Paul & Sabrina's Cheap EV Conversion

[MPaulHolmes]

We payed for the car today, a 1971 VW bug (blue). It has an excellent body with almost no rust. The same owner for the last 25 years. The engine has only 10,000 miles on it since it's last rebuild. I'll try and sell it, but there is something wrong with the distributor (I have no idea what that is). I am told it's a minor problem. Hopefully, someone on Craigslist wants it for their project. I could end up getting the car for "free" in that case.
Here's the annoying part. It's been parked outside for the last few months, and not moved, and the brake drum is frozen to the brake pad, so the back wheel won't move, so we need to take care of that. It's still at his house, but I have a few ideas how it will be taken care of so we can roll it over here.
Also, I bought 2 L110 lovejoy couplers (both about 1.5" diameter) so if I screw up on the welding job, I have another one. I still need to buy the 7/8" diameter L110 now. Maybe in the future, I'll go with a smaller one like the L095. I don't know. It's just that they were super cheap on ebay. One was only $4.99! The other was $10 I think (I forgot). I'll do the welding once they come, maybe by the end of next week! I probably should practice my welding a bit more before that.

[MetroMPG]

Nice to hear you sealed the deal. A big hammer and making lots of noise on that drum is one of the first methods people use to free a stuck brake shoe.

[dremd]

I freed the brakes shoes on my 66 bus with a bottle of marvel mystery oil (as soon as posable), a chain, and most recently a Supra. . . .. I can provide details if needed . . .

If it is really stuck; pump the tire up and drag it on a trailer (that's how I got my 68' home)

if you can reach on of the adjusting stars that would be very helpful as well . . .

[MPaulHolmes]

Here's the inside of part of my motor. I hope it can be fixed. I think it's just carbon after all, though. Hopefully it can just be scraped off and start all fresh and clean! The rest of the rotor is nice though.

[COMP]

looks like it can be cleaned

[MPaulHolmes]

I'm working on chopping off a big completely stuck-on spline thing on the back post of the motor, so I can slip off the cover to get at the copper bars to clean them. I bought a 3 foot long crow bar, but that didn't do it, so I'll be grinding it along the keyway (which is buried under steel!) and prying it apart that way. A spider for my L110 came today. Now I just need the L110 so I can weld the spline to it (no machining necessary! I hope it works!). By the way, those L110's are beasts, and I think I could do some drag racing with them, and not break anything. I was attempting to take lovely pictures, and the dang batteries ran out!!! They are recharging now. ooh, that makes me mad!

[bennelson]

The L110 must be huge.

I grabbed a pair of L095s thinking they were plenty large, and who needs extra weight anyways?

You are probably right about them being good for drag-racing.

[MPaulHolmes]

Man, the motor had 2 posts (front and back), and I had to remove the back HUGE spline gear thing on the "back" post in order to get access to the copper bars that the carbon brushes slide against (they had all that crap on them). I figured I could take it to a real motor person, but then again, hard plastic SOS pads only cost $0.99. It worked really well. It's now very smooth. Not perfect, but almost perfect. Good enough for government work (I'm a government employee I think. I substitute teach)

Removing that back post was like giving birth to a cactus. My 3 foot long crow bar came in handy though! ha!

The brushes were nice and long still. Now I know how to change the brushes. Really a very simple system, DC motors. Not many parts at all. The brushes were H-100's, whatever that means. Now I'm trying to put it back together. I hope it works once it's back together again.

[MPaulHolmes]

Great news! I can't get the motor back together! hurray! Wait just a dang minute. That's bad news...

Well, some progress. It is a pickle!

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

Great news! I can't get the motor back together! hurray! Wait just a dang minute. That's bad news...

Paul, glad to see you have the right attitude for this kind of project.

There are ups and downs to these things, just don't take yourself to seriously when working on it.

Look at the Youtube vid of me being covered in Geo Metro gasoline sometime for a good laugh!