Electric car conversion: Project ForkenSwift

[MPaulHolmes]

The Kayaks match your car! Did you do that on purpose?

[vpoppv]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

vpoppv: sorry for the delayed response - I didn't see your question (was away sailing when you posted it and it got lost in the volume of messages).

The car has "unassisted" brakes like Dr Larry's car, but we didn't puncture the booster diaphragm. Instead we upgraded the smaller rotors & calipers from the 3-cylinder car to the larger caliper & rotors from the 4-cylinder car. The brakes are still firm, and a fair amount of muscle is required to stop quickly. (How hard? I wouldn't feel comfortable letting my mom drive it.) But it's noticeably improved over the "unassisted" 3-cylinder setup.

I'm reluctant to puncture the diaphragm because once I do, if I decide later to add a vacuum pump to reduce braking effort, it can't be undone.

I know Dr Larry swears by his punctured diaphragm method, but I'd like to hear a 2nd or 3rd opinion of someone else who's done it before I'd take that step.

I've got the 96 4/auto parts car that I could pull the calipers and rotors off of, but then I couldn't use the 12" wheels/tires anymore from what I understand: the wheels won't clear the caliper. Are you running 13" wheels/tires? Also, since I have the spare booster from the parts car, I'm going to go ahead and puncture the diaphragm....

[IsaacCarlson]

will eat up a ton of amps if not regulated. The ones i worked on were OLD and had an analog card in the brain box that regulated amp draw to around 500 on takeoff... BE CAREFUL!!!!!

What model baker was it? B-30 only has one hydraulic motor if i remember right.
maybe B-50????

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

The Kayaks match your car! Did you do that on purpose?

No... weird, eh? I don't usually try to colour coordinate my vehicles.

The kayak definitely doesn't match the bike:



( http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...oat-10147.html )

Originally Posted by vpoppv

Are you running 13" wheels/tires? Also, since I have the spare booster from the parts car, I'm going to go ahead and puncture the diaphragm....

Yes, running 13 inch wheels on the car.

will eat up a ton of amps if not regulated. The ones i worked on were OLD and had an analog card in the brain box that regulated amp draw to around 500 on takeoff... BE CAREFUL!!!!!

What model baker was it? B-30 only has one hydraulic motor if i remember right.
maybe B-50????

It's regulated - through a golf cart motor controller.

The motor came from this:



mid-1980's Baker FTD-110 forklift

[Planecrazy]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

In response to Ben Nelson's "2 bikes on my electro-Metro photo"...



I'm upping the ante with "two colour-coordinated kayaks" on the roof of the ForkenSwift:



Took my nephew kayaking yesterday around some of the park islands on the St Lawrence river just west of Brockville. Round trip by EV was about 10 km. (No comments about the destroyed aero efficiency - and yes, it was noticeable!)

Look at the bright side ... at least you didn't put a rowboat up there! In the overall scheme of things a couple of kayaks are close the the MOST aero efficient things you could strap to the roof, hehe!

Regards,

[MetroMPG]

Crud. Just noticed a bunch of earlier images I had hosted at theimagehosting.com have disappeared. I'm going to have to go through the thread and fix stuff.

This should be a warning to anyone who hosts photos on free services. I'm going to move the images to my own domain (forkenswift.com).

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

No... weird, eh? I don't usually try to colour coordinate my vehicles.

The kayak definitely doesn't match the bike:

Oh, my eyes!!! Please paint that bike to match! I can't stand it. The pain! The pain!

[MetroMPG]

A bit of housekeeping:

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Crud. Just noticed a bunch of earlier images I had hosted at theimagehosting.com have disappeared. I'm going to have to go through the thread and fix stuff.

FYI the images in this thread are all fixed now, save for a few that other people posted themselves. Some of theirs have apparently been moved or deleted.

theimagehosting.com still hosts quite a number for this thread that are still working, but my lesson has been learned: I'm moving them all to my own domain.

xs.to was another image hosting service I used for some of the images in this thread (mostly because it was convenient: you could quickly upload images without an account). Its images had also disappeared.

Lesson learned!

---

I've been invited to give a talk about the car. The location is about 30 km away (too far to get safely in cold weather). So I'm considering doing a 2-part trip, topping up at a friend's place so I can actually have the car there for the event.

Other than that, no ForkenSwift news to report. Ivan's had the car for the past couple of weeks. The weather has been amazing lately for what should be early winter, so I've been biking everywhere I can while it's still pleasant out.

[MetroMPG]

I used the car for a 30 km round trip on Sunday, which as it turns out is quite well past the car's practical range in early winter weather (let's say 1*C, or just above freezing).

For the first time since installing the new-to-us Hallowe'en 2008 pack, I had to baby the accelerator on a good portion of the return leg, 4-way flashers on. Didn't obstruct any traffic, but I had to keep a close eye on the LED pack monitor to keep from dipping any battery into danger voltage territory. So it earned a self-administered dope slap.

I'm sure the pack was very happy to slurp down some juice last night.

303 wh/mile for the excursion, which is pretty high given the low speed & "non-stop" nature of the drive. Batteries don't like the cold. Drivetrain & tires don't like the cold. (I don't like the cold!)

For comparison, in warm weather the car would easily go close to 40 km in similar use.

Plan is to keep the car licenced and insured for the winter, but only use it if the roads are dry to minimize salt damage to the body.

[Daox]

Have you ever done your patented rust-prevention oil-painting on it?