Just Another EV Conversion

Just Wow!

2011-07-08T11:18:00.000-07:00

Not to be confused with J-Wow!

Driving around with the new battery pack this week. Initial thoughts....

Wow! Losing 800+lbs of weight makes a huge difference. The Vue now accelerates much quicker and brakes easier.

Wow! Less energy used. With the old pack I was using about 400w/mile. With the new pack the combination of more efficient batteries and less weight dropped the energy use. Initial figures show this to be between 300-330w/mile.

Wow! Greater range. Today I took the Vue for a 40 mile drive. With the old pack this would have been the limit of the range, on a warm day, with a fresh pack, and sluggish performance at the end. With the new pack the fourtieth mile was just as good as the first mile. And based on the amount of energy used max range is between 85-95 miles.

Wow! Move over Nissan Leaf :-)

Just on the road again

2011-07-05T05:01:00.000-07:00

Title says it all :-)

Just finishing up

2011-07-03T19:27:00.000-07:00

The long holiday weekend was perfect for finishing up the battery installation. When I last posted the batteries had been bundled and physically installed in the battery box. The next step was wiring everything up.

There are 48 individual batteries making up the pack. Each battery needs to be connected to the next battery. Batteries are connected in either blocks of 4 or 8. The blocks are then connected to make the whole pack.

Because the lithium batteries require a little more monitoring than lead acid batteries I decided to install a battery management system(BMS) with the batteries. The BMS serves several important functions. The most important function is to prevent the batteries from being overcharged and over stressed.

In order to accomplish this the batteries are monitored by a multiple circuit boards. These are pictures of the mounting boards prior to installation. The top board is for 4 cells and the bottom one for 8 cells.

These copper bars connect the cells together and are attached to the bottom of the mounting boards.

The mounting decks and copper bars installed on the cells.

A closer view showing the circuit boards on top of the mounting deck. The circuit boards are connected to each other in order to communicate with the charger.

Here the packs of 4 and 8 cells have been connected to each other to form one big pack.

A fuse in the middle of the pack. In case of a short the fuse should protect the cells in the pack.

Close up of the fuse.

With the pack wired up the car is now drivable again!

Next step is charging up. Also need to do some slight modification of the software settings since the pack voltage has changed. Final part will be to get a top for the battery box.

Just Lego blocks....sorta

2011-06-28T18:04:00.000-07:00

Continuing from the last post I'm in the process of installing new batteries in the Vue. The new lithium batteries come in the form of a 3.2V cell. The cells are then bound together in groups of four to form a ~12V battery.

Here are pictures of four individual cells bound together using metal banding.

This is a picture of the blocks of cells in the battery box.

And here are the cells installed.

This picture show the charger mounted on the battery box. You can also see some of the holes in the box that help with dissipating any heat produced during the charging.

Next step will be starting to connect all of the batteries together.

Just a big shiny tray

2011-06-16T16:15:00.000-07:00

Time to change the batteries on the electric Vue. I'll just go down to the Radio Shack, buy a pack of batteries, pop out the old ones, and pop in the new ones. Oh I wish it were that easy....

Let's go back a few years first to when I decided to do the conversion. At that point lead acid batteries were really the only choice for electric vehicle batteries. Lithium batteries sized for electric vehicles were just coming to market. And the other less common type of batteries were either too expensive or unavailable for the average person.

Fast forward several years. My original lead acid batteries have lost a great deal of capacity. This is expected as one of the shortcomings of lead acid batteries are their life. I got two years+, ~10k+ miles, and ~700 charging cycles from the lead acid pack. This is about average for lead acid. But now that I need to replace the batteries I'd like to do better.

Now that lithium batteries are made by several manufacturers and have come down in price I'm going to switch battery chemistry. Switching to lithium batteries has several advantages compared to lead acid batteries.

1. Weight. For a given amount of energy lithium is considerably lighter. My lead acid pack weighed about 1500lbs. My new lithium pack will weigh about 600lbs.

2. Range. Not only is the pack lighter. It will contain more usable energy. So where my max range for lead was ~40 miles my max range will be ~80-100miles.

3. Performance. Having almost 1000lbs less in weight should make the car accelerate uphill better and brake better.

4. Battery life. Lithium is rated for more cycles and mileage than lead acid.

Now for the disadvantage. $$$. No getting around this. Up front lithium is more expensive. Over the long run lithium will probably be cheaper because of the number of cycles and mileage for the pack.

So two weeks ago I made the plunge and ordered new batteries. I also took the car out of service in order to remove the old batteries and make the necessary upgrades in order to make the switch.

Because the new batteries take up considerably less space I no longer need to have batteries under the hood. So I eliminated the wiring for that portion of the battery pack.

Today I started working on a new battery box for the rear. The old box was made of plywood. The new box will be made of galvanized steel.

Below is the bottom portion of the box. It will be mounted where the old box was in the back.

The box is made out of 18gauge galvanized steel and thicker galvanized angle iron. The bottom is riveted to the angle iron. It will be bolted to the 1" square iron supporting it. More pictures to come as it progresses.

Just an article about me...

2011-04-19T14:41:00.001-07:00

... and the Vue of course!

http://newtown-pa.patch.com/articles/no-fill-ups-required-newtown-doctor-converts-car-to-electric#c

Just glad the winter is over

2011-03-17T19:27:00.000-07:00

It's now been two years since I've converted a 2002 Saturn Vue from gasoline to all electric. Other than a few minor hiccups, as previously documented, the Vue has been my daily commuter five or six days a week. It now has over 10K electric miles on it.

This winter was a little tough for using the Vue. Everyone who has ever driven a regular car in the winter knows that the starter battery isn't quite as "peppy" when it is cold out. Well lead acid batteries in electric cars are just as finicky about the cold.

On a nice hot summer day, dead empty for my two year old batteries is probably about 35 miles. This poses no problem since my round trip commute is 20 miles. (My wife continually reminds me that it is only 13 miles if I don't go out of my way to get coffee. But it's really good coffee!)

Anyway, I digress. During the winter my range drops to about 20 miles. That means for my 20 mile round trip I need to charge at work in order to make it home. No problem. I have an outlet behind my office. Eight hours is more than enough time to recharge to full.

So my winter routine is drive to work 13 miles one way. Charge eight hours during the work day. Drive back home 7 miles. No problem at all....except for the snow.

You might be asking yourself what does snow have to do with electric vehicle range. My answer would be nothing. Except for when it comes down....and down...and down.. and down...for a total of about two feet over a couple weeks.

You still might be asking what does that have to do with the car? Roads get plowed and the Vue is front wheel drive. So that's not a problem. And the car has a great electric heater. So that's not a problem. What's the problem?

Glad you asked:-). The problem is that all of that snow has to get plowed somewhere. And the guys at my office complex decided that the best place to plow it was in a corner...behind my office...where the outlet is located :-( Yep, several feet high and deep of rock solid plowed snow right where I need to plug in.

I thought about trying to dig it out but then the second shoe dropped...more snow. And this time the outlet wasn't the problem. You see I have to plow the snow in my drive somewhere. And after all the snow had been plowed as far off the drive as possible the only place left for me to plow it was in front of the garage bay where the Vue is stored :-( So now not only couldn't I recharge at work, I couldn't even get the car out of the house!

Luckily the snow melted, the garage door unblocked, the plug visible, and the Vue back on the road for the last several weeks :-)

Just a hiatus

2010-05-21T21:04:00.000-07:00

Another update on the EV Vue. For the last six weeks the Vue has been out of commission. Over the winter I was having a very intermittent problem where the vehicle would "start" but was not responding to the throttle. Invariably the problem would go away in a few minutes and everything would run fine. The problem was very infrequent and intermittent enough that I could not reproduce it to troubleshoot.

Well in late March while driving home the vehicle became completely dead to the throttle. I managed to coast it into a local business and tow it with my truck back home.

Between leaving for vacation and just being busy with life it took a few weeks for me to get to work on the car. When I finally did I managed to track down the problem to the controller.

So off to the UPS store to ship the controller to the West Coast. A week later it arrived at the manufacturer. Luckily the only thing wrong was a wire inside that managed to work its way loose. Another ten days later I get the controller back. Today I managed to find the time to reinstall it.

Everything seems back to normal at this point. I'm looking forward to getting it back on the road as my daily vehicle.

Just clumsy

2009-09-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

It's now been about 6 months and 2500 miles on the Vue since I converted it to all electric. The Vue has been running great without any problems until....

Last week when I went to charge the Vue the charger tripped the ground fault circuit interupt (GFCI) outlet. For those not familiar with GFCI they are the outlets you have in your bathroom and kitchen to prevent you from electrocuting yourself near water.

In simple terms the GFCI works by detecting the current in the hot leg of the circuit (going out) and the neutral leg of the circuit (returning). Under normal operation they are the same (or within a few milliamps). If for some reason there was a path for the electricity to flow other than the wires, say you standing in a puddle holding an electric appliance, the GFCI would detect this and shut off the circuit. That way the electricity wouldn't flow through you to ground.

When the charger on the Vue is working it sends electrical current through the wiring to the batteries. Under normal circumstances this circuit is isolated from the vehicle. You don't want someone touching the vehicle and creating a new path for electricity to flow through them to ground.

Unfortunately there are a couple of places where a connection between the wiring and vehicle frame can occur with normal use. One source is the batteries. As they charge they create an acid mist which covers the batteries. This coating can create a path between the batteries and the vehicle ground.

Another source is dirt/grime on the motor. Enough of it can create a path from the cables attached to the motor to vehicle ground.

So the purpose of the GFCI is safety during charging. If a ground fault is detected the outlet shuts off so no one can get a shock or worse, while the car charges.

Since my GFCI kept tripping I knew I had a ground fault somewhere. Now I had to track it down. After cleaning all of my batteries and putting additional insulation on some of the exposed metal battery racks I still was having the problem.

With the help of the Electric Vehicle Discussion List I assembled a sophisticated ground fault detection device. Basically it is an extension cord with one end cut off. One of the wires is connected to the vehicle chassis. The other serves as a test probe. The extension cord is plugged in and the "hot" end of the exposed cord is used to touch/probe suspected wires that may be causing the problem. If the GFCI trips than that circuit is causing the problem.

(Note to any readers. Please don't try this at home without appropriate precautions. I've been working on this high voltage electrical system for a year so was comfortable with the voltages and currents involved. I took multiple safety precautions including insulation/protection of all exposed wiring and wearing of insulated rubber gloves meant for high voltage work. And even though I am not an electrical engineer or electrician I stayed at a Holiday Inn the previous night :-0)

Using this method I eventually isolated the fault to a dirty motor. So after a little degreaser and scrubbing of the outside of the motor the ground fault was repaired.

