Paul's how NOT to convert a Metro
 

So I have been reading a lot about conversions, and I am hoping to incorporate everyone's mistakes into one vehicle. I decided that too many people have successfully converted Geo Metros to electric, and that info is out there, but no one has yet described how to screw it up. I intend to fill that void. First and foremost, electric motor selection is crucial. To fail miserably I need a motor either too big or too small. Too big sounds heavy, and I am a very lazy person so that doesn't sound like a good option. I'd like to go too small. Besides, it should make a good show with sparks and what not when it explodes. Then, there's the budget. Much like a bank CEO, I plan on getting PAID to screw up: I'll sell various ICE parts to make money and use a part of it to finance the conversion and use the rest to buy Sour Skittles. I am also hoping to get the attention of GM so they can hire me as a consultant, since I will have undeniable proof that electric cars can't work. The pay should beat my Teacher's Aide salary of less than $10K/year at the local middle school. I've started videos to chronicle my humiliation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4gQOiPII0U

Are you cereal? I mean, you're going to just screwdriver it on purple?

Time will tell. I'm off to a bad start though: the motor I was going to use wasn't working and when I took it apart and cleaned it, it worked. I'll make up for it somewhere along the way I'm sure. Maybe when I do this again sometime I should start with a WORKING motor so that when I take it apart I can break it....

But if it's working, you shouldn't... Oh. I get it. HA.

I have faith in you Paul :)

Thank you dcb! So far all I have heard is : "that could work", or "so many others have done it successfully", etc. I'm a Maverick though. I like to do what no one has done before. I'm the guy that likes to make OTHER people look good:D

wtf

Ah yes, point well taken. Truer words were never spoken. Perhaps you are one of those that thinks that I might just be able to go 1.4 miles on a single charge at no more than 25 mph which would effectively make my conversion meet 90% of my vehicular needs, but I was expecting detractors from the start. Your comment is duly noted (ok, it's dually noted because I was thinking of a diesel pickup just now- ok now it's duelly noted because them's fightin' words and I have a sword). You might be right, but I still think I can find a way to make this not work though- stay tuned......

I would suggest welding up the wheel bearings, that's will not help loads.

Try to do something with no controller. You could have a sepex hardwired to spin around 2000 to 4000 rpm, and have to start by clutch slipping, and change speeds by shifting and binary pedal control (on/off).

Another thought is to do a series motor with a really big, heavy flywheel to give you time to engage the clutch before the motor spun up fast enough to spontaneously disassemble.

Batteries on the floor beside the driver, with a jumper cable, makes for the cheapest switch, plus the bright flashes of light helps to warn away other drivers, who you'll now have trouble seeing anyways due to these bright flashes of light. Of course, safety first, be sure to wear safety goggles and to cover the batteries with a tarp in case they explode.

Subscribed.
I've got to keep watching this channel. Cool!!

I had no idea I sabotaged the opportunity to charge huge consulting fees to GM by making the ForkenSwift. I will play close attention!

Hmm... I'm working on a scooter conversion and have several bits from a 50cc variator left over, that might suit your purposes Paul :)

I think you should put at least one battery under the passenger seat, leaving the metal pan of the seat exposed, so that when someone sits on it, it shorts the battery, a'la Volkswagen Beetle.

LOL, been there :) Nice of those German engineers to pad the seat with hay :)

The unexpected accompanied ignition event blew my cheezy air cleaner off too.

While I've had a battery explode on me, it's never been the result of the VW syndrome... I've only had anecdotal experience with the problem, and seen the aftermath of it (after letting the acid sit for a few months due to an insurance claim not being processed correctly). I also was commissioned to help clean it up and take care of the damage.

Thanks to everyone for helping me with such great ideas for failure! Keep them coming!! In the meantime, I uploaded a video of a coupler that I think has a very good chance of not working. The stock piece called a "hub" took 3 tries for me to finally buy the right size: 1 3/16". At this point, I am very angry because I was hoping to be MAKING money from this project, and here I am out $5.49 for the coupler. I feel like ripping a piece off the ICE of the Metro and putting it on eBay. I uploaded a new video. There are two setscrews there, I'm going to add another two to the motor section, then put in four for the clutch center portion to make sure it's nice and tight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmIqlzLfmiY

Set screws AWESOME!!! You should only need one, make sure the slop is all on one side.

