Will photos do to start?
So, what I did this weekend.
Friday, I got the new transmission from the junkyard and started modifying it to match the one I already had done up for the electric conversion.
Saturday morning, I went over to the machinist, and had him plasma cut an access port in the transmission. Plasma cutters are SO cool. Looks like fireworks when those things cut.
In the evening, I went over to a friend's house for a party. I took the motorcycle with to show off. Talked with quite a few people about it. Had fun, ate brats. (that's bratwurst for you non-midwesterners)
This morning I worked some more getting the motor and transmission in place. Lots of work to get it in there. Very heavy, and all I had was a chain hoist attached to the rafters with a piece of pipe.
I lifted the motor into position, but it couldn't quite lift all the way into place. The very end of the motor has a longer bit which was a collar around the now removed tailshaft. That collar is rectangular, and the wrong dimension was facing up. I had to drop the entire tranny and motor, disconnect them, take 'em apart on the floor under the car.
Also, the adapter plate stuck out just a little too far into where the passenger-side drive-shaft goes into the transmission. There wasn't enough clearance for the driveshaft to go in all the way. I based the adapter plate on just the transmission itself, I never measured the outside diameter of the part of the driveshaft that sits just outside the tranny.
Fortunately, Hot Rod Jim has been a very friendly and helpful guy on this project. I ran over there and he plasma-cut the adapter plate and ground down the rough edges.
It was more work than I can describe to actually put all the parts back together and hoist it into place.
I also had to cut away a folded sheet metal edge of the side rail of the car for tail-shaft collar to get up as far as it should.
This photo is from before I cut the notch out. The motor has to go about a half inch or so HIGHER than you see it in this photo.
I wanted to get the entire transmission/motor assembly as level as possible. The original engine was, and I need the driveshafts to line up to drive the car and steer properly.
Here's the motor/tranny being loaded in the car.
Notice how there is NO spare room to the left of the motor.
Here is how the car is right now.
I temporarily have the controller wired up on the left, above the motor.
I am suprised how LOW the motor is. Motors are concentric, based on the shaft. Engines generally DON'T have the driveshaft right down the middle. That makes the engine look even lower.
If you look in the photo, you can see how the hoist strap is still wrapped around the transmission. Typically, you "cradle" an object with this strap when you hoist it. Unfortunately, I bolted everything in place before removing the strap, which was busy holding everything up. I will have to stick a jack underneigth, unbolt one of the supports, pull out the strap, and then bolt it back up.
Right now, the power cables run through the passenger side inside the car to the back, where I have 4 batteries mounted together on a piece of bed frame.
I took the 0-5K ohm throttle off my motorcycle and poked the wires through the firewall so that the cycle throttle was in the passenger compartment and the wires plugged onto the controller.
I climbed under the car to manually shift the transmission into first gear. I plugged in power to the controller, took off the parking brake, and drove up the driveway.
I did a little bit of test-driving on the residential side-street in my neighborhood. Seems to work ok. Then I shifted into second gear, and zipped around for a bit that way.
There is some mechanical noise in the coupler. After my test-drive, I also realized I still don't have any oil in the transmission.
The driver-side front brake is dragging. I will definately have to fix that.