Now for the clumsy part. During the mucking around required to access my high voltage wiring in the fuse box I put a little too much tension on a wire connection and....well the pictures below say it all. The top picture should be attached to the bottom one.

So prior to my efforts I had a vehicle that ran great, but I couldn't charge. Now I have a vehicle that I can charge, but can run.

Luckily for me the good people at CafeElectric who make what I broke also can repair what I broke. So off to the west coast it goes for repair, hopefully to return soon.

Just legal

2009-07-19T05:19:00.000-07:00

Not to be confused with barely legal :-)

This week marked a milestone for the Electric Vue. I was finally able to get the safety inspection sticker required by the state.

Since putting the vehicle on the road I've been waiting for my local mechanic to get back to me on the inspection. He had no idea what needed to be done for an electric only vehicle and had to check with the state on the inspection requirements. It took a while for the state to get back to him. Finally they did and we went ahead and scheduled it for this week.

Since the vehicle is all electric there is no emmisions inspection. There is a safety inspection requirement. This consists of makings sure all the lights works, turn signals, brakes, tire wear, visual inspection, etc. All this worked fine so there was no trouble passing. Most of the time was spent with the mechanic talking about the conversion, electric vehicles, etc.

The Vue now has over 1500 miles on it and is still working fine. Below is a picture of the battery box in the rear of the vehicle (giant poodle optional component).

Just an update

2009-06-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

It's been three months and over a thousand miles since the Vue has been up and running. No major news or problems.

One minor problem with the charger where it would not shut off automatically. I had to have the manufacturer ship out a new circuit board that I exchanged out with the broken one in the charger. Since then the charger has been working fine.

The only work I've had to to lately, other than watering the batteries, is finishing the back battery box. I ended up using carpet and padding to cover the box.

Here's a picture of the Vue in the parking lot at work today. Could not resist :-)

Just a quickie :-)

2009-05-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I got a chance to replace the rotors and brake pads. Both were relatively easy and I did not run into any snags. Even without the extra weight the OEM front rotors are a known weak point for the Vue. With the new brakes and rotors the braking is definitely improved.

Today I decided to push the range limit while out doing errands. I went 35 miles using 80% of the battery charge. This means that "dead empty" is probably about 45 miles. As a practical point 35 miles is probably the max range I would want to go. And I would not want to do it on a regular basis as it shortens the battery life.

Just a springtime update

2009-05-20T15:13:00.000-07:00

Driving the vehicle the last three days I can tell you that the rear spring and shock upgrade make a huge difference. I'm no longer getting "bounce" from the back end when going over bumps. The noise is much less from the back end and there is no longer creaking from the back end (although that may have as much to do with the lubrication I applied to the rear suspension as with the upgrade).

Here are pics of the car before conversion, after conversion with old springs and shocks, and after conversion with new springs and shocks.

Just springtime

2009-05-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

I've been using the Saturn as my daily commuting car for the last month or so now. I've put on over 600 miles and the car seems to be holding up fine. Because it is the car I use most days I've been hesitating to do the rear spring and shock upgrade. I was not sure how long it would take and wanted to make sure I had plenty of time. So I waited for a weekend when I wasn't too busy.

Yesterday was that weekend. Removing and replacing the springs and shocks was relatively easy. It took about 3 hours to do one side and half that time to do the other side.

One thing I've come to realize is that 99% of the work is relatively straight forward and easy. Of course that other 1% is always that one odd sized, rusted, stripped bolt in the least accessible location possible. Sort of a metaphor for life :-)

Below is a picture of the new and old shocks. These appear to be the original factory shocks. I imagine that replacing them after 100K+ miles should result in a significant improvement.

The reason for replacing the springs is that even though the rear suspension is rated for the extra 1000lb+ of batteries the car is riding about 2-3" lower in the rear than prior to the conversion. The new springs were made by Coilsprings.com. Based on the factory spring data and the added weight they were able to fabricate springs to raise the rear back to the original height.

You can see in the pictures below that the new springs are longer and have a larger diameter wire gauge.

Here is a picture with the old spring removed. The old shock is hanging in the top middle of the picture. The lower control arm is the middle of the picture, behind the wheel.

Here' what it looks like after replacing the spring and shock.

I haven't had the opportunity to drive with the suspension upgrades yet. The rear is 3" higher and definitely looks better. Next up 20" wheels and spinners :-)

A final note. I've finally answered the age old question of whether cars are male or female. You know, "she's a beautiful car" vs "he gets me there and back". If you look closely at the picture above and the picture of the disassembled rear end you'll see an "unusual" looking part of the rear suspension.

I think the part is called a jounce bumper. It has something to do with preventing the spring from compressing too much on a big bump. Whatever it is called it answers the male/female question thing. Just scroll down to the picture below for the answer.

Just rotten eggs

2009-05-16T20:36:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I was peacefully sleeping when I was awoken by an annoying, loud, high pitched alarm. After a couple minutes of searching I determined that the alarm was from the carbon monoxide detector in the house.

In addition to the alarm going off there was the odor of sulfur in the house. This odor was emanating from the garage where to my dismay the battery charger was still on.

Now normally the battery charger shuts off when the pack reaches a certain voltage. For some reason the timer did not shut off the charger. So all evening the batteries were venting hydrogen sulfide gas.

A quick email to the electric vehicle discussion list on hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide detectors gave me a few responses. Other people have had the same thing happen. Apparently the sensor in the carbon monoxide detector is fooled by hydrogen sulfide. So the alarm ended up being a false alarm.

I'll have to watch the charger a little closer to figure out was is going on. Hopefully it won't happen again.

Just the bells and whistles

2009-05-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

I've been driving the Saturn for a few weeks now as my regular commuter car. I've put about 400 miles on it so far. Longest round trip without charging was 30 miles, although most of my trips are about 15 miles.

I still have things do such as covering the rear battery box and upgrading the rear springs. In the mean time I decided to do the essential upgrade that all vehicles need...replace the factory radio!

The one problem I noticed with the factory radio was that the electric motor and controller produce electrical noise. Specifically radio stations get static when accelerating. Since we live "out in the country" a lot of the radio stations are weak to begin with. This just exacerbates the problem.

I figured that a newer head unit may be less susceptible to the problem. I also wanted to get a radio that could connect to my Blackberry. That way I could use bluetooth to use the phone hands free. Just as important it would allow me to stream audio to the radio (Pandora, podcasts, mp3, etc). This allows the Blackberry to act as a second tuner, one not a prone to the electrical interference.

Installing the head unit was pretty simple... remove part of the dash, remove the old radio, modify the old radio mounting hardware to fit the new radio, rewire the old harness to match the new radio, route the microphone wire to hide it, and reinstall everything :-) The process actually was not that hard.

One problem was that the car has a US antenna connection and the radio has a European connection. A quick trip to the Best Buy to pick up an adapter solved that problem.

The second problem was that the wiring for the harness didn't match the wiring diagram in the factory manual. A little trial and error and I managed to figure out the wiring.

Here's a picture of it installed. The colors of the LED's fit in with the LED instruments on the dash.

First impression is that it does what I wanted it to do. The bluetooth streaming is a phenomenal feature. I can listen to download sports, music, and other podcasts as well as saved mp3 music. Pandora also works great. Since it streams from the internet it depends on cell phone coverage. I need to test if for my usual commute.

As for the radio the electrical interference is still there, though not nearly as bad. I'll need to look at the antenna wiring in the engine compartment to see if I can shield it somehow.

Just read the instructions

2009-04-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

The new CV boot arrived on Friday just in time for a weekend repair. Replacing the CV boot required removing the right front axle.

So out comes the handy dandy factory service manual...volume chassis...section suspension....subsection front suspension..."Replacing CV Boot FWD Right Front".

One thing about the service manuals is that they tend to be repetitive. If you need to do work on the front end, whether its the CV boot, brakes, suspension, etc the steps are always pretty much the same. So each section in the front end section starts with the same set up steps...loosen lug nuts...jack up car...remove front tire..etc.

So I glance at the first few steps and the diagrams and see its the same as usual for front suspension work. Been there and done it so should be no problem. After about a half dozen steps I get to the part specific for the repair I am doing. Remove front axle from wheel knuckle.

Having removed the other end of the axle earlier in the conversion I expected that the axle should slide right out or maybe need a little bit of prying. I tug, and pull, and tug, and pry, and do it all again even harder. No luck. After about 20 minutes I give up and decide I'm missing something. This shouldn't be that hard.

So I call Chris and ask him if there are any special tricks or tools needed to remove the axle. And if not can I borrow a bigger pry bar. Chris says that usually once you remove the axle nut they slide out easily or can be hammered out.

"Axle nut", I say to Chris. "I don't think this axle has an axle nut. The other end definitely did not have an axle nut."

So after getting off the phone with Chris I go back to the shop manual. Section "Replacing CV Boot FWD Right Front"...loosen lug nuts...jack up car...remove front tire..etc. No axle nut. Lets look at the wheel. Hmm...there is a big nut holding the rotor on, but I'm not replacing the rotor. Let's look at the manual again.

Section "Replacing CV Boot FWD Right Front"...loosen axle nut and lug nuts...jack up car...remove front tire..etc.

OK. To be fair the instruction for loosening the axle nut was not in small print. The writers of the manual are a little bit more insidious than that. They made it the first line of the instructions! More importantly the section was otherwise identical to the sections not requiring the axle nut be loosened. So at first glance (and second glance) the instructions and diagrams look identical to the instructions not requiring the axle nut be loosened.

Of course once the axle nut was loosened the axle removal was so much easier :-)

Just a full circle

2009-04-16T16:32:00.000-07:00

I stopped by the local auto parts store to get a replacement CV boot for the damaged one. They don't carry CV boots because at $30 bucks for a boot and $75 bucks for a new axle (including the boot) most people just replace the axle. I said ok, order me an axle. No problem. Until the phone call from them saying they can't get the axle for my car.

Next stop the internet. Do some searching and find an axle for the car. $70 bucks plus shipping. But it is an "off brand" aftermarket part. I do some research on the internet and find that this aftermarket one is a cheap version with lots of reports of unhappy buyers.

Since I can't find an OEM axle online I call a reputable US axle vendor. He doesn't carry the axle for my car since Saturn changes the spline configuration so frequently he can't keep up with them.

Next I call Saturn dealer. Figure I'm willing to pay a little more for the OEM axle. Well a little more is $400 more!

