SalvageS10 Build Thread

[thingstodo]

The bolt that I found is 3/4 inch, and I thought the head was 1 inch - the largest impact socket that I have. It turns out that the head is slightly larger at 1 and 1/8, so I need to use a socket on the T bar side and the largest adjustable wrench that I have on the other.

No pictures - my wife has the camera to take pictures of the grandchild this week on holidays. Visualize the T bar on the truck differential, a 1 and 1/8 socket on the T bar, a 1.5 inch bolt inside the socket, the nut of the bolt held in a 16 inch crescent wrench/adjustable wrench and the 3 foot square tube on the 16 inch crescent wrench. Tie it all together with my traditional red TUCK tape.

Move the truck up the ramp, 1/2 turn (90 degrees on the ratchet is not quite 90 degrees on the rear differential - wedges on the tires allow a bit of roll-back). I have a problem. After moving the truck up the ramps the first inch or so, I can't put enough force on the bar to move the truck. Nothing is bending, but the truck is not moving. I am pushing down with almost all my weight (250 lbs) on a 3 foot bar. That's 750 foot-lbs of torque ... doesn't make sense. I am doing something wrong here - the pivot point on the differential, where the socket and wrench meet - it's not supported. Maybe that is the issue.

I am going to give up here. I need to get some progress on this truck while it is still summer.

End of Rolling Update

[thingstodo]

After giving up on moving the truck up the ramps, it occurred to me that I could check what the static force on the drive shaft would be by 'weighing' the socket wrench handle, when the handle is horizontal, and using a level scale or perhaps a fisherman's hanging spring scale.

But the truck is not on level ground, and I was too impatient to do it. With a three foot extension on the ratchet, it was very easy (too easy, hard to measure)to move.

I hung a 4 lb weight from my wife's workout set from the three foot mark on the ratchet extension. The truck did not move. I added a 3 lb weight and it did move.

I had to support the ratchet (I went back to the half inch bolt so I could use the ratchet) with a McGyver style rope loop so that it would not move while I got the weights balanced and moved the truck. It would help to have a picture ... oh well.

Since I supported the ratchet, I don't have a good feel for the weight of the square tube and the weights. I know that 7 lbs of weights and the bar will move the truck. I'd estimate the weight between 6 and 7 lbs (when the truck began to move) at 3 feet, so around 20 foot-lbs. I just wanted to check that the 40 HP motor would actually MOVE the truck. My confidence is a bit shaken and I needed a bit of a boost.

I do NOT give up easily. It HURT!

[thingstodo]

I told my wife, who does not like the junk in our front yard (SalvageS10, a couple of railroad ties for it to sit on, a trailer full of parts, the rear box on some sawhorses with the gas tank beneath, jack-alls, a creeper, etc etc) that the truck WILL MOVE under electric power by the end of August.

Nothing ever gets done without a deadlinel, right?

It's too bad I spent so much time trying to measure the torque to get the truck up the ramps. Maybe I'm over-compensating ... who cares ...

Anyway, onward!

[thingstodo]

I'm not going to number the steps for a task any more. It's depressing. Dates work better, don't you think?

I need to get the transmission back into SalvageS10. I have the truck on a set of ramps, and it is blocked well.

Contrary to post 134, the transmission is not that tight to the steering linkage - I have 3 inches of clearance between the steering linkage and the highest part of the transmission. How do I move a ... 150 lb? .. transmission on uneven grass, beneath a truck, by myself, safely? And I have 3 inches of vertical height to play with, so I can't use a wheelbarrow or a wagon.

My creeper is low enough, and would work if the truck was parked on at least gravel. But it's on grass. I tried anyway and it did not move with me on it (a bit over 150 lbs, granted, but close enough for a test)

I scrounged a piece of plywood - half inch thick and about 3 x 4 feet. It looked promising. I just could not figure out what sort of wheels to put it on. All of my casters have wheels too small. And if I use wheels large enough to work, the plywood is far higher than the 3 inch clearance that I have. So I tried to skid it across the grass. The grass was even a bit wet. No dice with me as the test weight.

