I suspect I might have crossed some sort of line here. I'd guess that the "validity of the BMW Limited Warranty" might have been affected.
Narrative of my project converting a 1997 BMW 318ti from gas to electric.
I suspect I might have crossed some sort of line here. I'd guess that the "validity of the BMW Limited Warranty" might have been affected.
I did get the power steering pump to work...makes things a lot more pleasant.
I reinstalled the rear seats and trunk upholstery yesterday. Now I can take the kids to school.
The PakTrakr display works great. I'll have to check out the serial link soon and figure out how labor intensive data logging is going to be. I also haven't installed the monitor on batteries 7-12 yet. That means finding two more holes in the firewall. It's also tricky because batteries 7 & 8 are in the rear, so I had to run an extra cable to the back end for those leads.
It's really starting to look like a normal car again. Once I get the heater core finished, I'll be able to reassemble the console and dash. Then it'll be entirely stealthy. I'll have to get some green pinstriping or something to get the attention I crave.
I'm starting to get used to the "slammed" look. I don't know if I'm going to follow through with some sort of spring adjustment.
I did take it on another longish trip last week. There's some factory trained independent BMW mechanics a couple of towns away. They're the ones that bought the 4cyl and other parts. It needed a brake job before I started all this so I took it up to them so they could see the finished product. I figured out that their shop is 15 miles away, so I ought to be able to get up and back without getting too close to my current max of 37miles. I forgot about any sort of post-install test ride as well as any drain from the now-functional PS pump. I wound up limping home after a round trip of 34 miles. The next charge was 13.9kWh (out of a max 14.5).
I'm very pleased with the way things are holding together. I'd half expected something to go snap-fooey by now. I keep looking for stuff. The day after the brake job (new pads & rotors), I drove it from the house to the office and noticed a smell. When I got to the office, I raised the hood and felt some of the cables, the controller etc., and sniffed around a little bit. I finally realized that the smell was not any of my stuff, it was the new pads settling in on the new disks.
I love it when it's the normal things that are issues rather than my conversion work.
The same thing happened with a noise that popped up about 100 miles ago. I listened hard to determine whether the noise might be the impending breakup of the adapter or one of the other things you read about on these forums. It was road-speed related rather than motor speed, so that's good right? Maybe it's a bearing or something on the 207k, 13 year old donor? What about the driveshaft...did we not tighten it right when we put it back? No, while we had it up on the rack for the brake job, we noticed that the noise and heat insulating blanket pieces around the tunnel just behind the transmission had fallen down and were polishing the driveshaft.
So, no conversion drama, just simple age. I love it.
This thing's a lot of fun if you're not worried about range. I'm getting more comfortable with goosing it if I know that I'm only headed 10 miles before landing somewhere to charge. When the combination of location and schedule is right, it's quite enjoyable. I suspect though that living with it will always mean more planning than a regular ICE ride.
37 Miles!
So the EMW is back on the road. It spent a couple of months down at the shop getting the fabbed pieces painted and replacing the plywood control board with butcher block (and a brace). I also rewired the MR2 Power Steering pump with official Toyota connectors. I put in VoltBlochers to protect the Odyssey AGMs from overcharging. I also installed the sensor wires for one of the two PakTrakr strings, but haven't run them up to the monitor yet.
However, the PowerSteering still isn't working, and somehow the clutch needs to be bled again. I'll have to keep an eye on the brake fluid reservoir level. It looks like the tap for the clutch is shamefully near the top of the tank-let.
However, in the eternal quest for a bright side, at least it gave me good exposure to clutchless driving. While it would probably workout fine over the long haul, I'll be glad when I have the option of clutching again. There were times when it just didn't want to go into gear.
So the 37 miles: I'd originally hoped for 30-40 miles (see initial posting, 1/12/09). I'm very pleased with the 37. I was running a 3 mile rectangle on the edge of Fayetteville. There were some hills; think of holding two diagonally opposite corners of a piece of paper up about an inch and then running around the edge. So, even though there was coasting, there was also pulling, so I'm calling it roughly similar to daily driving. Two stops per loop; pulled out in 2nd gear. Then a clutchless shift into 3rd for most of the next straight. Two rolling right angle turns; pulled both of those in 3rd. Average speed was probably 35-40mph.
The pack voltage started out around 155V (12x12V Odyssey PC2150 105AH). In general, when the drive is on, the pack voltage drops 10-15V. On that last lap, the open circuit voltage (one of the contactors opens when coasting) was around 135. When I stomped on the pedal coming out of one of the corners, the voltage sank rather than current spiking. If I was more gentle, it would hold up. It was definitely time to limp home.
So, now I know what the range can be, and I know how to recognize when its time to head home. I'll avoid getting so deep into the capacity for the most part. I don't have any budget for replacement batteries.
Here's my current punchlist:
Wheel: | Orig: | Converted: |
---|---|---|
FrRt | 25 7/8 | 24 7/8 |
RrRt | 24 5/8 | 23 1/4 |
FrLt | 25 3/4 | 25 |
RrLt | 25 |
Oh yeah, I also finally got around to pricing a new windshield. I was pleasantly surprised, it was only around $200. That will be money well spent. There's some nifty rorschach style cracks running back and forth across the original windshield. All I see is food. really. I think the only thing holding it together is the Lousisana registration sticker and La.State Patrol Supporter sticker (somebody in this vehicle's past was hedging their bets).
Remaining ToDos:
A little further out:
Way Way Out:
Here's what's going on:
The good news on the new place is that it's got a nice 40x40 workshop where I can work on the Ranger and a three car garage so the EMW can stay inside where it's warm.