Also, do the final line up and adjusting assembly of your adapter while texting, or in the shower, or while texting in the shower.

Also, DO NOT WELD IT TOGETHER, if some of the scale from the weld comes off while running it could cosmetically damage something.

So... you remembered to over tighten those set screws, right? Once you're done over tightening them, remove them and weld the holes shut - the heat expansion on the piece will make it bind together, so you won't need welding and set screws to actually hold anything together. Sweet, ain't it?

I finished the coupler. I'd be lying if I said it was easy. First I used chewing gum to hold in the clutch center, but that didn't hold. I tried crazy glue but it just stuck my fingers together. Then I drilled four holes with a new set of drill bits I got at Wal-Mart. Those wood bits I had were taking too long. I started tapping one hole out when I realized I had the wrong size tap. Today, after work, I bought the right tap. I tapped two, then on the third one, SNAP! broke the tap. I had purchased the last tap at Napa Auto so I went to O'Reilly's. None there. Back to the farm supply store where I got the coupler (they are starting to know me there, they must think I'm a farmer) and got another tap. It was half price, should have gone there first. Tapped the fourth one, then spent a good deal of time getting the piece of old tap out of the last hole. Retapped it. Coupler appears solid, but I'm all tapped out....
I started painting the motor. I wasn't going to, but it seems like everyone is doing it. I'm guessing it must increase horsepower, so I'm all for it. I went with OSU orange. Go cowboys.
I'm ready for the adapter plate. I wanted to go with plywood, but since I'm anticipating sparks, I decided against that. I have the template, just need the aluminum plate. Anyone know where I can find aluminum plate?

Junk yard. Most of them will sell it to you if you can find it in the yard.

(I mean the places that you take scrap metal to, not salvage yards.)

I think if you used some nice subfloor grade OSB, and a sheet of lauan stained a nice cherry color, it would accentuate that orange of the motor.

Plus, fat people walk on the OSB all the time, and it doesn't spontaneously disintegrate, right?

That reminds me of the time I asked a friend who's a cabinet maker for a scrap piece of wood. He gave me solid oak, just beautiful. I used it for subflooring....
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll call around the scrapyards. Forgot to mention that, in the parlance of the locals, I am "fixin" to buy yet ANOTHER golf cart motor for $25. Now I'll have TWO diminutive motors to play with....

How much do you think it would cost to mail one of those?... LOL.

If you mean the motor, that's what the holdup is: she's far away and I was asking if she could mail it. She's checking with her PO. I THINK that the motor in question is quite a bit smaller than the one I have now, and might fit in one of those flat rate boxes....

I've not been able to find any decent sized motors for anything less than $200 around here, and some of those need new bearings and such.

I think I'm going to do a few alt conversions and see if I can make them more efficient, since I have so many of them.

You've mentioned that before, and I am very curious about that. I have a few alternators myself. I'd be very interested to hear about your results. As far as motors go, if only I had the space I'd want to get into the forklift salvage business! About a month ago there were two forklifts in Tulsa for $400. One was propane, but I bet the electric one had some great motors in it....

Well, hook up enough golf cart motors and you will might have something. Do some series/parallel shifting on 'em. When they are all in series they get all the current your controller can give and are at max torque, when in parallel they get their fraction of the current but more volts and can spin faster. Poor mans EV shifting.

I'm still doing some research on exactly what needs to be done to make it work correctly, and I don't have a controller yet, and they're not the most efficient motors in the world, but if you have 20 of them laying around, it's probably more efficient to drain the batteries a little faster than to spend good greenbacks on a motor...