So I went for a walk around the yard. I re-discovered a lot of junk ... and a piece of 1/8 inch plate that is maybe 24 inches by 32 inches. Best of all, it is painted and quite slippery. I tried it out on the wet grass and can ... sort of ... slide. Actually I slid over it about a foot and it slid on the grass an inch or two. Good enough for a start.

I think the plate is a keeper idea ... now to get it to slide. After a quick supper I found inspiration in the garage. It had some old broom handles and shovel handles (I am not kind to my tools. I break things) If I can get the plate to roll on top of the handles, using the handles as really long and wide caster wheels ...

A quick test shows it works WELL. So I gathered 4 or 5 of the old handles, trimmed them to length (they can't be longer than the distance between the truck ramps) and spaced them on the ground in front of the truck.

I backed the trailer with the transmission on it directly in front of the truck, slid the metal plate under the edge of the transmission, and tilted the trailer to slide/dump the transmission on the ground with the plate beneath. It worked OK. The transmission ended up too far to one side, but it is easy to slide on the plate. I remembered to remove the dipstick and oil fill so that the transmission fits under the truck.

I wedged a roller under the leading edge of the plate. Then I spaced the rest of the rollers about 6 inches apart between the transmission and the truck. And then I lifted the back edge (furthest from the truck) and pushed the plate and transmission. It did not slide easy for the first foot or so, but I was not under the truck yet so I could put some weight into the shove. After that the rollers did a good job and it rolled into position. Every 6 inches or so I had to take a roller from the back and put it in front.

Darn, a few pictures would be useful here!

The day ended with the transmission in about the right place (it's getting dark, so it's not perfect). The dip stick and oil fill are back in place so I don't lose them. The support bracket for the transmission is beside it. The transfer case and drive shafts are laid out and I think I have all the pieces and all of the bolts.

Now all I need to figure out is how to LIFT the transmission on the 1/8 inch plate, up into position beneath the truck, and adjust it so that I can put the bolts for the transmission support back on ... with the transmission resting on the metal plate ... maybe I can overhang it?

But that's another day.

[thingstodo]

The day begins. I found a couple of lengths of angle iron that may work to life the sheet metal, and the sheet metal lifts the transmission. I lifted up a corner of the sheet metail and propped it up on a 2 x 4. Then slid the angle iron lengthwise underneath. Now lift up the next corner and prop it on the 2 x 4. I slid the angle iron underneath this edge.

You can likely predict what happened next. The sheet metal slid off the angle iron when I did not keep the transmission level enough. I sort of predicted this, but I tried it anyway. And I was on the opposite side of the transmission when it slid too far.

Next up was a metal screen with a frame. It is used to screen small quantities of gravel and split the fine stuff from the larger gravel. The frame is pretty sturdy - 1 inch by 1/2 inch angle frame. Using the same method, lift the transmission onto blocks.

I have a few decorative railroad ties, recycled from a lawn remodel. Eventually, lifting one edge at a time with a small scissor jack, sliding shims in to raise it. When the height worked to slide the transmissiong/metal plate/screen combination onto a decorative railroad tie (4 inches high), slide the ties beneath the screen frame.

It is raised about 11 inches total. The transmission shifts quite easily on the metal plate. There is at least 6 inches to go before the transmission is in place.

I worked on other stuff for the rest of the day...

[thingstodo]

Discussing my problem with my wife, as I usually do (and she is normally bored to tears) ... but she came to the rescue this time! She asked why I was lifting the transmission higher instead of lowering the truck off the ramps ....

Excellent idea. She has a lot of those. So I lowered the transmission to 8 inches with my car jack and removed some shims. The I used two jacks to lift the front end of the truck, remove the ramps, and lower the truck to the ground. The jacks are not very stable - narrow base resting on uneven ground - and I propped some lumber on either side of the front wheels of the truck to keep the truck from falling to the side.

The lumber was not enough and the truck dropped from one of the jacks about 8 inches to the passenger's side and from a height of about 10 inches. No damage, no one hurt.
I ran out of daylight.

[thingstodo]

It stopped raining so I can get out and work on the S10. My wife is gone for the weekend plus Monday so I can use the concrete pad on the driveway - I need to move the truck to the pad so I can use my creeper and so I don't crawl through ant hills and such to work on the truck.

