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Old 12-19-2009, 12:29 AM   #379 (permalink)
3-Wheeler
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Southern WI
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AlienMobile - '00 Honda Insight
Team Honda
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Mike,

It looks like the boat tail will simply need to be designed to come off when having to work on the high voltage battery. There just does not seem to be a good way around this.

Is there a good way for you to take yours off if you have to?

One could imagine having quite a time trying to put the boat tail back on after working inside the rear of the car...

1) Pick up the boat tail, which if made from foam/fiberglass, would weight 20 lbs? Maybe 30 with lights and such.
2) Try to align the large end of the boat tail to "alignment" pins on the back side of the car.
3) Slide the boat tail forward until it hits some sort of "stops".
4) Now one has to hold the rear portion up and at the same time start tightening fasteners while reaching through the hatch to gain access.

No scratch that!! It sounds too difficult to handle.

a) How about picking up the boat tail on the open/large end.
b) To one side of the large end, there is a largish pin that faces toward the ground and attached as a hinge pivot.
c) Pickup the boat tail and slowly drop the pin through a corresponding hinge until the pin is fully inserted.
d) Now swing the boat tail to fully closed.
e) Tighten internal fasteners through the hatch.

In this design, the boat tail can be fully removed for sanding until smooth. For MetroMPG, this means lots and lots of sweaty sanding (grin). For me it simply means sanding, glazing putty, and primer all summer, so the boat tail will really take two summers to complete. The motorcycle fairing took this long as well.

Jim.
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