In the end I end up just ordering the CV boot from them ($35) like I originally wanted to do. Full circle :-)

Just two steps forward and one step backwards

2009-04-12T13:27:00.000-07:00

As indicated in the prior post the next item of business is getting the speedometer hooked up to the vehicle speed sensor(VSS). I have two choices at hand for the VSS. I can use the OEM VSS that is part of the transmission. Or I can use the aftermarket VSS that came with the EVision.

Previously I had tried to use the OEM VSS. It's already mounted and ready to go. Unfortunately hooking it up to the speedometer gave no signal.

I had also tried the aftermarket VSS. The sensor is magnetic and generates an electrical signal when metal passes by (there are metal nuts under the black tape on the axle in the picture below).

This didn't work so I pulled the sensor and tested it using a drill with a couple metal nuts around the collar. This worked fine so I figured the sensor and nuts needed to be closer to each other. I went ahead and remounted the red sensor but couldn't find an acceptable position (either on the axle above or closer to the CV joint).

At this point I decided to go back to the OEM VSS. I had asked around on the Electric Vehicle Discussion List about the OEM VSS. Someone suggested that the newer VSS may need a pull up resistor in order to produce the necessary voltage for the speedometer.

So I went ahead and reconnected the OEM VSS with a resistor between the output wire and 12V power. Bingo! The speedometer started registering values.

Now to calibrate the speedometer. Luckily there are a couple of informational radar traps in the area. The speedometer requires a speed of 45mph to calibrate. So I buzzed by one of the radar signs and adjusted my speed till the sign said 45mph. Unfortunately it was a 25mph zone and I got a ticket....just kidding :-)

Once the sign said 45mph I pushed the calibration button on the speedometer. I now had a working and calibrated speedometer! Just to be sure I went by a couple more times at different speeds to check it.

Now the one step backwards part. In the process of fooling with the speed sensor I noticed a lot of grease on the chassis near the axle. This was definitely not there when I originally installed the VSS the prior week.

I tracked the source of the grease to one of the CV joints on the right front axle. Apparently there was a small hole in the boot protecting the joint. The grease was leaking out from the boot (actually flying out at 4000rpm). You can see the boot in the picture above (prior to it leaking).

Anyway I'll need to get a new boot to replace the damaged one. In the meantime to keep the EV on the road I have duct tape securing the hole and it seems to be working.

Just the numbers

2009-04-05T12:20:00.000-07:00

The Vue is now on the road. Over the weekend I was able to fasten some of the front batteries down. This allowed me to put the front end and headlights back on. So now I can drive the car without looking like a scene from "Mad Max" :-)

I still have lots of items on the checklist...fastening the remaining batteries and getting the speedometer to work are high on my list now.

Speaking of the speedometer I was able to track down part of the problem why it wasn't working. There was a bad splice in the sender wire that was easy enough to repair. I went ahead and hooked up my pulse generator (you remember homemade pulse generator I was using for the tach). Anyway I hooked it up and sure enough the speedometer started working. Now I just needed to get it working off the vehicle speed sensor.

Today I took the car for a bit more of a spin (19.4miles). I wanted to get an idea of what my "mileage" (energy use) would be so I could figure out the range. Based on this drive the max range should be in the 45-55 mile. In general you want to keep the average use at about 50% of the max range in order to maximize battery longevity. This is still well above my daily 15 mile roundtrip commute.

For those interested in the numbers:
Total pack energy: 32.5 kW
Usable pack energy: 19.5kW
Usable to prolong battery life: 9.75kW

Total pack amp hours: C/20 225 Ah
Usable pack amp hours: C/1 135 Ah
Usable to prolong battery life: C/1 67.5 Ah

Trip distance: 19.4 miles
kW used: 7.04 kW
Ah used: 52 Ah
Mileage 360W/mile

The last number is the mileage ("MPG"). It is important because it is a measure of the efficiency of the vehicle. It is a function of vehicle weight, aerodynamics, rolling resistance, etc. A very light, aerodynamic vehcile has a watt/mile usage of about 200-250 W/mi. A light truck about 350 W/mi.

Prior to the conversion I was basing my range calculations on 350 W/mi. The fact that I'm in the ballpark before doing anything to improve that mileage (driving habits, alignment, etc) makes me very happy :-)

Just more checklist stuff

2009-03-27T14:14:00.000-07:00

I can now take reattaching the hood off of the list.

I also attached the vehicle speed sensor to the right drive axle (the little red thingy). It is a small magnet that senses the change in magnetic field from the metal bits (nuts) secured to the axle.

With the hood attached I figured I could go a little bit further without drawing too much unwanted attention. Who needs a bumper anyway :-)

I ended up driving about 5 miles. Other than the speedometer not displaying the speed everything else works fine.

With the EVision gauge working I was able to get some quick and dirty readings for the "gas mileage". Based on the drive today I should be able to get 18-20 miles easily and only use 1/2 the battery capacity. This should actually improve as the batteries "break in" and I learn to drive the car more efficiently.

Just the checklist

2009-03-26T17:52:00.000-07:00

Now that I have the battery pack hooked up and the car running I'm starting to get to my checklist of things I still need to do.

Checklist:

1. Get the speedometer working

2. Check the tachometer calibration

3. Secure the batteries

4. Secure the charger

5. Put the hood and bumper back on

6. Feed the cat...okay...not needed for the car to run; and since we don't have a cat I guess I can skip it :-)

One item I did get off my checklist was getting the EVision working. This is the gauge that tells me the battery pack voltage, how much current is being used, what my "gas mileage" is, etc. Luckily the only thing wrong was a loose wire. My bad.

While I'm on the topic of the EVision I want to give a ringing endorsement to Victor at MetricMind for puuting together this great device. Not only does it provide every possible parameter one needs for an electric vehicle, it has a great interface and display for accessing that data.

Now back to the checklist. I anticipate securing the front batteries next week which means I can put the front end and hood back together. Once that is done I can get the car out on the road more (can't take it too far with the hood off).

Just that little red thingy

2009-03-16T17:08:00.000-07:00

One of the items on my "to do" list is to troubleshoot the vacuum pump. The pump is used to provide vacuum for the brake booster.

There are two problems with the pump...it takes forever to create a vacuum and it's loud. So I went over all the hoses and connections to see if there is a vacuum leak. All the connections look good.

I went back to the instructions for the vacuum to see if I missed anything. Still no luck. But while looking for the instructions I found this in the box:

Not knowing what this was (it was not on the instruction sheet) I decided to call the supplier of the vacuum to see it he knew what was going on. He didn't have anything new to add to what I already had done. Then the conversation got interesting.

Me: Also there is an extra part that came with the pump (see attached picture). No idea what it is. Do you know what it is?

Him: Muffler - it goes on the exhaust port of the pump - will muffle the noise some.

Me: Will try the muffler on the output port. Is that the little red thingy on the pump?

Him: I'm surprised turning the pump on didn't "eject" the little red thingy - that port should be open so it can pump out the air. That could possibly explain why it is taking so long to draw down the vacuum.

Me: OK. Taking out the "red thingy" and putting on the muffler makes a huge difference. Vacuum come up in a few seconds.

Well at least the vacuum works like it is supposed to. One less thing on the to do list.

Just the annoying stuff

2009-03-10T18:27:00.000-07:00

A quick update. Took the car out for another quick run. This time to the end of the driveway and back. Nothing new to report from the ride.

In the meantime I've started to power up some of the auxiliary high voltage components. I hooked up the DC/DC converter and it works great. It provides a nice 13.8V power supply for charging the auxiliary battery and running the twelve volt accessories.

The heat for the car is also hooked up and works great. It basically is a small water heater that is powered by the main battery pack. The water is pumped through the OEM heater core. The only thing I needed to add was a small switch to turn the heater and pump on.

Next big thing to work on is the power steering. This one may be tricky. The power steering is electric and received input from the old engine computer. Supposedly if it does not receive info from the engine computer it should go into a default assist mode. I'll need to wait till the weekend to check it more thoroughly.

I also need to work on the vacuum pump. It works, but is slow and noisy. Exploring options.

Just the maiden voyage!

2009-03-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I hooked up the remainder of the batteries. After plugging the controller into the battery pack I turned the key and....nothing happened. Nothing meaning explosions, sparks, and other nasty stuff.

What did happen is the green light on the controller went on. This was the signal that the controller liked what it was seeing and was ready to go. So I put the car in neutral and pressed on the gas pedal. The electric motor hummed and the tachometer started doing whatever a tachometer does.

So today with the weather warm it seemed like a perfect time for that first electric trip. I went ahead and double checked that nothing was loose and nothing was in the way. I pulled out of the garage and took a trip to the front door. After picking Nancy (my wife) up from the front of the house we took the trip back into the garage. Total mileage...less than 1/10 of a mile.

Here's the car out of the garage.

Some observations from the maiden voyage:
1. The rear, with all of the batteries, is riding low. I have upgraded springs on order to solve this problem.
2. The vacuum pump for the brakes has a leak that I need to track down.
3. The display for the Evision unit (battery monitor) is not working. The main board and other components are working fine since I can interface with it using the computer. Need to troubleshoot this.
4. The electric power steering was not kicking in. Another thing to troubleshoot.

Overall, given the complexity of the project, I was happy with the first run. Next thing to check is the charging circuit. I have the car plugged in and charging as I'm typing. Again nothing is happening...the good type of nothing that is!

Just the odds and ends

2009-03-01T16:27:00.000-08:00

Now that the charger is ready to be connected I need to have something to plug it into. I was lucky enough to have a dedicated 20amp circuit already in my garage. All I needed to do was extend it to where I wanted it to be and change the outlet to a GFI outlet.

Extending the circuit was no big deal. Changing out the outlet was a little more challenging. Originally I started with a single gang box. Because the GFI is deeper than a regular outlet there was not enough room for the outlet and wiring. No big deal. Out to the hardware store for a double box. Next AM install the outlet. Still not enough room for the GFI and wiring. OK. Out to the hardware store for a double deep, double gang box. Yeah it fits. Oh...and it works too :-)

Next step is to hook up all the batteries. Remember all those cables I made a few weeks back? Well this is where they will reside soon.

Before hooking up the high voltage I'm starting to clean up some of the wiring. I'm making sure that all of the wires are protected from damage. This is what the low voltage wiring gets wrapped in.

For the high voltage wiring I'm using spa tubing to protect the wires. You can see the grey tubing around the wire up until the point it inserts into the Anderson connector.