The transmission is still on the metal plate, which is on a grating, which is on some decorative ties. The first thing appears to be to re-install the rear support of the transmission. I got under the truck and struggled with the transmission a bit, sliding it forward to get some room to work. I was not successful moving the transmission from beneath. Working from the front of the truck and lifting while pulling, in a very awkward position, I managed to lift it and move it forward.

The transmission is not very stable in this position, and it appears that there is still some transmission fluid left since it is leaking out of the rear of the transmission. I used a couple of wooden blocks to keep the transmission from tilting. But the wood slides easily on the oil that has leaked from the transmission. How do I keep this transmission from moving while I'm working on it, and in the way if it decides to slide?

One solution - lift the transmission rear further and jam the top of the transmission into the floor of the truck, so it can't move. It takes a bit of swearing to wiggle the transmission and raise it with some wooden wedges.

Now that I'm safe to go under the truck, I get under and put the transmission support in. I only lost one of the nuts ... and the edges of the frame only scraped my knuckles a couple of times.

Remove the wedges from beneath the transmission and slide the transmission back into place. The transmission holes do not line up with the support ... I wonder why ... but that's for another day.

The transmission is supported on the back. Now now what do I do with the front of the transmission. I found a 2 x 2 piece of scrap lumber and fit it across the front frame. A couple of pieces of ready rod into the transmission mounting holes, across the 2 x 2 .. it looks pretty good.

Now that the transmission is supported, remove the decorative railroad ties, and the grating, and the sheet metal. Get everything else out from beneath the truck - she's moving soon. THAT's where the crescent wrench went ...

Now on to moving the truck over to the garage pad. I could push the truck for about 80% of the distance. The remaining 20% had a bit of an uphill grade (about an inch of rise, like bumps - too high for me to push the truck over). So I used the rear differential with the ratchet and the T bar, etc. This time it worked (last time I broke stuff trying to get the truck up my vehicle ramps).

Instead of moving blocks on each side of the truck every time I turned the rear differential 1 quarter turn, I found it easier to have the large 6 x 8 that I use for levelling the lawn sit behind the truck tires, and move it up as I get the ratchet to move the differential. It took some effort, and some tuck tape, but the truck is moved.

The truck is on the garage pad, it is blocked, and I need to bolt down the transmission.

After a short search for bolts, I found a mount in my trailer of parts. It appears to be a rubber mount to fit the bracket for the transmission, and that the transmission fits onto it. It does not appear to fit, or to fit easily. The transmission won't lift high enough to allow it to be installed.

And my creeper goes under the truck just fine ... unfortunately my belly does not. Perhaps the truck did not need to get moved to the concrete pad after all - a bit of effort wasted there - but at least there are no ant hills on the concrete pad!

After sliding/scraping myself to a position under the truck, I spend an hour moving the transmission this way and that, forward and back - the darned support mount won't go in. As a last resort I looked at taking the transmission support, the piece of frame that is held on with 2 bolts for now, off. It looks quite easy. 5 minutes later, the transmission is bolted to the mount and the frame support is back in.

Well, it's almost bolted in. I'm missing a couple of bolts. When Kelly and I were removing the transmission, I was not paying attention to where each bolt goes since I thought it was not going back in. So I left a few bolts on the ground in his shop (which are likely at the metal recycler by now). I guess I'll get by with 1 bolt and no nut until tomorrow. I need some other bolts anyway.

Now on to the front of the transmission. How do I keep this thing in position when there is no motor to bolt it to? I removed the motor mounts from the engine - no bolts to connect them to the frame brackets. Another thing for the shopping list. They are at funny angles so some custom brackets are going to be needed. More good news, as I am almost as bad a welder as I am a mechanic.

I went through my scrap iron heap and found a few brackets that used to be on my old dock. They are already welded and I think I can make them work by removing some metal. I can work a chop saw and a hack saw ...

An hour later and the transmission has 2 bolts connecting it to the old dock supports (I need to buy more transmission bolts as well). It keeps the transmission at about the right height, and it should be OK to adjust once I get a motor mount created.

Last thing for the day is to remove the hood. I should have done that at the beginning of the day, but its done now. I'll get some pictures (I forgot that one of my co-workers loaned me a camera for the weekend) posted tomorrow. Thanks Derek.

