Chevy Volt and Electric 3 series BMW (Ev-36/46)

Installed the Hall effect sensor Pedal. I keep wanting to call it a GAS pedal but obviously that's not right. My boy keeps correcting me with "Accelerator" pedal. Pic attached of the pedal installed. Have also connected the wire. I reused the firewall fitting/gromet that the cable had used. Just drilled it out a bit larger for a nice snug fit on the wire. Makes for a nice clean installation. I also finished the high pressure and low pressure brake fluid lines. The 92-95 BMW's had low pressure brake fluid lines going from the fluid reservior to the ABS unit (see the picture). So I did a remote mount of the BMW fluid tank to the Mustang master cyl and ran new lines to the ABS. Doing some research I found that EPDM style rubber hoses are recommended for use with brake fluid. Looking around locally I found that hose made for farm fertilizer etc sprayers are made of the same thing. So I got some at tractor supply. So far it looks like it will work good. The metal for mak...

Forgot to mention that on the MR2 pump I realized that the reservior could be rotated so that the return fitting could point another direction. However the bump on the inside of the reservior hits on some of the parts of the pump. I took off the plastic reservior and took a picture. See attached. So you get a better idea of what I'm talking about. So to orient the outlet at a very different angle it may require removing the reservior turning to the direction and refitting. sadly there are a few angles where it just can not be placed but that's not to big of a deal. Also shown is the braided steel hose and fittings I used to make the custom AN style High pressure lines. Like what is common on race cars. It is easy enough to do. In my set up I have one line going from the PS pump to the hydro boost and one from the hydro boost to the P/S Rack. I need to finish the return lines then I could give the hydrolics a try. Adapter fittings purchased from pegusus parts www.pegasusautorac...

Ok things are busy and I'm not in a big hurry to finish as I enjoy having a project. So after some family vacations and more repairs on my ICE cars I did get back to the electric car. Update: The Batteries I decided I wanted to use were Deka 9A31. Nearest dealer for them was 90 miles from my house in NC (I live in the middle of nowhere). I called them to see if I could come by and pick some up and they referred me to the dealer that "covered" my area. Well the dealer that "covered my area" was in TN and I'm in VA. So I don't see how that worked. But after some discussion they decided to let me pick them up at the closer site in NC. Thursday I took my SUV and trailer down. I had to pick up the wife and kids at the Charlotte airport that direction anyway. Well on the way down my trusty trailer, that I've had for years and towed thousands of miles, decided to start shedding parts. After being signaled by another motorist I found I'd lost ...

Progress is slow as my ICE powered cars are taking a bit of my time. Wife's maxima is crossing the 200K mark and decided it needed some maintance and repairs. But that's another story. I completed my adaptors to mount the Hydroboost into the car. Turned out rather well. I've been trying to purchase some batteries. I contacted the 2 battery dealers that were shown on the main website as closest to me. Asked them for their best price on 14 batteries and that I could come pick them up. It became very obvious that they have a HUGE margin on these products as they were more concerned about undercutting their other dealers AND making sure they were getting their commissions correct then they were in actually selling the product. In the end it seems they decided that my area is actually covered by a dealer in TN which is not even close to me and I won't be driving there to get them. Especially when I will be driving right by their north carolia store multiple times this month....

Not a ton of progress. Working on installing the hydrolic brake booster in place of the factory brake boster. The factory booster is the one with the larger dia cylinder on it (rh side on the pic on the right). The booster I am using is from a 97 Cobra mustang.

Thank you for the interest. Yes, with luck the hard part is over. We'll see how it goes from here. I don't think I mentioned the exact batteries as I'm still a little up in the air about which ones. Right now the needle is leaning toward Deka 9A31. It's an AGM battery with 100Ah. Thinking I might as well go with 156V the max voltage for the controller and use 13 batteries. I still do not feel confident I know enough about batteries but comparing the cost and weight of some similar batteries they seem pretty good. I still worry it won't be enough Ah as seems trying to predict the exact range is difficut. Guess I'll have to make a decision soon though.

With the rover out of the garage the electric car could FINALLY be brought in. Thought I'd take a couple pics of it first "drive" into the garage. I also loaded the motor and trans into the car. Still deciding on engine and trans placement. I'll probably go with the factory placement for the transmission but I have been toying with moving it back 8". Makes for a lot of extra room in the front. The driveshaft from an automatic car is 8" shorter than the manual car and bolts up so that would be no issue. However customizing the shifter seems like a big pain. My time is probably better spent elsewhere on the car. Other task was to remove the tank. This was actually quite easy. Remove the boot from the e-brake lever. Remove the nuts on the cables. Pull them out from under the car. Take out the three bolts holding the tank in and volia. After I had it out I found it still contained gas. I was under the impression it had been drained. So I pumped out 4 gallons ...

Progress was delayed a bit as my rover needed some love. Here is the sparkly clean engine after re fitting the heads and rocker arms Of course a good helper is the key to a successful job (torquing the head bolts)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjhz9f9WXA8

Here's a screen grab from the cutting process. I have it in movie form but it pretty much looks like the picture with the noise of the saw going I put the bolt holes into the transmission adapter plate by bushing the trans bolt holes with some thin metal then drilling through the bolt holes. Then enlarging them to the right size. On my trans the locating dowels are in the same location as a bolt hole so I drilled that through the bolt hole. Counterbored with the closest standard drill size to the dowel hole. Then used a rotary file (round dill bit like attachment with a flat bottom. Kind of like and end mill) in my drill to enlarge them slightly and I mean slightly enlarge the hole and cut a square edge at the bottom of the hole. Worked great. As others have done I then put the motor spacer plate on and the trans adapter plate and assembled them so they were against each other but not bolted together. I then spun the motor to center the trans. Drilled and doweled the two plates tog...