Just plug it in

2009-02-24T18:05:00.000-08:00

Somehow the electricity has to get from the outlet into the battery pack. This is accomplished with a charger/transformer that takes 110V AC from an electric outlet and converts it to DC current.

Most conversions try to use the old fuel door as the place for the hookup to the charger. Since that appears to be the general consensus I decided to do the same. And frankly it looks really cool this way :-)

Just plumbing

2009-02-24T17:52:00.000-08:00

Now wait a minute. Plumbing? In an electric car? Let me explain...

Although electric motors are more efficient at energy conversion than gasoline engines they are not 100% efficient. Some of the energy is lost as heat within the controller.

The Zilla controller I am using is capable of drawing more than 300amps at 144+ volts. That's over 43,000 watts (think of lighting 4300 light bulbs at once). Now the controller is more efficient than a light bulb in terms of heat loss...but you get the point.

In order to keep the controller from overheating the Zilla is equipped with a liquid cooled heat sink. Coolant is constantly circulating through the controller to capture this heat. The coolant then flows through a small (book size) radiator to discard the heat before being pumped back through the Zilla.

Here is a picture of the pump (bronze, round thing at the bottom). The valve at the top is for adding coolant to the loop and purging air. You can see the green antifreeze in the tubing.

Here is the radiator.

Just accoutrements

2009-02-15T16:47:00.000-08:00

Battery accoutrements like cables, battery boxes, and fans. Where to start....

OK. Let's start with the box. After finishing the box I caulked all the joints and painted it with an epoxy paint to protect the box from acidic fumes.

During the charging process hydrogen gas is produced by the batteries. This gas needs to be vented out of the box. Most conversions use a small fan to vent the gas.

Here is a picture of the fan. The fan is connected to a relay that is activated when the old fuel door (the future charger plug in port) is open.

At one end of the box I have connected tubing that draws fresh air from outside the car. The inlet is the white tubing in the picture below. The end of the tubing you can't see runs to the battery box.

Here's a picture of the outlet tubing. The outlet is directly behind the fan. The top picture is where it vents from the box and the bottom picture where it vents out of the vehicle.

This is an overall picture of the box. Along the left you can see the white inlet vent tubing. The bottom right corner is where the fan is located. The wires in the box connect to the auxiliary 12volt car battery. The holes in the box are for wires and air to pass between the compartments of the box.

Next step was to make cables to connect all of the batteries together. Here is the layout for the batteries in the rear.

The final layout of the batteries had several goals to meet. The most obvious is that the batteries had to fit in the box. Goal number two was to minimize the lengths of the cables connecting the batteries.

A third an not so obvious goal is to minimize the voltage potential between neighboring batteries. For instance you don't want battery one next to battery seventeen. This would represent a 102V (6 x 17) potential. If you accidentally dropped a wrench across the neighboring terminals that would be one huge short. Although one and seventeen appear next to each other there is a divider between the last three batteries and the remainder of the batteries.

With the layout in hand I laid out the batteries on the garage floor. Then I started to make cables to connect the batteries.

First step in making the connecting cables was taking 2/0 welding cable and laying it in a path from the negative terminal of one battery to the positive terminal of the next battery. Because of vent caps and carrying brackets on the top of each battery this path was usually not a straight line.

After cutting the cable to length each end was stripped of insulation. A protective cover was slipped over the cable. Nolox was coated over the bare wire. A connector was then slipped over the wire. Since positive and negative terminals are different sizes it was important to make sure that I was not putting two positive or negative connectors on the same wire. The connector was then oriented to face the correct direction and secured to the cable with two crimps.

Here is the final result. Don't worry...they are all labeled for which batteries the connect.

Last but not least I put a few batteries in the box.

Just pedaling

2009-02-15T16:27:00.000-08:00

Pedaling...the process of installing a pedal :-)

In a typical car you press on the gas pedal to go. The pedal is connected to the computer controlling the engine. The computer then controls the fuel injection, air flow, and combustion.

Since I no longer have a gas engine I don't need a gas pedal. Now I need an "electricity pedal".

The Zilla controls the "flow" of electricity to the electric motor. There is an input on the Zilla for connecting to an accelerator pedal. One option for connecting to the pedal is to use the original pedal, hook up a cable to the pedal, and have the pedal control a variable resistor (potentiometer). A second option is to use an electronic accelerator pedal. The movement of the pedal is directly translated to an electrical signal that is sent to the controller.

I chose to go with option two. The advantages include longer reliability and simpler connections to the Zilla (no mechanical cable to hook up). The disadvantage is that a new mounting bracket needs to be fabricated for the pedal.

This is a picture of the new pedal installed.

On closer inspection you can see the new mounting bracket. Not pretty, but functional. The bracket is attached to the old mounting points of the old pedal.

Just the instrument cluster...a.k.a. the dash

2009-02-06T19:04:00.000-08:00

Well the instrument cluster is finished (as I say crossing my fingers in hope). The last picture I posted of the instrument cluster showed lots of wires coming from the back. After tidying up the wires I found some nice connector harnesses to tie everything together.

After connecting the harness to power I reinstalled the cluster. So far everything that is hooked up seems to power up. This includes left and right turn signal, high beam indicator, speedometer, tachometer, and a couple indicator lights.

There is one more gauge in the picture above that you can't see. It draws its power from the high voltage pack so I can't test it yet. Next step....start testing the high voltage components.

Just batteries

2009-02-01T14:58:00.000-08:00

The title says it all. Next step...just battery cables...lots of them.

Just gauges

2009-01-17T12:27:00.001-08:00

Just some pictures to show the progress of the new instrument cluster. Next step...hooking it up.
Front view (left to right):
Control knob for EVision
Multiple indicator lights and turn signal
Tachometer
Speedometer
EVision
Right turn signal

Just a riddle

2009-01-13T16:38:00.000-08:00

Here's a riddle. What's takes more time and effort? A. eye surgery B. removing an accelerator pedal assembly? (Answer at the bottom of this post.)

Over the last few weeks I've been working on several different parts of the EV. The 2/0 wire arrived and I was able to fish the wire from the engine bay, through the conduit, and to the battery boxes in the back. As little WD40 on the wires helped them slide easily through several tricky turns.

Since deciding to scrap the OEM tach and speedo I've been working on reconfiguring the instrument cluster. Once I finish I'll take some pictures of the new cluster and give details.

I spoke to the battery supplier and ordered the batteries needed. I'm hoping they should arrive by the end of the month. This means I need to finish up the battery box.

Here are a couple pictures of the box.

Because of space limitations in the front I needed to move two batteries and the accessory battery to the rear. This meant adding a smaller box to the original box. The holes are to allow ventilation between the two boxes. Next up painting and insulation.

Riddle answer: B.

This is a picture of an accelerator pedal assembly (gas pedal). It needs to be removed and replaced with one specifically for the electric motor.

This assembly has three bolts attaching it to the vehicle. Removing it requires getting under the dash (very uncomfortable for someone 6'2"). The bolts are accessible only with a flat wrench. The bolts require about 20 complete revolutions to remove. The wrench only has enough room to turn about 1/8 of a turn (even with a ratchet flat wrench). The space is so tight that there is only enough room to grab it with the ends of two fingers.

Time to perform eye muscle surgery on two eyes and four muscles earlier in the day while sitting comfortably...one hour. Time to remove three bolts while contorted under a dashboard, hand cramped from continually grasping/re-grasping a wrench with two finger...two hours. Feeling when pedal is finally out....priceless :-)

Just for spare parts

2008-12-27T05:33:00.000-08:00

The results of the tach experiment are in. And the winner is.....the engine computer (not me).

Hooking up the pulse generator with 5V amplitude waves to the ECM did not drive the tach. I checked at a few frequencies simulating 1000, 2000, and 4000 RPM. No go. I also checked the RPM's with the OBD scanner. This confirmed the computer was on and also confirmed zero from the RPM input.

There may be another input to the ECM that is needed (may be from the camshaft sensor). Although it would have been nice to use the OEM tach at this point it is just easier to replace the tach and speedo with aftermarket replacements.

Oh well. No big deal. Into the spare parts closet for the pulse generator. Never know when I might need one again!

Just for the hell of it

2008-12-19T15:55:00.000-08:00

I'm still waiting for the 2/0 wire to arrive. It should be here before Christmas. In the mean time I'm still fooling around with the tach.

As I mentioned before I'd like to keep the stock tach if possible. Worse case scenario I replace it. Not a big deal, but not as fun either.

Speaking of fun, in order to simulate the new motor spinning and the new RPM sensor I decided to build a pulse generator. This pulse generator creates square wave pulses of different frequencies. These square wave pulses basically duplicate the output of the RPM sensor. By feeding pulses of a known frequency I can see if the engine control module(ECM) will properly drive the tach.

Now I could have easily purchased a pulse generator, but what fun would that be. Any excuse to sit by the fireplace on a cold day, look productive, and use a soldering iron shouldn't be passed up.

This is a picture of the circuit while I was playing with it.

Here it is mounted on a board. I'm showing you the nice side of the board. My soldering is not pretty!

And here is a picture of the oscilloscope tracing showing the square waves produced by the pulse generator. As an aside Ebay is your friend(...oscilloscope...$4 ebay :-))

Next step is to attach the generator to the ECM. The ECM expects a voltage of 5V. This only puts out 1V so I'll need to hook it up to a small amplifier for testing. Maybe I'll build the amp too! Oh wait, I already built one a few years ago for my son's guitar ....just for the hell of it :-)

Just the ECM

2008-12-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

That's the engine control module. Since there is no engine it would make sense that no ECM is needed. Not the case since the tachometer and speedometer inputs run through the ECM. So I guess I'll hook it back up.

The ECM is connected to the vehicle by two connectors each with over 60 individual wires. The top connector has the cable attached. The bottom does not.

Most of the 100+ wires that go to the ECM are for engine functions no longer needed. Out of all the wires I only need 8 (power, ground, ignition signal, CANH, CANL, vehicle speed sensor, crankshaft position sensor, and OBD communication).

With factory manual in hand I went through the bundle of wires and separated out the ones needed. The rest I bundled up, cut, and bagged. Eventually I'll cut off the wires not needed since they are bulky and get in the way.

Next I connected my OBD scanner and turned on the ignition. And as luck would have it the scanner started communicating with the ECM.

So now that I know the ECM works the next step is to hook up a new RPM sensor and see if the ECM accepts the input.

One last thing. Here is a picture of the instrument cluster partially installed. The signal lights are on top. The lower lights are dash illumination that get covers put on later. The lights seem to work fine although I need a couple more bulbs.

