Ben Nelson's Electro-Metro Build thread

[metroschultz]

Is your driver side mirror totally broken?
If you need one I am pretty sure I have one in the garage.
I will look in the am
Let me know if you need it and I will put it in the mail.
S.
Otherwise
Good going!
Watch out for those high speed garage doors!

[MetroMPG]

Good story!

If you need to move the Metro again - just a few feet - and you don't want it to start up, just pull the coil wire off. That disables the gasoline engine portion of the hybrid drivetrain.

[bennelson]

After a long day at work, I finally got home and chipped the ice off the Geo (in the dark) moved the motorcycle out of the way, and moved the Geo into the garage. (I did move it with the starter motor with the coil cable unplugged. Garage door did not leap out in front of me this time.)

So now it is in position where it will be for the next couple months.

Just hope it doesn't snow too much the rest of the winter. The Geo just stole her covered parking space!

Overall, the car is in pretty good condition. It flipped up the cover over the spare tire well and looked it there. Clean and pretty. Can't wait to throw some batteries in there!

I have both mirrors (came with the car, dropped on the floor in the back seat.


Looks like the little hole parts where the screws thread in are broken. I will most likely just silicone it on there. I am impressed that the mirrors actually look like they are aerodynamic!

So what's the first thing to do here now? I have never built an electric car before.

On the motorcycle, I just started stripping everything off, because it was junk. On the car everything is actually fine except for the clutch. I would like to sell the engine and any other parts to recoup some cash.

Do I just start systematically start stripping this thing down?

More photos at this page

[MetroMPG]

We fixed up the car in ICE form to get it safety checked before we took it all apart.

Thought we were being clever & saving some potential headaches. But it turned out the insurance company wanted a "fresh" inspection done before granting coverage, so it turned out we weren't so clever after all. Ended up paying for 2 inspections anyway.

So go for it: start stripping stuff out! The blue ForkenSwift car had a nearly new radiator & gas tank, which we sold, and we sold the 1.3L engine from the Swift (red car that turned out to be too rusty).

The sooner you get that transaxle out, the sooner you'll know what's up with the clutch, and the sooner you can start planning the approach you'll take for your adapter plate & coupler <--- probably the trickiest & most important technical step of the entire project.

Have you decided what pack voltage you're going for?

[bennelson]

Still not sure what pack voltage yet.

Golf carts and NEVs use 48V systems, but I would like to get some better performance than that.

However, the higher the voltage, the greater the cost. Ideally, I would like to get new batteries donated to me. There is a battery manufacturer near me that I might be able to get some sort of sponsorship from. Also, Johnson Controls is in Milwaukee. They have a battery division that is working on new battery types, specifically for hybrids and electric vehicles. I have heard that if you can get in touch with the right person, they may actually LOAN you fancy batteries, so they can get real-world test results for them.

Another EV guy told me that I should do at least 120V. At that point, you can build your own charger real cheap using some inexpensive 120V AC equipment.

72 Volts seems like a natural, because I have the 36V forklift charger, which could charge the 72V split into 2 36V packs.

Commercially available motor controllers jump in price above 48V and 72V, so I only have one price jump if I bought a controller new.

Where I am, I shouldn't need a vehicle inpection or anything like that. Typically you just pay the title and registration fee, and then have to take the vehicle for emmissions (tailpipe) testing.

My old motorcycle was completely exempt from that. I am not sure what I would need to do for the car. I would imagine that the "hobbyist" plates would almost make a vehicle automatically exempt from emissions. I can't imagine antique cars and hot-rods all passing pollution testing!?!

I would put a new clutch in and then go register and get tested, but it seems like taking everything out to get a new clutch in is half the work of doing the conversion anyhow!

[bennelson]

This just in, the Geo Metro weighs 1780 lbs.

I decide I wanted to know how much the Metro weighed - including the spare tire in the trunk, the two mirrors in the back seat and the pine tree air freshener on the mirror.

There is a landscaping company just over the hill and around the corner from my house. They have a large drive-on scale for weighing trucks going out carrying dirt and stone. I stopped by and told them about my project, and asked if I could stop by later in the day to weigh my car. They agreed. I will be back.

Had to take care of a few more things for work, when I got home, I waited for traffic to clear and then used hypermiling/gear grinding techniques to get the car over the hill and around the corner, coasting up onto the scale.

The official weight is 1780 lbs.

The GVW is 2590 lbs - which means I have 810 lbs to work with for the weight of me, an occasional passenger, and the battery pack.

I used the same professional driving technique to get the car back home and coast into the garage.

I let the car idle a bit to listen to it and take a look at the engine. Sounds kinda rough to me - is that just the fact that it is a 3-cylinder, or that it hasn't been driven in months!?!?

I also noticed a little exhaust coming out from the engine compartment, so it looks like there might be a small hole in the exhaust pipe or manifold.

Frankly, that's all coming out anyhow!

As always, more photos are available here.

[bennelson]

I know that things like pin-striping should be the last thing on my "to do" list, but I had to do something. So, I used Photoshop to virtually remove the pink splash.

I am not a very good artist, but I thought some sort of white (or maybe green?) colored stripe might look nice, along with a web address whenever I get around to creating a dedicated web page for this project (the .Mac account address is WAY too long for a bumper sticker!!!)

I will also need a couple of Ecomodder stickers now that I have a place to put them.

Look close, I put one in the far window too!

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by bennelson

The official weight is 1780 lbs.

That's lighter than I thought. The official weight is 1830, I believe. At least that's what I've been going by.

The GVW is 2590 lbs - which means I have 810 lbs to work with for the weight of me, an occasional passenger, and the battery pack.

Don't forget you'll be taking out probably 300 lbs worth of stuff. Engine + accessories, cooling system, fuel system.

I let the car idle a bit to listen to it and take a look at the engine. Sounds kinda rough to me - is that just the fact that it is a 3-cylinder, or that it hasn't been driven in months!?!?

It's probably just the way it is. If it's idling a little low, these engines are particularly jumpy.

[TomEV]

If you need to rebuild any plastic parts (such as your mirror threads) lookup 'plastifix'. I use it on the plastic body on the Citicar - relatively easy to work with.

[WaxyChicken]

Congratulations, Ben N.

But now the real work begins.
It is a sweet looking car for being budget, i wonder - if you painted the pink stripe red and tell your wife that it was caused by the weather, would she believe you? Just a thought.

Again, Congrats.