps (vacuum, power steering), get the AC compressor back on a belt off the ODE and locate a couple more batteries. There's a lot of room left over up here since we crammed 8 batteries in the back, and will put two more under the rear seat. We only need to squeeze two under the "bonnet". Since they're AGMs, I can mount them sideways or on end. I suspect that the control board will now wind up above the motor. This will make for a layout curiously similar to EVAmerica's S10 examples. It will also make "Show and Tell" easier. We'll put the control board on a hinge so that it can swing up to show the motor while the batteries stay put between the AC Condenser and the motor.

Here you can see the two arches bridging between the clamp around the motor and sleeves around the existing motor mount bolts. The next shot shows the mount...mounting.

Now I'll have to remember how the Google SketchUp works so that I can adjust my 3D model.
Before too long, I'll have to get serious about my wiring diagrams. I'll also have to clean out the third bay of the garage again so that I can set up my electric shop.



Very exciting!

Fab Fab Work

Making headway on the fabrication of adapter, mounts etc. I spent some time down at the shop yesterday and took some pics of the progress. James has finished the adapter and has the motor & trans hooked up. We'll get it back into the car in the next few days and figure out what the motor mounts need to look like.

James has also fixed up the rear battery box. Here's a picture of it, loaded with four of the odysseys and a dummy Trojan AGM we were using before the odysseys arrived. My battery supplier loaned that Trojan case to us. The guys at the shop have had tons of fun tossing it back and forth in front of visitors...pretty impressive to be playing catch with something that looks like it ought to weigh 80lbs.

The real laugh comes when they toss it to the guest. Anyway, the battery box looks great. He got four down low, then four more right on top of the axle at trunk level. We were poking around yesterday, and there will be enough room under the rear seat, where the gas tank lobes were, for two more, so we'll have two in the front, with lots of leftover room for pumps and switchgear.

While I was at the shop, we...well, James, whipped up the clamp for the motor. I actually got to try my hand at MIG welding. Of course, I could only do a couple of lines on the bottom of the clamp; he didn't want my dribbly bead left visible after the whole thing's assembled.