Just layout

After taking all the measurement went to the local hardware store to pick up angle iron for the front battery racks. Though no piece is much bigger than three feet there was 21 feet of 1 1/4" x 1 1/4" x 1/4" angle iron.

A great thing about the hardware store is that they cut the angle iron to length and only charged me $5 for around twelve cuts. Considering it would take me an hour to cut that much it was well worth it.

Here's a picture of one of the racks laid out.



Ultimately they should look like this.

Just installed

Saturday was installation day. Hoisted in the motor and transmission. Bolted both back to the frame. Reattached the drive axles, steering gear, control arms, and linkages. Bled out the air from the clutch.

After this was all done I hooked up the motor to the power supply and gave it a spin. Wheels and drive axles working well. Clutch engages and disengages properly.

Here is the motor installed.


Next step is fabricating front battery racks and component mounts.

Just in time to mate

This weekend I made a lot of progress. The adapter for the motor/transmission arrived on Friday. That means I can start putting things back together.

Here's a picture of the adapter.


First part to go on is the ring. This attaches to the motor.


Next the adapter plate attaches to the motor ring. The adapter plate matches the profile of the transmission and will eventually attach to the transmission.


Next is the coupler and bushing. The bushing goes around the motor drive shaft. The coupler attaches to the bushing. Eventually the coupler will attach to the flywheel.


The flywheel is then attached to the coupler. The flywheel position had to be adjusted to within +/- 1/100th of an inch.



The clutch and clutch pressure plate are then attached. Since the original clutch had over 100,000 miles on it I went ahead and put in a new clutch, pressure plate, and slave cylinder for the clutch.


Now it's time to mate the transmission and the motor together. This part was a little tricky. There are seven bolt holes that need to be lined up. And the drive shaft for the transmission has to go in the splined clutch hole. And did I mention that the motor weighs about 150lb and the transmission about 100lb. So you just cant "pick em up" and "slide em together".


Here's what it looks like assembled.


The motor is supported by the transmission at one end. I needed to support it at the end not connected to the transmission.


This bracket besides supporting the motor has another very important function. It counteracts the torque produced by the motor. Without the bracket the engine would spin in place instead of the engine staying in place and spinning the transmission input drive shaft.

The final piece of the puzzle was remounting one of the output drive shafts. The vehicle is front wheel drive. The transmission has two output drive shafts. One goes to the left wheel and one to the right wheel. The one going to the right wheel is two pieces.

One of these pieces is called the intermediate drive shaft. It was originally mounted to the engine. Since the engine is no longer present I needed to fabricate a mounting point to attach the drive shaft.

Below is the drive shaft looking end on. You can see the motor on the right and the transmission all the way in the back.


Below is the mounting bracket. Not pretty but it should do the job.


Next up, reinstall the transmission and motor.

Just finished!

Just kidding :-)

I received good news today. The motor/transmission adapter is in the mail and should arrive next week.

In the mean time I'm still working on the rear battery box. After dry assembly things were a little tighter than I thought. Some of the nooks that are 10" at floor height are 6" higher up. It was still tight even with "judicious" use of a ball peen hammer to sheet metal!

So after modifying the battery layout again (told you it would not be the last time when I told you it would be the last time) I modified the battery polyhedral and dry fit it again. This time it fits!

Here's the box partially laid out.


Here's the new battery layout for the last time. Really!


And here's the quality control inspector at work :-)