Drivetrain is out of the red car! Dropped it out the bottom. Easy easy. (Only forgot to disconnect a couple of ground straps... and the throttle cable - oops.)
Unfortunately, my EBTM was correct: once we got the transaxle off the motor and measured things, we confirmed we
don't have the clearance for a direct shaft-to-shaft coupling of the 12 in. drive motor to the tranny's input shaft.
The problem is the drive motor's diameter is big enough that we don't have enough clearance for the half-shaft axle that goes from the diff, alongside the "back" of the motor, to the wheel.
Options...
- We could try to offset the drive motor shaft from the transaxle input shaft and connect the two with gears, a short chain, or cogged belt.
...
- Could we omit an axle and modify the differential for one-wheel drive? (Likely revealing my ignorance of how diff's work here.)
...
- We *could* use one of the forklift's smaller (8 inch dia.) hydraulic pump motors, but they have internally splined shafts, which will require replacement/modification to be useful.
We would prefer to use the main drive motor if possible, since it's matched to the controller, having a field weakening circuit. Also it was serviced a few years ago.
Comments, suggestions?