Just lots of acronyms

2008-12-10T18:34:00.000-08:00

To everyone following this blog (all two of you, you know who you are) I apologize for not posting for a while. I'm sure you have been waiting with bated breath and were in the midst of going into withdrawal :-)

I haven't been posting, but that doesn't mean work has not been progressing. Currently I'm waiting for some wire to arrive. It is on back order.

In the mean time I've been working on the instrument cluster. Until I started taking the instrument cluster apart I didn't realize how few of the original cluster lights and gauges I could get rid of. Here is a picture of the original cluster.

The obvious gauge I wouldn't need was the fuel level. Some people actually do keep it and use it to track battery state of charge. I have another gauge for this so out it goes. Same with the engine temperature; no engine to temperature :-)

There are a bunch of lights indicating various engine conditions: too hot, change oil, service, battery, low coolant, etc. These would be sacrificed.

In the end there are only a few things I wanted to retain: tachometer, speedometer, odometer, turn signals, high beam indicator, and night time cluster illumination. In addition I will be adding a new gauge that lets me monitor battery voltage, battery amps, amps used, amps remaining, and a few other things.

This is the exploded view of the cluster.

In the old days each light and gauge in the instrument panel (I/P) would have dedicated wires. Vehicle speed sensor (VSS) to speedometer, crank position sensor (CKP) to tachometer, etc. Now a days cars have several computers collecting and dispensing information. Two of these are the engine control module (ECM) and body control module (BCM). They talk to each other and the sensors via a controlled area network bus (CAN Bus).

So the VSS sends its signal to the ECM. The ECM converts the analog VSS signal to a digital signal and broadcasts the information over the CAN. The BCM hears the VSS signal broadcast on the CAN and retransmits it to the I/P. The I/P then has a chipset that signals the speedometer needle to move.

They say that going from the analog way to the digital way saves 30meters of wire and decreases the car weight by dozens of pounds. It also makes "hacking" into the car electronics a hell of a lot harder. Oh for the pre-acronym days :-)

So here's the I/P circuit board. The four big white things are the four gauges. The bulbs are for the turn signals and I/P illumination. The little, rectangular white spots are LED's for all the warning lights.

Now I need room to fit the new gauge that keeps track of the batteries and motor. It has two parts, a display and a dial to select different display functions. Here is the display portion. The selector dial is a little smaller.

I decided that the best place to place the display was where the old temperature gauge was located. There were a few LED's there that I would not need. So after cutting out the unnecessary circuits and mounting the display I have this:

Next I had to do the same thing for the selector dial. The old fuel gauge on the far left was a good place. I also soldered a few wires to some LED"s to use as indicator/warning lights for the controller. This is the rear of the board after everything was mounted.

Here's what the front looks like.

On the left is the selector dial stem. On the right is the new display. I painted over the old markings where the thermometer was located. I need to paint over the old fuel gauge markings.

Next step is to get the I/P working again. I installed the I/P back into the dash and powered it up. The turn signals work (they are the only thing on the I/P that is directly wired and does not go through the CAN). The I/P illumination also works.

As expected most of the LEDS no longer work since I cut through the portion of the board that contained their circuitry. As for the speedometer and tach testing them will be a little tougher. I need to reconnect the ECM since the VSS provides data to the speedometer via the ECM.

The tach is a little tougher. Since I removed the engine I no longer have a crankshaft or a crankshaft sensor to provide data for the tach. I do have a sensor that will provide the new motor RPM's. I plan on connecting the new sensor to the ECM in place of the old sensor. Hopefully the new signal should satisfy the ECM. If not then I'll just pull the old tach and get an old fashioned analog one as a replacement.

Just fishing

2008-11-28T18:35:00.000-08:00

Fishing in this case refers to routing wires from the front of the vehicle to the back. Since the charger and the majority of the batteries are in the back of the car there needs to be a way to connect the components in the engine bay to the components in the rear.

To accomplish this I constructed a conduit made of PVC pipe. The conduit is fastened underneath the vehicle in the approximate position of the old exhaust system. Through the conduit multiple wires will be routed.

I've pulled through most of the smaller wiring. The next step is to pull through the "big wires".

The picture above is where the exhaust pipe ended in the back. I'll connect this to one other piece (seen from inside the vehicle below) in order to get the wires into the battery box.

Just spaghetti

2008-11-18T20:09:00.000-08:00

Spaghetti:
1. pasta in the form of long strings
2. the electrical wiring in a car!

This past weekend I mounted most of the major electrical components and started wiring some of the high voltage components together. I'll post pictures and comments on that another time.

Tonight I started working on the low voltage (12V) wiring. One of the first things I did was re-attach the factory fuse box and make sure it was working.

I was very happy when the lights, wipers, and such worked properly :-)

Next was to create a new fuse box for the low voltage components I was adding. This required hooking the old fuse box to the new power supply. That part was easy. The harder part is "tapping" into the factory circuits. For instance some of the new equipment needs to turn on when the ignition is in the RUN position. Some need a signal from the START position. And some need a constant power supply regardless of the ignition position.

For the START position I decided to use the wire that went to the old starter. I had labeled the wire when I disconnected it. Additionally I have the factory manuals and the wiring diagrams.

So I went ahead and hooked up the volt meter to the starter wiring and put the ignition in the START position. The meter read zero volts. So I checked the connections and tried again. Still no voltage on the wiring. Finally I consulted the manual above. What it diagrammed and what I had forgotten is that clutch needed to be depressed to close the circuit. So I try again with the clutch down and bingo! The volt meter lights up.

Next I needed to find a wire that only turns on when the ignition is in the RUN position. I had about 50 wires that used to go to the engine and engine computer that I no longer needed. One of these should work. Initially I looked in the manual for the circuits turned on by RUN. Eventually I decided it was easier just to use the volt meter and check a few wires.

The good news is that there were several wires that fit the description. The bad news is that all the wires are signal wires and not large enough to supply the 40amps needed for the circuits. That means I'll have to go out tomorrow and get a relay for this set of circuits.

Here's a picture of the fuse box at this point. At the top of the picture you can see one of the mini fuse blocks that will distribute power to the low voltage components. (Don't worry Chris. I plan to neaten it up).

This is a diagram of the circuit blocks to be connected.

Just $0.35 vs $200.00

2008-11-13T18:59:00.000-08:00

The title of this post refers to the cost difference between fixing vs replacing a part. A little background first.

While disassembling the car I had to detach the shifter cables from the transmission. These cables connect the "stick shift" inside the car to the transmission. The cables translate the motion of moving the shifter to actual gear shifting.

In the process of removing the cables from the attachment to the transmission I ended up snapping the plastic bushings that connect the cables to the transmission. Here is a picture of the snapped bushing.

There is another part to this bushing that is not shown. It is a hollow half sphere made of metal that sits in the center of the bushing and snaps onto the transmission shifter.

Here's the bushing attached to the transmission. You can see the bottom arrow points to where the bushing is still attached. The top arrow points to where the bushing has been removed (and the little ball it snaps onto).

The cable fits over the bushing. You can see the eyelet where the bushing would go through.

So when this happened it was no big deal. The cables were undamaged. The transmission shifter was undamaged. All I needed to do was go to the dealership and get the replacement bushings. How much could they cost? :-(

The answer to that question is $0. You know why? They don't sell them separately. You see, Saturn has decided that if these break you have to buy the entire set of cables. Then remove the old set and install the new set! And how much are these cables? Over $200 (and that's the cheaper aftermarket price).

So now I have a dilemma. Do I spend $200 for something that can't cost more than $0.50? And if I don't how do I fix this?

Well my first inclination was to check the internet groups that discuss the Saturn Vue. I can't be the first person this happened to. Sure enough I was not. Apparently these bushing break frequently under normal use. Unfortunately no one had a good answer for fixing them. The best solution I could find was to cut off the metal ends where the cables attach, drill a hole and tap it. Then I could insert a bolt to hold the cables in place. Not the solution I was looking for.

My second thought was to find another manufacturer, application, or device that used the same type of bushing. Then I could modify it to work for me. Again no luck. These bushings seem to be unique.

The next idea was to find another Saturn Vue in a salvage yard and "harvest" the parts I needed. And that was where I was headed until I decided to create my own bushing.

So I ended up buying stiff polypropylene tubing the same diameter of the bushing. I then cut off a piece the same length as the bushing.

Next I drilled several holes in the tubing to insert cotter pins. The plan was to trap the neck of the shifter (below the ball) between the cotter pins. Total cost...about $0.35.

Here's the result.

Running through the gears the shifter works fine. The ultimate test will be how it holds up. Luckily with an electric motor shifting is at a minimum. Only time will tell.

Just a quick post

2008-11-12T16:24:00.000-08:00

Now that the racks are completed I've started laying out the components. Here is a picture from the top.

The grey box on the right is the low voltage fuse box. The small green box next to it is the Hairball (the brains of the controller). Under the two is a large grey box holding the high voltage fuses.

On the bottom right is a black box. This is the car's original fuse box. The big green box with the dinosaur on it is the Zilla. The Zilla is the high voltage part of the controller. The silver/blue boxt next to it is the DC converter for supplying power to the 12V circuits. Not shown is the vacuum pump (for the brakes), the water pump (cooling the controller), and the hot water heater (passenger compartment heat).

Just another update

2008-11-02T18:55:00.000-08:00

When last we spoke or at least when last I spoke...actually when last I wrote...scratch that. When last I typed!

When last I typed I had just finished laying out the front battery racks. That was last weekend. This weekend I finished installing the racks.

Here are pictures of the top rack. It will hold four batteries.

Since my welding skills are non-existent the racks are bolted into place. First holes were drilled into the chassis and rivnuts fastened to the chassis. This basically makes the hole threaded in order to receive the bolt. The racks were then bolted into place with 3/8" grade 8 bolts. The cross members were secured with 1/4" bolts to the supporting members.

Since the chassis is not a flat and level in the engine bay some shimming of the racks was required in order to keep the racks level. One inch nuts and fender washers made great shims.

The lower rack was attached by 6" bolts through the frame. No rivnuts were needed since the bolts protruded through the chassis.

Per the last post I was planning on putting nine batteries in front. The two racks above hold seven total. The last two were going to sit in a rack between these two and close to the level of the lower rack. Unfortunately I'm about 3/4" of an inch short in space. I could put one more there and then one more in the back. But I think I'll put two more in the back since I have plenty of room there and use the extra space for the auxiliary 12V battery and other components.

