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

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 :-)