Ben Nelson's Electro-Metro Build thread

[Johnny Mullet]

Coming along quite nicely Ben!

[bennelson]

Go an e-mail last night from my new EV Buddy Tom G.

He said he would be going this morning over to a salvage yard to dismantle some forklifts.

He is in the salvage business (computers) and his friend runs that salvage yard.

I met him over there this morning. I was suprised how busy the salvage yard was. Apparently since people are strapped for cash, they bring in scrap metal to the salvage yard. The place was hopping.

I walked into the back where I found Tom hip-deep in a pile of forklifts. There really were a LOT of forklifts there. Tom was working on removing a 12" diameter monster of a DC drive motor. There are two more of the same forklift there, meaning two more of those huge motors are available. Would be great for an electric pickup truck!

I worked on stripping off some cabling, fuses, and a voltmeter off one of the smaller fork trucks.

Here is the pile of loot I got.


Yes! I found an EV-1 at the junkyard! Too bad it was a GE EV-1 and not a GM EV-1!

I got enough assorted 1 gauge cable to wire up the four batteries in the trunk. That gets me 48 volts, which is the minimum I need to run the Curtis 48-72V controller.

I also got a big handful of some screwdown cable terminals from Tom which can be used for 4 gauge down to triple-0.

I used the nice pre-made and shrink wrapped terminals on the 1 gauge cable from the forklifts on one end of the battery, and the cut the cable to length and attached a screw-down terminal and hooked it to the next battery. That way, I was able to make two battery cables from each forklift cable, and only had to attach half as many terminals.

I continued to try to match my new junkyard transmission to the one originally from the Metro. I yanked off the throw out bearing, transfered the attachment bracket, and chopped out the inside fork which pushes the throw-out bearing.

I am going over to Hot Rod Jim's tomorrow morning to use his plasma cutter to add an access port to the new transmission. I hope he can also pull out the one bolt that snapped off in the transmission. Otherwise, I will only be able to use two bolts instead of three to attach to the bracket that goes to the tranny mount.

Another cool thing I found at the junkyard is a forklift control stick with two momentary buttons on it. It should make a perfect stick-shift for my S10. I plan to eventually rig it up with one button being and engine kill button, and the other activating the starter motor.

Feels like I am actually making progress on this project! Yeah!

I also picked up a Schumacher SC-1200 from Wal-Mart. That "smart-charger" has a gel cell setting on it. I tested it out, but it does output 14.5 volts when on the end of the charge.

I will have to check with the EVDL to see what they have to say about it.

[bennelson]

I got the motor and transmission physically inside the engine compartment.

The motor doesn't fit right the way it is right now. Looks like I have to drop the whole thing straight down, remove the motor, turn it, and bolt it back up, then raise it up again and bolt it in.

Should be interesting. This thing is going to fit SO TIGHT!

[MetroMPG]

Ha! I have an EV-1 in my parts pile too.

The smart EV folks tell me that its SCR tech isn't as good for a car with a "small" battery pack - range will be reduced compared to an equivalent PWM unit like the Cursits.

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Ha! I have an EV-1 in my parts pile too.

I pretty much just grabbed the front cover off it thinking it would be a funny conversation starter about electric cars. Might keep it for use as some sort of electronics control cover.


I put the motor in the car yesterday. Well, I got it physically inside.

The spacers between the adapter plate and motor push the back end of the motor just past the passenger side rail.

I can't quite raise it up to level. Part of the side rail is just a seam which pokes down the way folded sheet metal does. I may be able to stick a Sawsall in there and trim that part away. That should let me get the motor up another half inch or so.

Also, my adapter plate it too big for the passenger-side drive shaft to fit back in. I have to pull everything out, modify the plate and put it all back in!!!

[bennelson]

Took out the transmission and motor.

Took adapter of motor. Took it to machinist. Plasma cut off offending part of plate.

Put everything back together. Wrestled with it all. Cabled it all up.

One tire spins, but not the other!!!!!

[MPaulHolmes]

That's hilarious. Is one wheel frozen? That happened to me until the brakes were fixed. When you spun the transmission on the motor off of the car in gear did the little side round things both spin?

That's the shortest update representing the most work that I have read in these many years on planet earth.

[bennelson]

Guess who has the sweetest little electric car on the block?

That's right. ME!

It officially moved under its own power.

I rolled it backwards to the end of the driveway, then drove it up the driveway under its own power.

Then around the block.

Twice,

Then down the side street, the circle through the local subdivision, through the side street again and into my driveway.

It is FAR from finished! The mechanicals don't sound quite right, the gas pedal and clutch both do nothing, and the headlights don't work.

At least now, I can roll it out of the garage and then drive it back in.

Pushing 2000 lbs uphill into my garage is not fun. Driving it is.


No idea how many amps I was using. I have to shift gears by climbing under the car and yanking the bit that sticks off the transmission, but it runs!!!!!

[metroschultz]

!Go Ben!
Now bring us a video
S.

[bennelson]

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.