Just layout

2008-10-25T18:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-04T15:24:00.000-07:00

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 :-)

Just polyhedrals

2008-09-29T15:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend was battery box weekend. Or should I say battery polyhedral weekend! You see, the rear cargo area is not a regular shape.

Now I could put a regular shaped box in the cargo area. But I'd be losing a lot of the nooks and crannies to put batteries. So instead of fifteen I could only fit in twelve. To maximize the space I need the "battery polyhedral".

The downside of this design is that it has almost twenty sides including tops and bottoms. And all of them need to be cut to size.

Now cutting this isn't too bad except I don't like butting the joints together. So for extra strength the top and bottom have rabbit joints for extra support. Which explains why it took most of the weekend to cut these pieces.

Next step. Epoxy paint, assembly, and cutting holes for vents and wires.

Oh and one other thing. The battery layout has changed again (hopefully for the last time).

Just playing with my rivnuts...see pictures below

2008-09-24T17:16:00.000-07:00

Don't get too excited :-0

Since the last post I finished connecting the rear battery rack to the vehicle. Most of the rack is connected by 3/8" bolts and locking nuts directly through the sheet metal. Here's a picture of the bolt through the top.

And here's the bolt, washer, lock washer, and nut on the underside.

This arrangement worked great for the majority of the rack. There were a few places where the rack needed to be connected but was not accessible from under the vehicle.

This is where the rivnuts come in. Rivnuts are blind rivets that accept a bolt. You drill a hole, place the rivnut through the hole, then compress the rivnut around the sheet metal.

This is a picture of an uncompressed (right) and compressed (left) rivnut.

You can see that when compressed the rivnut forms a collar. This collar traps the sheet metal and secures the rivnut. The inside of the rivnut is threaded and accepts the 3/8" bolt.

In case your wondering about the strength of the rivnuts they were originally developed for holding airplanes together!

Just the rear battery rack

2008-09-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

Up to now most of the conversion has centered on the front end of the car. Today I'm going to talk about the back end.

The cargo compartment of the car is going to be used to carry the bulk of the batteries and the battery charger. Here is a picture of the cargo bay prior to the conversion:

This is the cargo bay under the floor:

Of the twenty-four batteries used in the conversion, fifteen will be carried in the rear cargo bay. At ~62lbs per battery that's over 900lbs of batteries.

In order to hold all of these batteries a box needs to be constructed. Supporting the box is a steel platform. I've decided to use 1" x 1", 11ga tubular steel. Here's a picture of the steel pieces cut and in place.

The steel is sitting directly on the sheet metal floor of the cargo bay. Although not shown in the picture the steel is bolted to the sheet metal and sits directly on the frame. Below is the rough location of the frame:

On top of this structure will sit the battery box. The will be constructed of 1/2" thick plywood. The interior will be painted with an epoxy paint to resist fumes released by the batteries during charging. Here's a picture of the floor of the box laid in place.

Under the box and steel supporting structure is where the wires to and from the batteries will exit. It is also where the battery box fumes will be vented. The cavity below the box will be filled with insulation.

Just lesson 2: The Hairball

2008-09-19T19:21:00.000-07:00

Continuing on with my the previous discussion, today's topic will expand on some of the safety features in the high voltage wiring system. Below is an expanded schematic of the high voltage system.

One of the safety features in the diagram above is the presence of two contactors in the circuit. Before this ciruit is closed both contactors have to be closed. And for that to happen a specific sequence of events is required. This sequence of events starts with the ignition switch.

Just like in the original vehicle the ignition switch serves the same general functions. The two functions of interest I'll talk about are RUN and START.

RUN is the position the ignition is in after you start your vehicle and it is running normally. START is the position you put the ignition to get the engine cranking.

In order for electricity to get to the motor two contactorshave to be closed. The first contactor is closed when the ignition switch is put into the run position.

The second contactor is controlled by the "Hairball". The Hairball is part of the Zilla controller. One of its main purposes is to interface with other components of the electrical system.

Hairball connection 4 is connected to the start position of the ignition switch. In the original car this ignition position energized the starter motor in order to crank the internal combustion engine and get self sustaining combustion of the engine started. In the electric vehicle this ignition position signals the Hairball to "turn on" the controller and close the second contactor.

Just Lesson 1: EV wiring for dummies

2008-09-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I finished as much of the wiring of the high voltage box as I could. Until I mount the controller and build the front battery racks I can't finish the wiring. And I can't do either of those until the adapter arrives and the transmission and motor are installed. I may start on the rear battery racks over the weekend since this is independent of what is going on in the front of the car.

Since I'm just waiting I figured this is a good time to review some EV stuff. So today I'll write "Lesson 1: EV wiring for dummies" (dummies describing the author's level of expertise on this subject, not the readers :-)

Circuitry in the vehicle can basically be divided into two groups: low voltage(12V) and high voltage(144V) . Low voltage circuits are the type of circuits already in the vehicle . They power the lights, instruments, wipers, etc. High voltage circuits are being added and power the electric motor and a few new accessories.

This is a diagram of the main traction circuit.

Let's take a closer look at this circuit. The car I am building is powered by twenty-four 6-volt batteries for a total of 144 volts. The batteries are divided into two packs. Below is the rear battery pack. As the name "pack" implies it consists of more than one battery. The rear pack contains 15 batteries.

All the batteries hooked together can be thought of as one big battery. An analogy would be a flashlight. A small flashlight consists of a single battery with a positive and a negative end. Connect a light bulb between the two and it lights up. If you need more power you get a bigger flashlight which may have two batteries "end to end" (in series). Or you can go even bigger and get one with more batteries. In either case you have multiple smaller batteries that act as one bigger battery.

The Anderson connector is just a special plug that allows the motor to "plug into" the batteries. It is the same as when you plug a lamp into an outlet. It's easier to do that then have to wire the lamp into the fuse box every time you want to connect it.

From the rear battery pack the circuit goes in two directions. There is a negative leg and a positive leg. Eventually the two legs meet up at the motor to complete the circuit and provide power. Let's follow the negative leg first.

The next components in this leg are a fuse and the front battery pack.

The purpose of the fuse is to protect the wiring and components in case of a short circuit. As eluded to in an earlier post it is analogous to the circuit breakers in your house. If an appliance or lamp in your house short circuits the breaker cuts power to that circuit to prevent further damage.

The fuse is connected to the front battery pack. This is the same as the rear battery pack except only contains nine batteries. Because of weight distribution and size constraints all of the batteries cannot be put together in one location.

Next is the shunt.

It is connected to the rear battery back by a plug. The purpose of the shunt is to allow instrumentation to measure the voltage of the pack and the current going through the traction circuit.

Next in line is the contactor.

The contactor is essentially and on/off switch. When the switch is open no current flows through the circuit. When closed the circuit is completed. (Actually in my conversion there are two switches that need to be closed to complete the circuit and this is one of those two.)

After the contact comes the "Zilla".

"Zilla" is the brand name of the controller that I am using. The controller is the brains of the EV conversion. At its most basic level a controller regulates the flow of electricity to the motor.

Finally comes the motor. All that electricity has to go somewhere :-)

From the rear battery pack the positive leg of the circuit is essentially the same as the negative leg. The main differences: no more batteries added and no fuse (since the fuse on the negative leg protects the entire circuit).

That's the end of lesson one. I would give out a homework assignment except I'm too lazy to have to grade all of them :-) And remember, all information discussed will be on the final exam!

Just some odds and ends

2008-09-12T18:32:00.000-07:00

Today I made some progress on wiring the main high voltage fuse box. This is the box that contains the fuses and relays/contactors that protect the circuitry.

As I've stated before and will probably state again, no matter how prepared you think you are there is always something! Today that something was wire size.

For the high voltage wiring I'm using 2/0 or 00 wire. That's the big wire I showed a picture of last time. Apparently 2/0 electrical wiring and 2/0 welding wire (the type I'm using) are slightly different in size. When I went to the electrical supply store to pick up strain relief fittings (the things that keep the wires from pulling out of the box accidentally) I told them I need to fit 2/0 wire. Of course when I got home the fittings were too small.

So I go back to the electrical store to exchange the fittings. I bring a piece of wire this time :-) Unfortunately they were out of the fitting size I needed. Luckily another electrical supply shop nearby had the correct fitting.

So here is a picture of what I accomplished today.

Just breaking in (not breaking) the motor

2008-09-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

Today I took the motor for its first run. Technically it is a "stay still" and not a run since the motor stayed in place :-) I guess the proper phrase would be that I took the motor spindle for a run (or at least a fast walk).

Below is a picture of the motor hooked up to a battery charger. The charger is acting as the power source. I was going to take a video. But the spindle turning was exceedingly boring (according to Ari).

The last of the lugs and fuses came in so I started crimping the lugs onto some of the wires. Crimping involves cutting very thick wire, stripping the insulation to expose the ends, sticking the ends into lugs, crushing the lugs to trap wire, then putting heat shrink at the junctions.

Here's the wire so you can get an idea the thickness of 2/0 wire.

Here's a wire with two lugs on the ends. The wire is the big black thing hooked up to the motor.

I also started laying out the components of the high voltage box I spoke about before. I changed the layout a little from prior. This is the new drawing.

And here's the components as I start laying them out.

Just the adapter

2008-09-08T17:43:00.000-07:00

That should be, "All I'm waiting for is just the adapter". Thanks to the arrival of the electric motor today.

Just the batteries...battery...sort of

2008-09-04T19:59:00.000-07:00

Even though I have scale pictures for placement of the batteries and components I need to make sure things will fit in real life. It's tough to take accurate measurements in the engine compartment with the engine still in it. With the engine bay empty it's easier.

The engine compartment is not a regular shape. There are nooks and crannies where things once were. There are irregular hoses still in it (like the brake master cylinder and hoses). I want to make sure that I have enough room. So tonight was mock up night.

This is a rough sketch of the engine bay. There are a more nooks and crannies then this shows, but you can get an idea from this.

Based on the fact that the transmission is going back into the same place I have a pretty good idea where the motor will be mounted. Below is where I think it will be.

So now it is time to fit in the batteries. I want to use 24 batteries. I can fit 15 in the cargo area without folding down the seat. So I need to fit 9 in the engine bay. You would think with a big empty engine bay that should be easy :-)

Now before I go any further I should show you a battery...sort of. This is a picture of a regular car battery next to a scale model (note the craftsmanship in the model) of the batteries I will be using.

As you can see from this picture the batteries I'm using are big (slightly less than one foot long, one foot high, and 7" deep). They weigh ~62 lbs each. Here is a preliminary picture of the battery placement.

