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

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