Pictures:
SalvageS10 from the front - no hood
From the driver's side of the hood, looking down at the motor mounts, transmission on the right
Transmission on blocks, from the bottom passenger's side
Transfer case, drive shaft under the truck, from the passenger's side
Another view of the transfer case
Looking down from where the box should be, from the driver's side. Transfer case is in the same location
Rear differential with the 'T' bar still installed
Transmission, from the front of the truck looking at the cabin. The two chunks of galvanized metal visible are the 'mounts' that used to be dock supports

[thingstodo]

I went to a mechanical supply company today to pick up a coupler that I thought would work for connecting my electric motor to the drive shaft ... somehow I misunderstood at some previous time because I thought the solution was off-the-shelf and was stocked. This time, I went through 3 possible solutions with the tech and none of them will, it appears, work. I believe him - I'm a bit unclear as to what I thought was a solution, and who I had talked to.

So - a bit of a shock ... and where do I go from here? The project has had a few challenges and is now going in a direction that I would not have chosen from the start. Now it appears that the mechanical coupling of the electric motor and the drive shaft is quite a problem. The size of the motor shaft is 2.125 inches, or two and an eighth. We looked at three couplers - taper lock, like for a pulley, weld-on, where the coupler has a key-way and slides onto the motor shaft, then you weld whatever your like to the end of it, and chain sprocket, which is very similar to the weld-on.

All of them are built to deliver a lot of horsepower. These weigh several pounds each and their outside diameter is 4.375 - 4.5 inches. This outside diameter is larger than the end of the drive shaft.

And to put the icing on the cake, all the couplers are special order. It appears that motors and gearboxes with that size of shaft normally deliver hundreds of horsepower for short periods and over 100 HP continuously.

This is a bit of a problem. I have enough of the truck assembled pretty close to how it was originally so that it should move, and now I can't deliver any power to the power train.

I have a couple of smaller motors, that I could line up with the drive shaft pretty well. Still no way to couple the motor shaft to the drive shaft. They don't deliver enough torque to move the truck. I pretty much proved that by moving the truck from it's old parking space onto the concrete pad.

With a 3 foot bar on my ratchet direct to the rear differential I could move it over a couple of small bumps. But I could not push it - so 250 lbs force on the ground is not enough. The pressure on the bar was not huge, but more than 50 lbs for sure. So I need the torque that the 40 HP can generate, but I can't drive the front drive shaft. 50 lbs on a 3 foot bar is 150 to the rear diff, it has a 3.43 ratio so there is 515 foot-lbs torque to the wheels, and since they are an effective radius of 13.85 inches, that gives 445 lbs of force to the ground. That seems a bit high since I was close to keeping the truck moving ... well, 50 lbs was a guess on my part .. maybe 30 lbs is a better guess?

Start with what I need. Moving the truck on small bumps, is 50 lbs of torque on a 3:1 pry bar, so 150 foot-lbs at the rear end, 515 foot-lbs on the rear axles, 445 lbs force to the ground.

If I use a small 5 HP motor - 15 foot-lbs is rated torque. So a 10:1 reduction would be needed. A chain drive or a belt drive to the rear drive shaft (which moves up and down with bumps) would require 12 teeth and 120 teeth. The driven sprocket is almost the size of a tire.

How about 2 of those 5 HP motors both driving the rear drive shaft? 5:1 is much easier. 12 teeth driving 60. It would have to be pretty close to the support point for the drive shaft, and tensioning the chain would be ... interesting. I think this is possible.

How about the 40 HP. 120 foot-lbs is rated. 150 would be 5:4. 40 teeth driving 50 teeth. Or 22 teeth driving 26 or 27. I'd have to make it fit into a standard range. It will be tough to get the motor close enough to the support point for the drive shaft - the cab is sort of in the way. I think that this 40 HP motor is just too big, too hard to move around, too hard to deal with. It was a good deal surplus, but it was not a good fit for the truck.

I'll get the bolts put into the transmission mount, the drive shafts, get the transfer case bolted onto the transmission, and see what I can come up with for the mount on the front of the transmission, the bracket to attach to the motor mounts, etc. At that point, I need to get some yard work done that has been piling up for ... 3 weeks now ... and I guess I will not be moving SalvageS10 under electric power this month.