Brushed motors need maintenance far more often than non-brushed type motors, also... so the efficiency is a tradeoff with maintenance, to some degree.

vpoppv, I'm partial to the controller method the Albanian coal miners used in this youtube video.
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unhXEQQk8G8

It's a sweet solid state solution to that nagging problem of controlling the inrush current of a heavily loaded electric motor.:D

"Hey, Jimbo - check this out!" :rolleyes:

Hmmm, I'm frying my brain trying to see how two motors could work together. There's a Solectria van on eBay that uses two with belts:

Other Makes:eBay Motors (item 260464883145 end time Aug-28-09 18:43:29 PDT)

And I know that the hub I bought as a coupler was actually made to have a gear welded on it. Something like that might actually work..GM would be angry. Maybe I'll do it after I fry the current motor:D

You can couple a dual shaft motor and a single shaft motor, then couple the other end of the dual shaft motor to your transmission. You can also use a planetary gear drive.

The electric conversion is already saving me money
 

So I spent the weekend cleaning out the carport. Now I have a clean area to work in with plenty of room. I have already started to make money on the conversion: my wife's car ate the air conditioning belt last week. I pulled the one out of the donor car and now it's blowing nice and cold again. The conversion saved gas (no trip to the parts store) and money (didn't need to buy a new belt). So there you go, I'm already profiting from my conversion. Here's a video that shows me almost fall on my butt. If you listen closely, at the end, you can hear my daughter's complete confidence in my ability to convert this car to electric.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aJzmySGqL4

I thought for sure that the last video was going to be called "Geo Metro driver side mirror removal"!

Seriously though, nice to see another Metro EV conversion.

That motor and coupler are looking pretty good.
I removed the flanges on my clutch plate, but I think you should keep them.

In fact, you should add some of those little kids turbine whistles to the flanges on the clutch hub. When you spin the motor, it will make a great siren noise!

S'ok if I trim the mirror, it'll save weight. Besides, I have spares! I even have deck screws that I can use to reattach them. Sure, they may stick out a little, but it wouldn't be the first time someone does that:D (Did that on my 95). The flanges are certainly staying, as removing them would entail work. I hate work. My life's theme is avoiding work.
Maybe I can buy one of those eBay Geo Metro "turbo simulator" whistles for my coupler? Come to think of it, it should make plenty of nice noise when the set screws work their way out. (Insert smilie of crash here).
On a completely different subject, the Geo I am converting came from Wisconsin. I think there's some cosmic relevance there....

I just got done pulling out the motor; I have never done that before and it went very smoothly. If I could just locate some aluminum plate for cheap, I could have something going by the end of labor day....

You can usually source aluminum plates of decent size and thickness from salvage yards. They sell it for more than scrap price, usually.

Also, find a welding shop in your area - they'll be able to hook you up clean metals at a price only marginally higher than their cost.

In California, I know a few places I could have hit up. Here in Oklahoma, I have called every listing under "wrecker" (the equivalent of salvage here), "recycling", and "welding" (lots of welders, this is oil country! But they all do steel only). No one has what I need, nor could they get it. One offered the number of a place in Tulsa. They could special order what I need for $134!! Now, there are a few listings on eBay that come close enough to what I need, but with $20 shipping it's about $50. If worse comes to worse, I'll go that route. I have a lot of feelers out, so hopefully someone can come through. Plywood is sounding better and better every day.....
Actually, I really could go with steel, and that's more abundant here than fried foods, but I'm too lazy to drill and cut that stuff....

For steel, you could always sandwich a couple pieces of body metal together, and glue laminate them, drill/mill as necessary. It would hold up just fine.

It would end up exactly like a MLS head gasket, only with sheet metal that would normally be used for body work.

For mocking up purposes, if you have nothing else to work with, a couple straps of steel bent and bolted to the face of the motor, then bolted to any of the mouting points on the transaxle would allow you to straighten things out and mock them up until the plate gets there, and plywood or 1/2" MDF would probably work as well.

Whatever you use as a temp plate until your stuff gets there, make sure you account for thickness of material, or else you'll end up with a "how not to measure twice, cut once" thread.

You know, I was totally joking about the plywood, but you make an excellent point: I could make an adapter plate out of the wood, make sure things line up pretty well, and have a great start for when I get the aluminum I want. Thank you....