Nothing really new to report. Just thought I'd add some pictures since pictures are fun. Notice how close to the trans I mounted the motor. The larger plate is .5" thick and the smaller one about the dia of the motor is 5/8" thick. No modifications to the transmission side were required. The extra space may not matter. Have to see but either way a thinner spacer is lighter. By the way I cut out the plates myself (exception being the precision hole in the motor spacer plate) using a simple hand jigsaw and an with an aluminum blade. What I thought made it go well was to pour water on the blade/plate to keep things cool. To do the motor spacer plate I'd say it took just under an hour and a gal or so of water.

Update. I reassembled the transmission and I cut out my adapter plates. The trans now mounts to the engine and spins without the rock crusher sound Thinking seriously about mounting it into the car. Adapter plate cut out Assembled Stacked and bolted

Ok after about 8 months of waiting it arrived!! The zilla's here. Pretty exciting. Surprisingly I didn't just tear open the boxes. I had a Sim racing league race that evening so i just put them aside. However as fate would have it my computer hiccuped after qualification and I wasn't able to race. So I opened the boxes and basked in the glory of having more EV parts. Let's re-live the box opening for those that haven't done it. Here is what it looks like when it arrives. Just Like Christmas. In side the box is 2 smaller boxes. The controller in one and the hairball and cables in the other. Of course included is the handy dandy notebook...or manual. I also purchased the hall effect pedal (in it's own box) so I can do the full drive by wire. Here it all is right before I reboxed to put on the shelf. . Guess I need to get to work on it all again.

Progress is slow at the moment. Amazing how much time earning a living and raising a family can take. Oh and I joined an online Sim racing league (again) . That didn't help. My EV project is a hobby anyway. The sooner it's done the sooner I'll be thinking of some other project. Not much to report except I did grind the teeth off 2nd gear. Didn't really take that long. Used a thin cutting wheel on my angle grinder to cut off most of the teeth. Kind of like cutting the kernals of corn of corn on the cob. Then I took a grinding wheel to it make it mostly round. Here's a before and after picture. Took about 30 min. Wife said the sparks were more impressive than the firework fountains we usually buy for the 4th of july

EV construction has been slowed for some Tramission issues. I've gotten the transmission apart. The trans that "worked fine just needed a rebuild" is missing many teeth on 2nd gear. This trans is basically beyond repair. I wish it had been 1st gear as I probaby don't need 1st gear. The way it was the trans sounded like it was crunching gravel. No suprize there. For now I'm thinking I'll grind off ALL the 2nd gear teeth and just go without a 2nd gear. May not need it so much. I can get another transmission later. We'll see. I think finish my adapter plate and then decide.

UPDATE: When I spun the trans with the motor the transmission sounded like it was full of rocks. I was told it made a "rattle" when I bought it. I figured it just needed new bearings but this was a much more than a rattlle. Either way the trans needed to come apart so apart it came. Turns out there are many teeth broken off 2nd gear. Too bad it wasn't first gear as it that doesn't seem to be needed in and EV. I'll spend some more time practicing rebuilding this transmission as with a car of this age the next trans I buy will likely need some rebuilding too.

Did a little more work. Mated the trans to the motor. Have some more trimming to do on the adapter plate (or plates depending on how you look at it). I mounted one plate to the motor and one to the trans. With the trans setting on the motor and the input shaft engaged with the clutch I spun the motor and centered or checked to ensure it was centered prior to pining the 2 plates together. One thing I found was the clutch alignment tool would align the clutch disc so the trans could be installed but it was not truely centered. So I used the dial indicator to center the clutch plate prior to putting on the pressure plate. This turned out perfectly. Couple of pictures. The taper lock installed on the motor Transmission on top of the motor.

For this project I found some software to download for FREE (Alibre Design) that is ALMOST as good as what I used at work back then. Edit. Alibre Design sucks. They said it was free but then a few months later disallowed usage of the program. SO now my documents are drawn in a program I can't use. I DO NOT recommend it. As far as the wild machining. All the center features were as purchased (it started life as a taper lock sprocket). The blind tapped holes aren't too difficult. Well being the holiday I had some time to work on things. Turned down the OD of my pilot bushing myself. Seems they don't make a 15mm ID bearing with the OD to fit the Warp 9 motor. So I started with a Mcmaster carr HPF bushing (6659k28) and reduced the outside to about .001 over the bore dia of the hole in the motor. Well I first tired .010 over but when I pressed the bushing in it shrank the ID. The bushing was only a $1.50 so I had bought 2. good thing. Try 2 was successful and I now hav...

My Flywheel adapter and one AL plate came back from the machinist today. I love seeing the parts turn from Cad into Real life. The adapter looks like it will work out exactly as planned. I have bolted it to the flywheel and slid it onto the motor shaft. I'll check it to see if it turned out true and straight and then I can go on to making the transmission plate. Here ae a couple pics. Below is the adapter setting in the back of the flywheel

Here's and update. Holidays and my online racing season have been keeping me busy. But above is a picture of the the taper lock sprocket and taperlock bushing I purchased to use in my flywheel adapter (finally got around to ordering). Also pictured is an aluminum plate I'll use for part of the motor spacer, a bronze bushing I'll use as the pilot bushing (have to alter the OD slightly) and some keystock. Dropped the Taperlock off at the machinist today. Should be a week or so until I get that back. I'm anxious to bolt the flywheel to the motor.

I picked up a chassis for the swap and at the same time got a ride in Ben's ("TelnetManta's") EV saturday. Here's a pic of me pulling the BMW home with the land rover. Incidently I had just rebuilt the land rover's auto trans myself. After that experience I really have no interest of an auto trans in my EV....Or any other car for that matter.