Looks pretty good, right? So I go into the garage with my handy, dandy life size battery model (a.k.a. ugly white box) to see how this will fit.

Well you remember those nooks and crannies I was talking about? Let's just say that the layout above won't work. So I spend about an hour and a half in the garage with this white box. Moving it this way and that way. It's sort of like a 3-D puzzle. Finally this is what I end up with.

This is still preliminary as I have to wait to install the motor and transmission to be sure that they will actually fit. But I'm pretty confident this layout will work. Of course I was pretty confident the first layout would work too!

One final note. I got news that the motor should be arriving on Monday...by freight...all 180 lbs of it. Hope Ari (my son) does not have a soccer game that night :-)

Just preparing again

2008-09-03T09:05:00.000-07:00

Now that the car is mostly disassembled I'm waiting for the motor and adapter plate in order to start reassembly. Till they arrive there is lot's of "little stuff" (little meaning not 500lb engine stuff) that needs to be done.

One of the little tasks is putting together an enclosure for the some of the high voltage components in the system. This enclosure serves both as a convenient way to mount the components and as a safety measure.

The components are:

Fuse

The purpose of the fuse is to disable the power and protect the components "plugged" into the battery pack in case of a short circuit or malfunction. The fuse is equivalent to the circuit breakers in a house.

The traction pack is composed of twenty four batteries for a total voltage of 144V. The pack is capable of delivering over 300amps. So this is one big #!& fuse! (For comparison most modern houses are supplied with 120V, 200amp electric service.)

Shunt

In a gas powered car there is instrumentation that informs the driver of the status of various vehicle operating parameters. This includes the fuel gauge (how much fuel is remaining) and the trip computer (how is my gas mileage).

An electric vehicle requires similar instrumentation in order to know how much energy(fuel) is remaining in the batteries and how many miles/watt (miles/gallon) are being used by the vehicle. The shunt is the component that lets that instrumentation "tap" into the battery pack in order to measure some of the above parameters.

Contactor

In a gas powered vehicle turning on the ignition switch starts a series of events that eventually leads to fuel delivery to the engine. Ignition switch closes circuit----relay in starter motor closes---starter motor turns engine---relay in fuel pump closes---fuel pump delivers fuel---combustion occurs in cylinders.

In an electric vehicle the electricity (fuel) is delivered to the motor by closing a switch between the battery and the motor. The contactor is the switch that closes this circuit.

High voltage fuses
Several other components of the vehicle, besides the motor, require electricity. This box also contains the fuses protecting the individual circuits for these components.

Below is a schematic of what it should look like once assembled. Later in the week I'll stop by the electric supply store to pick up parts for the connections.

Just musing over the next step

2008-08-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

Today I did some little stuff on the car. Pulled the remainder of the fuel lines, removed a few pieces of stray hardware, and salvaged a few pulleys from the old engine.

Now that the majority of the demolition is over it's time to start on the harder part. Putting it all back together.

As you may have guessed the electric motor has to be attached to the car somehow. Specifically it needs to be attached to the original transmission. But this motor looks completely different from the engine that was removed. So how do you attach the two together? The answer is an adapter.

The adapter that I am using is custom part. It needs to be fabricated from aluminum or steel. I thought about machining it myself. That would involve buying a mill and tools to make the adapter components. It would mean learning how to mill the parts. And since the parts have to be precise (to the thousandths of an inch) it would mean a lot of trial and error. Given all of that I figured in the long run it would be better for me to farm out this part to a machine shop.

Electro-Automotive is a vendor of electric vehicle components. They make adapters for just this application. If they have previously made the adapter for the make and model of your vehicle they can make it easily. If not then you have to ship the transmission to them so they can make a pattern.

I was lucky in that someone else is/has converted the same vehicle. So they have the pattern in stock. All I have to do is send them a rubbing of the original transmission and flywheel. That way they know that they have the correct pattern. (Sometimes manufacturers change parts mid year so two cars that are supposedly the same may actually differ.) Below is the rubbing.

The original engine was bolted directly to the transmission. The two were designed to directly bolt together.

Not so with the electric motor. Since the motor and transmission were not designed to match an adapter needs to be fabricated that bolts to the motor on one side and the transmission on the other side.

In addition to attaching the motor and transmission, the drive shaft of the motor and transmission need to be coupled. In the original car the engine's drive shaft was attached to the flywheel.

Power is transmitted to the transmission when the clutch plate and flywheel are in contact.

With the electric motor the drive shaft will also be attached to the flywheel. In order to accomplish this a coupler needs to be fabricated. The coupler consists of a bushing and a coupling plate. The bushing is "squeezed" onto the motor drive shaft. A coupler is then bolted to this bushing and the flywheel bolted to the coupler.

Here's a blowup of it all.

Just the forest

2008-08-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get so involved with the minutia of a task that I forget to see the big picture. Today was one of those days.

My goal today was to separate the transmission from the engine. There are six bolts that attach the transmission to the engine. Additionally there is an axle going from the transmission through a bracket on the engine.

So I figured I'd start with the easy part. Pulling the axle from the transmission. I had already pulled one axle so this one should be no problem. All I had to do was pull the axle out from the mount.

All I had to do was yank the axle straight out. Unfortunately the axle is held into the mount by a very tight bearing. It wasn't budging. And none of my bearing pullers fit on this bearing. Not to mention that none of my pullers would fit on the axle (it had a thin groove that only the "special" puller recommended by GM would work on).

Plan B. Remove the mount and slide out the axle and mount. That helped a little. The axle started sliding out of the transmission. But there was not enough room to move the mount. Part of the engine block was in the way.

Now the part about not seeing the forest through the trees. Why did I want to remove the axle? Because it was attached to both the transmission and engine. What had I already done? Disconnected the axle from the engine when removing the motor mount? How long did it take me to figure this out? Too long.

Actually, I can't take credit for the eventual solution. After I couldn't figure out how to remove the axle from the bearing I called someone who might know. The parent of one of my daughter's friends tinkers with cars and offered help if I needed it. After explaining the situation he says, "why don't you just remove the transmission. Then you can slide out the axle."

Duh! That sound was accompanied by the sound of me hitting myself in the side of the head. So six bolts later I have the transmission and engine separated. Axle slides out nicely (thank you Chris).

The rest was was pretty easy. Removing the clutch and flywheel. I also disconnected the engine and transmission from the cradle supporting it.

Before and after (cradle and steering rack)

Transmission bell housing, clutch plate, pressure plate, flywheel, and that pesky axle (still attached to the mount).

Just the big day

2008-08-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

No not that big day. I've been married for almost twenty years. A different big day. The day the engine came out!

Over the last week I've been slowly working on removing the engine. There were 83 steps in the section for engine removal in the service manual. I think I followed 1-23, 25-30, 40-80, and 91-105 :-) Let's just say the service manual is really not the gospel, just guidelines.

Removing the engine basically means disconnecting every wire, hose, belt, bolt, etc that attaches the engine to something else. As I've mentioned prior some steps are straight forward while others can be improvised.

One such improvisation was removing the fuel line hook up to the engine. The manual called for one way. But since I did not have to worry about reinstalling that part a pipe cutter worked just as well. Same thing for the exhaust system. Finally got a chance to get some sparks flying with the angle grinder. It's all about the neat tools :-)

This is a picture just prior to removing the engine. The big red bar is an engine support. When all the bolts holding the engine into place were removed the support keeps it from dropping straight to the ground.

This is a picture of the engine being lowered with an engine hoist. Remember, its all about the toys.

The engine (plus some other stuff). The transmission is still attached to the engine (left side) as are the remnants of the exhaust system. Under the engine (black frame) is the cradle that holds the engine and transmission in the car. This along with the transmission will be reinstalled. A few other items in this picture such as the sway bar, lower control arms, steering rack will also be reinstalled.

And this is the big hole where the engine once was.

Just from the mouth of babes

2008-08-26T16:37:00.000-07:00

Part of the reason that I am undertaking this project is that I like solving problems. Design, deconstruction, construction ... this project is one big set of problems comprised of little problems.

Now I'm not referring to problems in a derogatory manner as in, "I have a problem with my car." I'm referring to problems as in, "How do I get from point A to point B."

So as I was saying, there are lots of problems that need to be solved in the course of this project. Some problems you sit down and do research: how many batteries do I need? Some you make drawings to solve: what configuration do I want for the wiring? And some are just plain stupid: how the !*#& do I get part A to fit/unfit from part B? (See posting on the gas tank named Diablo for such a problem.)

As I'm disconnecting the last remnants of wiring/tubing/cables/etc from the engine and transmission I run into one of these problems (this problem is a problem in both the thinking sense and the derogatory sense). In a nutshell I needed to extract cables held in a very tight bracket by some very tight clips.

After unsuccessfully trying to extract the cables with finesse I elected to go with the brute force method! No luck. So then after mulling over the problem, followed by some more brute force, then some more mulling I was preparing to go back to the brute force approach.

At that point my sixteen year old son came down to watch. I explained what I was trying to do, showed him the cables and bracket and asked him if he had any ideas. He basically said just stick a screwdriver between the bracket and the clip and pry out the clip. Out of the mouth of babes! No need to tell you the result :-)

Just the fuse box

2008-08-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

Didn't have a whole lot of time this weekend to work on the car. With Shana shipping off to college and being on call it did not leave a lot of time.

Still setting up to remove the engine and transmission. A few little things in the way. So all I removed was just the fuse box. Nothing exciting.

Just everybody came today

2008-08-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

Everybody meaning UPS, FedEx, and USPS. I bet the DHL guy felt left out. That's OK. He comes to my office twice a week so I guess that makes up for it.

What all these visits really meant is that I got lots of packages. I'm still waiting for a few major items to arrive. Like the motor, the controller for the motor, and the adapter plate to connect the motor to the transmission. They are on they way. Just not here yet.

Continuing on the good news front I stopped by the local auto parts store and picked up "Box 2 of 2" today. Later on I assembled the engine lift. Hopefully this weekend I'll have time to start on the engine removal.

Just waiting for the packages

2008-08-21T15:22:00.000-07:00

If you've been reading the blog to this point and are still awake you will have noticed that I haven't said anything about the EV components that are going into the vehicle. And that's because I don't have any of them yet. But that's all about to change.

This week I heard from Ryan at EVSource.com. Ryan is supplying me with the majority of the components for the conversion. By this time next week I should have them in hand. Lots of big boxes means Christmas in August!

Obviously, before I can install anything I still have to remove a few things. Mainly the engine and transmission.

