Heat, Vacuum and Drive

Now I did mention last blog I would have the wheels turning however I had anticipated my new drive shaft and CV joints to arrive, well they didn't but now I have little excuse. I managed to grab one day this Easter long weekend so here’s the update.

Here it is!

Next get the battery back in place, this will run all of the ancillary things like lights horn and so forth I had hoped to use a flexible solar panel on the roof of the car to keep it charged however a DC to DC charger is about half the cost 

  Just a little look at how I crimp the 50 mm square cable to the lugs, a few tons of hydraulic pressure

 In, squeeze and presto

 

Now all of the HT cables are connected to the controller and motor, just those pesky little important wires that do everything else to work out 

The electric vacuum pump for the brakes this will also need a vacuum tank to store enough vacuum for continual braking (on-off)

Are yes the hot water device, thanks for plumbing supplies for all those brackets and fittings in such handy sizes.

Coming along

there we are now supported

Gives you a good look at the support bracket, Denis that's the bracket off the battery tray support

More plumbing supplies this time 75 mm down pipe and end caps with a couple of air pressure fittings

Mounted next to one and other there is a one way valve in the centre of the connecting pipe

Just a look from the side

Required a cross brace for the heater for extra stability 

And my VW electric water pump for the heater mounted on the fire wall next to the heat exchange inlets 

almost done with the control wiring 

Lots of work but few pictures.

It’s been time to pull the motor and gear box out of the car and pull it to pieces, paint the parts, “Locktight” the bolts and run the motor. All this is a reversal of already documented stuff so I haven’t posted this work, now it’s going back together and hopefully I will have the drive shafts fitted and wheels turning by Sunday night. I’ll update this post over the weekend. Cheers

Starting some of the "HT" wiring, a lot easier with motor out of the car 

Running the motor checking all is nice and smooth coupled together with gear box

Oh yes there is that orange bath plug

The BRB Big Red Button

Well it's time for the compulsory Big Red Button and as the Matiz has one small cup holder in the centre console seems like a good place to go. This is of course for isolating the main battery pack from the drive train components here I started with drilling a 32mm hole in the bottom of the cup holder

Looks like this

Well I put the whole thing together and placed back in the car to find the contractor mechanism fouled on the gear selector cables so I needed to gain about 10mm so I cut away a further section of the holder. Next I found the diameter of the cup holder to be 75mm just the same size as an end block for a 75mm storm water pipe

So centre and bore a 26mm hole in the end cap and mount the BRB

Looks like this on the side

Back in the console view from under side

Used fibre glass resin to glue end cap in place 

Stuck tight 

And back together 

No no nope not going to talk about this!!!

Follow good advice

Hi again have been communicating with a chap in the UK, Greg, who has not only converted the same model (and color) car but has 10000 miles on it from electric only drive, see his quick run around on youtube http://youtu.be/7ekUZVTmINM . This means he knows what he’s talking about so when he recommended I put an engine/gearbox mount/support to cope with the huge torque, that was my next step. Greg did mention his motor has broken the support already and required repairs. So here we go and without metal rollers to roll the 6 x 40mm flat I need something about 9 inches in diameter Ha! The fly wheel. Rip off the ring gear and make a small bracket from angle to hold the flat bar. 

I had to put 2 bolts through the centre of the fly wheel and hold it in the vice. The clamp just couldn't hold it to the table

Now off to tend my sheep...

And after much groaning and whinging we end up with 2 brackets

Have to weld feet to each bracket so I can drill and bolt 2 halves together 

Just another look at the fly wheel with the 2 bolts in the middle. These protrude 40mm out the other side and give the vice something to grip on. I must mention the flat bar wouldn't stay in a nice round shape without some heat. For this I used my stick welder to weld 5 cent piece size welds 50mm apart along the length of the arc. This produced enough heat to take the tension out of the metal and left a true shape. Then I just ground the weld tags off. Who's a clever boy?

You can see where I have ground the welds off

Ready to go around the motor

Looking up from the bottom

 Looking down at the front. I'm using part of the original engine mount which I will weld to the support ring.

Also using the rear mount to attach to the support ring

Cheers

Just update on front engine mount completed

rear engine mount