Electric car conversion: Project ForkenSwift

[MetroMPG]

DAX contributes experience on welding helmets...

Are you looking for an autodark? If you're going to do any more welding after this project, I'd recommend getting a good one. I bought a cheapie first time around and after it went "light" on me during welding for about the 10th time, I sucked it up and bought a Miller Elite - haven't been flashed since - even on very low current settings.

I still have my cheapie eBay autodark in my shop - I pull it out when someone else wants to observe me welding.

Yep, I was looking for an autodark kind. I was planning on snatching up one like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA:IT&ih=020

For what you're doing, I guess that will work. That's like my eBay helmet. The problem with these helmets is that the light sensor is small and there is only one - what happens is that while you're welding, if your hand or something is blocking the light from getting to this sensor, it will flash clear. This also happens on low amp settings (which you probably won't use unless you're tigging something thin). My Miller helmet has four sensors and a larger viewing window. It is also capable of staying dark for inverter machine arcs, and will stay dark down to 5 amps of current. Another difference in the helmets is the material - my eBay one is very thick, stiff plastic and gets uncomfortable rather quickly. My Miller helmet is made of a thinner, softer plastic which is more flexible and comfortable.

In the light of this being a budget project and the small amount of welding you're doing, I think you will be fine with the eBay unit. If you think you'll be welding a lot more in the future, get a good helmet.

Thanks - that's good info. Amount of welding will probably be minimal, and higher current as you guessed. So I'll see if I can snag one of these and I'll report back about how it turns out.

[MetroMPG]

It was welding day in ForkenSwiftland! Fun, fun.

By the end of the afternoon some of the beads looked decent (to my non-expert eyes), but a lot of it was pretty bad too! Busted my first "weld" of the day with a single hammer blow. Tried harder after that I'm not consistent - a crappy looking weld would follow a good one.

At least I escaped the exercise without burning myself.

I was working on the most complex rack - the one that will hold 2 batts above & somewhat aft of the motor. Was fabricating mounting tabs/brackets that will secure the rack at 3 points to the firewall; 1 point to the firewall-mounted engine/tranny mount; and 1 point to the "frame" rail.

I think it's reasonable to say one more afternoon should be enough to finish up both front racks, and then I can evict four batteries from the front passenger side floorboards.

The rear rack will probably take another afternoon to build & install. Then throw in a contactor & a manual disconnect on a cable and swing by my mechanic's place to have him write the "it's an electric car" letter that the licence bureau says we need.

[MetroMPG]

A thread noob asks:

Hello all I am a newb and started reading this thread... Wowo its long.. anyway what are the current specs on this car how fast will it go and how far?

Has there been any talk on adding solar panels or a diesel generator for extended range? Or maybe even a small gas motor for high way speeds?

[MetroMPG]

Fast: 55 km/h max, to date; distance 22 km to roughly 50% DOD, featherfooting it.

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Evicted 2 batteries from the passenger compartment tonight. 2 more tomorrow or Friday...



Front batts actually rest on the rad support, which had a seam that I hammered flat.



They'll be supported by a length of bed frame triple bolted to the car's "frame rail", with additional support to the top of the rad support.



Finicky top double rack. Currently 4 bolts through the seam in the firewall (top), one through the trans/engine mount (lower center of car), one more through the firewall (lower r. side).



There's 3/4 in. clearance from the motor to the rack (room for the drivetrain to move - which it doesn't really, since the motor doesn't vibrate, but just in case). With the hood closed, there's about 1.5 in between the tip of the forward battery posts & the hood.

All the batts will have proper "tie downs" with threaded rod & angle iron across their "free" sides.

[MetroMPG]

Discovered another Suzukiclone conversion today, just down the highway in Toronto:



http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/1219

Looks like they did a 4wd conversion while they were at it!

[MetroMPG]

New milestone: it's graduated to 2-seater status & I can take another person for a ride!

Moved 2 more batteries up front tonight. Need to temporarily re-cable things tomorrow, add another support to the forwardmost rack, and start work on securing all that lead so it doesn't fly around if the car takes a jolt.

Ivan says he wants to get his hands dirty next week, so perhaps we'll get the rear box built & installed by this time next week.

[MetroMPG]

another milestone: first useful trip! & misc update.

Milestone! On Friday I actually used the car on its first useful trip. It was pouring rain, and I needed to get to the store before it closed. Only about a 4 km round trip, but that's pretty much exactly why I wanted to build it - for local trips when I can't/don't feel like using the bicycle. Gotta get it legal before I get busted though. This was my first foray outside the immediate neighbourhood.

- got some threaded rod and secured the front upper rack batts with some angle iron. Got to weld some tabs to secure the rod & it seemed to work out quite nicely (pics to follow when they'er all done).

- dropped the car off at Ivan's on Friday evening - he said he wanted to work on it. We talked about having him work on the rear rack. I'll find out tomorrow what he did.

- also this weekend: boiled some water load testing 4 batts. We have too many sitting around, so I decided to start weeding out the worst ones and recycle them. Used the jumper-cable-to-coat-hanger-immersed-in-water technique. Of the 4 I tested, 2 showed significant voltage sag within 5 minutes under a 90A-ish load. The other 2 were still discharging more or less linearly after 15 minutes, so I deemed them OK (subject to further testing)

[MetroMPG]

Almost forgot to mention: sold a couple more ICE parts. The 1.3L engine (finally) and misc stuff from the red car. $90. That sale represents a healthy portion of the net cost of the project to date!

Also have a deal pending (touch wood) on the gas tank from the blue car. (It was replaced a couple of years ago).

[MetroMPG]

more parts sold; project tally; a new controller?
More parts sold...

Met up with Ray from South Carolina yesterday, who drove about 1000 miles to Ivan's dad's wood lot in Ontario to pick up the 1.3 engine, ECU, harness, and strip the interior panels & dashboard from the red car! Nothing but a shell left behind. Apparently the US market didn't have the 1.3 4-cyl option for as many years as the CDN market, so they're much harder to find down there.

(OK, he was also going to Niagara Falls to a friend's wedding, and just took a - long - detour this way to get the parts.)

Bear of of a guy - picked up the motor himself and put it in his car (a mk3 Metro he bought for $40 with a bad clutch). And friendly as you'd expect from a Southern boy.

Also, the blue car's gas tank also sold & was picked up.

Updated project tally...

All of which brings the current net investment in Project ForkenSwift to $659.40 Canadian - and we're fresh out of left over parts to sell.

I talked to Ivan: we were going to celebrate our frugality... by spending some money!

A new controller?

The thought was to buy a higher amperage controller to replace the 225A Curtis. Had my eye on a used programmable Alltrax AXE 400A 48v unit on eBay, but the bidding went a bit higher than we had agreed in advance that I would spend. I'll just have to keep my eyes open.

In other non-news, I came down with a bug, so I won't be doing much to the car this weekend. Instead I'm sitting inside fiddling with the project spreadsheet. We're still on the interminable battery rack-making & securing phase anyway (Ivan didn't get around to doing any work in this area last weekend either when he had the car).

Thinking we need to set a target date as a way of motivating us to get this thing done...

[MetroMPG]

Finished securing the front batteries yesterday. Also started on the rear rack.

Ivan's basically out of the picture for helping on the project for the foreseeable future: baby due any day, and he started a new job with a 200 km daily commute (nutbar!) rather than the 8 km r.t. commute for which the ForkenSwift's minimum range requirement was originally made.