[thingstodo]

I put some of the bolts that I purchased today into the parts that require them:

- the front U joint on the transfer case was missing 4 bolts, fine thread, 1 inch long
- the transfer case was missing 5 bolts 3/8 standard thread, to connect the transfer case to the transmission (not sure how two of them get tightened ...) so they are in place in the transfer case so I don't lose them (again)
- the 2 bolts to connect the motor mounts to their brackets, 7/16 by 4 inch, are now in the mounts with washers, lock washers and nuts in place
- I got the bolts on to the hanger bearing for the rear drive shaft (not tightened, but a few threads to keep it from falling off)

I was removing the 'T' bar that had been mounted in the U joint on the rear differential - and I broke one of the bolts with the rest of the bolt still inside. 1 inch long bolt, about half an inch threaded in, and it is broken. It may be possible to drill it out, or to use a screw extractor to remove it ... but the rear differential is not moving ANYTHING until that broken bolt is removed ... SIGH ..

The last of the parts that need to be on the truck are on, and there is a growing pile of parts NOT on the truck - hood, transfer case, front drive shaft, truck box.

I broke the news to my wife - SalvageS10 will not be moving under electric power by the end of August, my self-imposed deadline. I was a bit pessimistic and that likely triggered my wife's next request - to park that 'pile of parts', SalvageS10, 'in the meadow' - out of site of us and our neighbors. It also makes it less accessible for working on it.

Perhaps there is some way to keep SalvageS10 as an active project and out of 'the meadow'. For now at least, I'm willing to concede the possibility.
Off to the yard work, as promised. Perhaps inspiration will strike?

[thingstodo]

I have joined team WIKISPEED, who have built a 100+ mpg gas vehicle, and are working to complete the development, begin production, and sell the vehicles at an affordable price.

The present WIKISPEED vehicle is a modular design, using an aluminum frame and a carbon fiber shell. The motor, transmission, gas tank, exhaust system, and ECU are all contained within a module that measures around 40 inches by 40 inches by 20 inches tall. And drawings are available for most of the original parts FREE OF CHARGE. Several parts of the drive train are OEM parts for a 2006 Honda Civic.

'But this is OFF TOPIC for Fossil Fuel Free!'

Team WIKISPEED presently does not have an electric motor module. Their motor module is based on parts from a 2006+ Honda Civic 1.8l. I would like to make an electric motor module instead. That would make the WIKISPEED car a good platform to use for an EV conversion .. but not REALLY a conversion since you are not taking out a gas engine and throwing it away. You just don't purchase the ICE engine module, you purchase the Electric Engine Module instead, or build your own electric engine module.

'But how does that tie in to SalvageS10, the conversion that you've put blood and sweat into?'

I messed up - big time - trying to couple my 40 HP electric motor with the drive train on SalvageS10. I had a few setbacks, changing the motor from driving the rear differential directly to using the transfer case, then using the transmission, trying to use the front drive shaft ... anyway, I thought I had a solution, but it turns out that I did not. In my time-honored tradition, I'm throwing the project in the corner for a while and working on something else. That something else is related - if the output shaft of the electric motor module for the WIKISPEED car can be coupled to the rear differential of SalvageS10, I can test version 1 of the 'electric motor module' without building a WIKISPEED car. Not building an entire CAR should speed things up a bit for me. I could purchase the current prototype version of the WIKISPEED car instead - but there are some issues to address with licensing, insurance, and government paperwork. Things that I hope to avoid by testing SalvageS10 on my own property. If further testing is required, I hope to convince one of the local farmers to let me test on his land.

Some time and effort on my part will be required to locate a coupler (that will work, this time) to couple the electric motor module to SalvageS10, but it is time and effort well spent.

Summary:
- my wife is happy because I will park SalvageS10 'in the meadow' - out of my wife's sight, out of our neighbor's sight. A happy wife is always a worthwhile goal.
- Whenever I get the electric motor module assembled, I can test it by having it drive SalvageS10 (some optimism here - the electric motor module would need to be operational by November to get SalvageS10 out of 'the meadow' before winter and snow set in).

As usual, I've written up my plan. We'll see how it turns out.

Check out the Electric Motor Module build here
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post325396