# Sparkfire, Bottomfeeder's build



## TX_Dj (Jul 25, 2008)

Nice to see on your schematic that the "OIL" light will remain dim...

That may be a first for an old triumph. 

Eager to see more on your progress. Keep us posted!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Actually the OIL light will eventually be utilized. I'm not sure exactly what, but it will be some sort of warning light for a problem. Low voltage on one battery? High temperature? Perhaps it will function like a Check Engine Light and only alert me of a problem, but it would still be up to me to diagnose.

I'm trying to use all of the lights and gauges on the dash. It would bother me to have a dead gas gauge, right next to the digital state of charge meter that I installed myself. I found gauges that will replace the fuel and temp gauges with SOC and Amps. These old dash boards are exceedingly simple though, so changing them out is no problem. I'm trying to keep the 60's feel of the car intact. I may have to get a modern stereo, but one always has to make sacrifices.


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## PatricioIN (Jun 13, 2008)

looks fantastic actually.. I have NO IDEA how to do a wiring diagram... so mine will probably be all in my head!


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## TX_Dj (Jul 25, 2008)

Bottomfeeder,

Ah, see I mentioned the OIL light because I thought it was odd you showed it on your distribution block, but with nothing. Now that answers it! 

Is your gas gauge mechanical or electric? If it's electric, and if you can figure out what it takes to generate empty-to-full, you could control it as an SOC meter.. or repurpose it as an ammeter or similar.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

PatricioIN,

I used Visio at work (Shhh, don't tell the bosses). It's pretty time consuming, but I wanted something to reference while I'm doing this. I'm working with a mechanic on this (his help with restoring this old car was invaluable) and we need to be on the same page. Otherwise I'd keep the schematic in my head like most everyone else.

Dj, 

I've already ordered gauges from Westach. They had exactly what I was looking for: chrome bezel (to match the speedo and tach), upside down for easy visability and the right ranges of voltages and amps. They are on their way to my house right now, so I'm hoping they are as good as they sound.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

what size batteries (in AH ) do you plan to use?

Brian


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I'm pretty sure that I'll be using 10 T-1275 batteries.

They claim 150 AH at the 20h rate. That'd be plenty for this small car.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

I ask again because of the chargers I assure you you will have issues unless you send them in to the manufacturer and have them dial them in for that specific battery and AH rating, you have the time now to do it,, if you do not do it now you will be waiting later while they have them later,, do not skip this step trust me call me and I will give you the details

Brian


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

That's a good idea, Brian. Expect a call tomorrow during the day. I'll get the factory information and give them a call. I just wish I didn't throw away the box that all of the controllers came in. 

In a bout of parental pride, I'm including the picture of my new motor's first glimpse outside of his shipping box.


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## Guest (Oct 2, 2008)

Great news. Been waiting to hear when you were actually going to install your stuff. Your schematic is real nice. Do you have any new photos of the car? 



Bottomfeeder said:


> Hello,
> 
> After months of body work and waiting for parts to arrive, I am finally ready to begin putting EV parts into my vehicle. Inspired by Brian's useful build thread, I decided to start my own. Please feel free to add any comments, praising, chastising, heckling, or questions.
> 
> ...


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Here are the most recent photos I have of the car. In them you can see my hard working girlfriend tirelessly sanding and masking. Also the hairy guy is my mechanic friend who has the expertise in restoring cars. I didn't stick around to watch him spray primer over everything, it was already late when we finished all of the prep for it. I let him spray it and I'll see it on Saturday when I go over to his shop to work on it again.

In the mean time I'm going to finish up the wiring harness, which had been messed with by previous owners. The key was unneeded, as the heater switch became the ignition switch. I'm guessing they just gave her a push start to fire it up. I'm glad this old car has such simple wiring, that's for sure. The diagram barely takes up a single page!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

While I was twiddling my thumbs waiting for parts, I was spending a few lunches down in the machine shop making the adaptor plate. I used the flexplate off of the old engine as a guide, and used the bandsaw, the drill press, and a huge lathe to make this part. When I was done I used a wire wheel on an angle grinder to roughen it up a bit. All in all it didn't take very long.

I know how you guys like pictures!


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## TX_Dj (Jul 25, 2008)

Lookin' GOOD!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Well, don't I feel stupid. I went to dry fit the shaft coupler onto the motor, and it seemed a little loose. Sure enough I bought the wrong bore. 1-1/4 instead of 1-1/8. Now I'll have to buy another sprocket and spend a few hours lathing it down to the right size. What a pain. I suppose I can take more photos this time so people can see what I did.

While dry fitting the adaptor plate I also noticed a problem. The engineering drawing for the WarP 9 clearly shows the holes in the face of the D.E. end (the side that mounts to the adaptor plate) 45 degrees off of the lifting eye holes. This is not the case on my motor. The holes are more like 15 degrees off. This will be a slight problem while dropping the motor into the vehicle, but I'm more worried about the motor mounts on the other end. I'll need to measure where the holes are on the C.E. side of the motor. What a pain. I'll email WarP and let them know. I also blame the poor quality jpg for the 1.250- 1.1250 mixup on the bore size.

My gauges also came in. They look great, but they didn't come with lights. I guess I have to buy the lights for the lighted gauges separately. Sheeesh.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

my guages did come with a free light kit but do not use the colored cover that slips over the light bulb you will barley see them at night if you do just leave them clear ( I tried the green ones thinkin it would be cool to match the dash light ) but I can't see them at night

Brian


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

I just looked at your sprocket very good idea is the key way 1/4"?

Brian


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

The key way in the bore is indeed 1/4". I picked up some keyway stock from McMaster and that fits nicely. It's only the bore size that is the problem.

