Electric car conversion: Project ForkenSwift

[dcb]

That is nice work!! I've never seen such a patchwork in steel.

You going to add a homemade lower stress bar on there too? Take a piece of 1"+ conduit, hammer and drill the ends and put a bend at the engine low spot if necessary, takes like 20 minutes, cut it to approximate lenght first (a little long) then hold it in place, add a bend if necessary, then hammer the ends and line it up with the bolts to get the hole positions right.

[MetroMPG]

LostCause - that's funny. Crap out of a sparrow! About the time I was finishing the last welds on the other side, I was figuring out the settings on the machine and they were starting to look "normal".

No hot pink. The car stays blue. Just cartoonish flourescent green for the major EV-related bits in the (freshly repainted blue) motor compartment. Green motor, controller & pot box.

dcb: We actually talked about the stress bar. Definitely a possibility. Actually a good idea for anyone who owns one of these things with weak/ened mounts. Distribute the loads better.

[Johnny Mullet]

That should hold it for a few years!

[Daox]

Wow... that was BAD rust! Good thing the car doesn't weigh that much.

I've seen worse welding.

[bennelson]

Hmm - Maybe I could have Doax out with his welder to look at my control arm mounts....


Actually from the start, I was thinking that painting the EV parts of the car some bright color would be fun. It would make it a lot easier to point out the motor and other bits to people when showing it off.

I was thinking Neon Green too! Neon (or electric green) for visibility, and Green for eco-friendliness (and cash saved by not buying gas).

Maybe I will go with yellow instead - will match my motorcycle!

[MetroMPG]

Ben, definitely get underneath your car and start poking around with a screwdriver or awl.

I'll tell you: these mounts looked fine just a year ago. Fortunately we caught it while the strongest seams were still intact, so they could be patched/rebuilt.

Also: make a plan to spray oil into these areas (your rocker panels too), even if you have to drill holes & later seal them with silicone. Water pools in the bottom of the mounts due to poor design.

[MetroMPG]

So, yesterday was the big EVCO EV Expo, in Ottawa.

We almost didn't drag the car up there (100 KM) because it was bucketing rain in the morning. Fortunately it cleared up around 10:30, and turned into a great day. The forecast line of thunderstorms never showed up.

So, parked the car, put up the tent over the front end, popped the hood, disconnected the pack and spent the day answering piles of questions from a steady stream of people.

Got to have a better look at other members' vehicles too - including short drives in a converted Porsche 914, Ford Ranger pickup, and my favourite, a '98 Solectria Force (commercially produced EV based on a Metro sedan glider).

I was going to take pics, but couldn't find my camera in the morning. In particular I wanted to show you all the work we did in the motor compartment, but until I find my camera, you'll have to make do with this pic taken by someone else:



More pics of the event in this set:
http://www.econogics.com/TENHE/tenheevexpo2008.htm

And here:


More pics in this set:
http://tricolour.net/photos/2008/05/31/evexpo.html

[bennelson]

Hey Darin,

The Forkenswift looks fantastic. Great job on the paint.

I think yours looks better than the Solectra!

Some other cool vehicles at that event. The electric cycles and diesel farm motorcycle are pretty slick too!

[Peakster]

Very cool event! Your ForkenSwift looks amazing with its paint job!

[MetroMPG]

Thanks for the compliments. I found my camera this morning (whew), so I'll get some better pics up soon.