So this evening I planned to put together the engine lift. That way I could pull the engine this weekend. I just picked it up last weekend so it was till in the box.

Just one problem. As I'm going through the instructions for assembly I notice I'm missing some parts. A lot of parts. How can that be? The box was sealed and everything in it was packed perfectly. Then I look on the side of the box and see "Box 1 of 2" on the side!

Guess I'll be stopping back at the local auto parts store tomorrow. Luckily I still have the receipt.

Just the !*!#%! gas tank

2008-08-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

As you might guess from the title of this post, sometimes things are not always as easy as they seem :-) Even the best planning sometimes leaves you "improvising".

Prior to starting the conversion I ran the gas tank to pretty near empty. (When I eventually finished draining the tank it had less than a half gallon left.) This makes the gas tank lighter and easier to remove. Easier is a relative term because the only thing easy about the removal was taking off the gas cap.

The gas tank on this vehicle is located in front of the rear axle, straddling the exhaust system, tucked up as tight to the rear cargo floor as possible. The tank is only held up by a few straps. The bolts to these are pretty easy to get to. But before removing these straps there are a few hoses attached to the gas tank. Fuel line from engine to fuel filter, two fuel lines from fuel filter to tank, three hoses from tank to pollution emission control, three lines from gas tank to fuel filler tube, electrical connections to fuel pumps, etc.

Step one. Disconnect fuel tank from emissions vapor control. Well since I won't be using the emission control I'll just remove the whole thing and leave it attached to the tank. No problem.

Step two. Remove hose from fuel filter. OK. There's the fuel filter... little tight under here, but plenty of room for a wrench. Turn.. hmmm...turn...hmm...inspect....turn...repeat this over and over for ten minutes. Why won't this come off. Oh, even though the connection is shaped like it should screw on it is not a screw on. Inspect closer. How the hell is this thing attached. Bend...bend more...squeeze... twist...inspect..bend harder...bend harder..bend to just break off. Why won't this come off!

Thirty minutes later I just said WTF. I'm removing the fuel line and filter anyway so I'll just cut the fuel line. Big scissors, cut fuel line, yes! Wait. Gas coming out. Not good. Why is gas coming out of a non-pressurized line from the tank side of the line with no fuel pump running. (Luckily I did have a container to catch the gas just in case.)

Step three. Unhook other lines from gas tank. Find lines, trace to connectors. Huh...how am I supposed to get to that let alone fit a tool in there. OK. I'll just skip to the step where I unstrap the tank. It will fall lower and then I can get to the connectors.

Step four. Unstrap tank. Tank unstrapped. Why isn't it falling down? What's holding you up? Inspect. Fifteen minutes later...oh its the hoses I haven't disconnected because I can't get to, so I'm pulling down the tank to get to them, but the tank won't come down because its connected to the hoses I can't get to.............agh!

Step four, part two. Pull on tank as hard as you can. Well at least something worked. That managed to get me enough slack to see where to disconnect the hoses. Now lets look at the connection...hmm...ok...hmm...how the hell am I supposed to disconnect this? Who designed these connectors? Couldn't they at least put in the manual the instructions for disconnecting the connectors? Plan B. Trusty scissors :-) Snip, snip, snip, snip. Finally! Success. Gas tank coming down.

So after about 2-3 hours I finally have the gas tank on the ground. Still under the car, mind you. Still straddling the exhaust system. But at least free from the vehicle.

Now all I have to do is detach the exhaust system and slide out the tank. No problem. I've already lowered the exhaust onto the ground. Only three nuts holding it. Three very rusty nuts!
Let's see 14mm. No. 13mm. No. 12 mm. Yes. Get out 12mm socket. Screws too long to use closed socket wrench. That's OK. I'll just get out an open box wrench. Let's see. 14mm, 13mm, 11mm. Wait. No 12mm! OK. I'll just use an adjustable wrench. OK turn..come on turn..come on...adjustable wrench won't hold on this rusty nut!

That's OK. I'm getting rid of the exhaust so I'll just cut the pipe. An angle grinder will rip right through it...with lots of sparks...and an garage full of gas fumes (see above). Maybe I'll skip using the angle grinder.

OK. I'll just jack up the car higher. Then I can lift it over the exhaust and under the frame. Hope my jack stands go high enough. Jack right higher, left higher. Lift tank. Not enough room. Repeat jacking and trying to lift tank over and over and over for another fifteen minutes.

Finally I get the !#*%^ tank out. Three to four hours later. Covered in grease. Smelling like gas. But it was out!

Just the last drive

2008-08-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

This morning was the last drive as a gas powered vehicle. Shana (my daughter) and I went into town for breakfast and then drove back home. After parking the car in the garage I decided to get started on the deconstruction.

The first part was pretty easy. Front fascia, hood, and headlights easily came out. No problems with the radiator and radiator fan.

Here's a picture of the car after removing the above.

Some of the stuff that was removed

Having the proper tools makes it so much easier. The number one tool is the factory service manual. This is the same manuals that mechanics at the dealership would use.

It's also a good idea to keep track of all the parts coming out. Some of them have to go back in! I'm labeling parts and wires as I go along. Some baggies for little parts.

Just the Requisite Picture

2008-08-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

Pre-conversion picture. Hopefully the post-conversion picture looks the same (minus the exhaust pipe).

Just The The Victim (a.k.a. The Donor Vehicle) Part 2

2008-08-08T12:30:00.001-07:00

...Saturn Vue 2002. The Saturn Vue is a lightweight (relatively speaking) SUV.

One "rule" for EV conversions is that the lighter the car the less lead/battery weight you will need. So many conversion are light cars or light pickup trucks that have a large carrying capacity relative to their weight.

For example a 2500 lb car that can carry 1000 lbs of batteries will probably go farther and perform better than a 3500 pound car carrying the same amount, all things otherwise being equal. Some cars and trucks popular for conversions include Chevy S10, Volkswagon Rabbit, Honda Civic, and Porsche 914. If fact you can buy kits with all the parts for converting some of these vehicles.

One point I mentioned earlier is that "likeability" is an important part of picking an EV. Not that any of these cars are bad cars, I just did not want to drive any of them regularly.

Another general rule of thumb is that the vehicle should be able to carry at least one third of it's total weight in batteries. The Vue has a curb weight of 3172 lbs and a max weight (GVWR) of 4538. For comparison the Chevy S10 has a curb weight of ~3000 lbs and a GVWR of ~4200 lbs.

Based on other conversions removing the the ICE components will reduce the weight about 25% (~750lbs):

3172 -750 = 2422
4538 - 2422 = 2116

So 2116 lbs is what I can add back to the car in weight. This includes batteries, motor, other components and of course me! Now 2116 lbs might seem like a lot to work with. But the batteries I am using weigh about 62lbs each. Multiply that by 24 and you get almost 1500lbs for batteries alone. That only leaves a little over 600 lbs.

Another reason I chose the Saturn Vue is that is has electric power steering. As I get more into the nuts and bolts of converting to an electric vehicle I'll go into more detail. Let's just say that by having electric power steering I don't have to deal with finding a way to run the power steering pump used on almost all other cars.

The Vue is a 2002 and has the usual safety features (airbags, disc brakes, ABS). It is also a manual transmission. This is important. Almost all EV conversions are done on manual transmissions (more on that another time).

Just The Requisite Background Info

2008-08-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

Before moving on I should tell you a little about myself. As an eye surgeon I'm a little compulsive about how things are done. Not a whole lot of room for error so one needs a healthy amount of compulsion.

Before performing surgery one knows the anatomy of what they are operating on. One goes in with a plan. And a backup plan. And a backup to the backup. The point being that before ever cutting you've gone through things in your head enough times that the actual surgery is the culmination of a process with the hard work done prior to the surgery.

This is the same attitude I have taken with the EV conversion project. I'm not going in blindly. I've gone through the details of deconstruction and reconstruction over and over (including minutia such as how big is bolt X on part Y before even taking anything apart).

In the movie "Hunt for Red October" one character comments that maybe the Russian protagonist is devising his plan on the fly. Another character replies, "Russians don't take a dump, son, without a plan. " Hopefully that describes me and this project.

Just The The Victim (a.k.a. The Donor Vehicle) Part 1

2008-08-08T07:21:00.001-07:00

Most people think that picking the donor vehicle is the first step in an EV conversion. For me choosing the donor vehicle occurred later in the process. Before even thinking about, "what vehicle", I needed to answer the question, "what do I need from a vehicle"?

There are tons of variables in picking a vehicle. How far do you need to travel. How much "stuff" is being added and removed ("stuff" meaning engines, motors, batteries, etc.). As this is not meant to be a comprehensive blog on how to convert (just how I do my conversion) I'll leave it up to the reader to follow some of the links to gain more knowledge. I will however go over my process (in no particular order of importance).

Range-- my typical daily range to and from work is about 15 miles with occasional forays of 30'ish.

Size--I'm 6'2" so I needed something that was comfortable.

Safety--Airbags and modern safety equipment a must. So much for that '67 Galaxy 500 :-)

Donor condition--One thing that I read over and over is that a junky ICE car makes a junky EV. If you get an old rusty donor car your going to end up with an old rusty EV (unless you put a ton of work into it).

Likeability--You might as well like what you are driving. For instance, originally I was going to convert a late model BMW 3-Series. But after driving them several times I just did not like it.

The above list is not exhaustive, but rather a starting point. I needed to narrow down the donor selection somehow. Each of the above points are pretty general. For instance range alone entails a discussion on vehicle weight, carrying capacity, battery chemistry, and more. Which is again why the donor car decision was not the first decision.

And the winner is....

Just The Start

2008-08-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

As the name suggests this is one more blog documenting conversion (hopefully) of an internal combustion engine(ICE) car to an electric vehicle(EV). The title for this post "The Start" is actually a misnomer. Although this is my first post regarding this project it is far from the start of the project.

It has been over a year and a half since I actually started on the project. And I've made a ton of progress over that period of time. But I have yet to touch a bolt, connect a battery, or remove a part. So what have I been doing?

Since I'm not a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, an automotive engineer, or any other type of engineer it has taken me this long to gain a sufficient knowledge base in order to tackle this project. Basically I've been reading.... reading the Electric Vehicle List posts daily... reading web sites of others who have converted EVs.... reading blogs on EVs....reading battery spec charts.... reading motor spec charts...reading, ok you get the point. Lots and lots of reading.

But now I am at the point where I am about to touch a bolt, remove a part, etc. So as the process goes on I'll try to take lots of pictures and document what I can.