Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Another task Done



The Netgain Impulse 9 and transmission are now installed, but not as smoothly as I would have liked. I initially had what I thought was the same problem that Roger ran into with the left side motor mount as the holes in the mount and the holes the motor did not line up. The holes didn't quite look to be 45° off as Roger observed but they were off at least 30°, maybe 40°. So trying to save a buck and the time spent at a welding shop, I re-extracted the motor, separated the transmission, removed the flywheel, clutch , and pressure plate. Finally I was at the point where I could rotate the adapter plate to the next set of bolt holes. The only option was a 45° twist. When I temporarily attached the mount to the left side and 'eyeballed' everything, it looked good so I reassembled all of the flywheel and clutch components, recoupled the transmission, and put the bugger in the car.

Again no cigar.. The holes were still off, but now in the opposite direction by about 5-10°, I guess that was to be expected from a 45° twist but nevertheless, I was really miffed at this point and had to take a long break from working on it. ( The black dots on the picture below indicate the position of the holes on the motor mount relative to bolt holes on the motor )



Once I calmed down, I made a cardboard template marking where I needed to drill new holes and took the mount to my cousin's shop where we welded on a piece of steel plate and redrilled it.



And after modification, it bolted right up.. So, finally the motor's installed. A nice milestone in the conversion process. Now hopefully no other big messes.



I don't know why the holes in the mount and and the ones on the motor were out of alignment by such a small angle (uncorrectable by rotating the adapter plate as that only gives 45° steps). There is a slight difference between my motor and the ones used by Roger and Rob (who both used this ElectroAuto kit. Rob used this mount without modification). My Impulse 9 has no length to the tail shaft. I know it can't be determined from this picture but that probably makes this motor a different model and the perhaps the arrangement of the motor bolt holes is a little different. Though it seems pretty unlikely..

Monday, July 13, 2009

Done Struttin'

All the struts, shocks and springs are installed. I had to redo the front ones three times. The first time, I forgot to install the little spacers between the bearing plate and the retaining nut. Doh.. The second time I used the original spacers but they turned out be so worn that the brand new bearing plates wouldn't turn without resistance. The third time I installed new spacers and all was well..



My fuel tank arrived.. 16 Interstate U2300 batteries (242Ah 6V ).. They are about 64 lbs each. The black one is the 12V auxiliary battery that will power the 12V electrical system on the car, with help from a DC/DC converter.