I stole the idea of using this company from http://www.electric-lemon.com/?q=node/213 (the website comes and goes). Peter is doing a great job of describing his restoration/conversion. I read his site and was deeply inspired. Then I found out that he's only a mile away. He used to work for the company that built many components for the EV-1, so he's a great asset to have. This summer I helped him bleed his brakes and some other small stuff. He's a very nice and helpful guy. I can't wait for the day when we can meet up and cruise the streets in our EVs.

My other gauges have white lights, so I'd leave them clear, but thanks for the tip.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I called up Jacob-Shauer concerning the chargers that I'm using. Ken described the problems I'm going to face with charging a 150Ah battery. At a basic level, it seems very simple. The charger doesn't know how big the battery is, it will charge until it's full with no problems, right? Apparently, it's much more complicated than that. 

First let me describe the charge sequence. Most of you already know this, but some may not. The charger first does a constant current charge (12A for this model) until the voltage reaches ~14.8V. Then it charges with constant voltage (14.8V) until the current drops past a low current threshold. That tells the charger that the battery is full and it kicks down to "float" mode, where it trickles power into the battery. The charge is essentially done at this point. The threshold current is nominally 1.2-1.4A for the chargers. That's fine for most batteries. But our large capacity batteries may never reach that low current. The solution is to adjust a potentiometer on the inside of the charger so that the current threshold is more like 3A. This will let the charger kick down into trickle mode without frying itself or the battery.

The proper way to adjust the charger though requires an electronic load. Most people don't have access to e-loads (they are not cheap!). I'm fortunate enough to have a couple on the shelf at work. We got them used and haven't tested them out yet, so this will give me a perfect opportunity. I'll probably get to this in the next week or so. And of course I'll take photos.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I put the new SOC and Ammeter gauges into the instrument cluster. I really like the aesthetic of the simple analog gauges. The small cluster fits in the middle of the dash, which is rather quaint. Later model Spitfires put the cluster in front of the driver, like normal, but for some reason I like it better this way. As you can imagine, a digital readout would just ruin the aesthetic.

I'm hoping to put the motor in tomorrow, without the shaft coupler. Then I can start figuring out the motor mount and placement for the battery boxes, controller, DC-DC, etc.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Well, now that I've got almost everything I'll need for the EV, I've got no excuse to start putting it all together. Because of the mess-up with the shaft coupler I can't put it together for real, but I can dry fit the motor and start thinking about the motor mounts.

First we warmed up with some brake work. The front brakes are completely rebuilt and just need brake fluid. The rear brakes were extremely messed up and I couldn't unfreeze the pistons. I'm going to cut my losses and get some new ones. They'll have to wait for next week.

I had my girlfriend grind off part of the transmission input shaft. I measured twice to make sure we had plenty of room for the motor shaft, but could still get the shaft coupler on. It came out nicely.

We then dry fit the motor onto the transmission to measure clearances, and figure out how we're going to mount to the rear of the motor. There was about a 1/4 of an inch between the motor and the steering rack, which was very fortunate. I took the measurements I needed and now I can get back into the machine shop to finish up the motor mounts.

I had to take the adaptor plate out to put in the proper holes, so we set the motor on some wood and snugged it in with some foam to keep it from rolling around.

I can't wait to work on it again.


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## Gary Sconce (Oct 4, 2008)

TX_Dj said:


> Nice to see on your schematic that the "OIL" light will remain dim...
> 
> That may be a first for an old triumph.
> 
> Eager to see more on your progress. Keep us posted!



Bwaahahahaha! Remember, Triumphs didn't leak... they just had a great external oiling system!


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## TX_Dj (Jul 25, 2008)

Even my '05 Triumph Daytona 650 motorcycle was equipped. Part of the oil change routing was the changing of the external oil.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> While I was twiddling my thumbs waiting for parts, I was spending a few lunches down in the machine shop making the adaptor plate. I used the flexplate off of the old engine as a guide, and used the bandsaw, the drill press, and a huge lathe to make this part. When I was done I used a wire wheel on an angle grinder to roughen it up a bit. All in all it didn't take very long.
> 
> I know how you guys like pictures!


I don't suppose the transmission / bell housing of a 1965 is the same as a 1978...?


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

What are you implying Clint? Do you need help with your plate?

Here's what I did. I got a 1/2" aluminum remnant of about the right size. I clamped the flexplate (you still have your flexplate right?) to the aluminum and scribed out the outline and holes. Then I just followed the outer line with a bandsaw. It worked like a charm. It took maybe 20 minutes. I cleaned it up on a large sanding wheel. Then I drilled the holes where the holes belong. The large 4" diameter hole in the middle required some big drills and a large lathe, but your machinist friends might have access to one of those. It will probably take a couple of hours to set it up and lathe it all out correctly, but it's not difficult, just slow going.

I might be able to ask the machine shop how much they would charge for all of that work, but I don't have time to help do it for you. I am barely able to play hookey and work on my own projects.

If you need any more help, let me know!


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> What are you implying Clint? Do you need help with your plate?
> 
> Here's what I did. I got a 1/2" aluminum remnant of about the right size. I clamped the flexplate (you still have your flexplate right?) to the aluminum and scribed out the outline and holes. Then I just followed the outer line with a bandsaw. It worked like a charm. It took maybe 20 minutes. I cleaned it up on a large sanding wheel. Then I drilled the holes where the holes belong. The large 4" diameter hole in the middle required some big drills and a large lathe, but your machinist friends might have access to one of those. It will probably take a couple of hours to set it up and lathe it all out correctly, but it's not difficult, just slow going.
> 
> ...


Yeah... the flex plate... So if you were to no longer have that, what's the best way to go about it?

Actually the idea seems pretty straight forward. (Please correct me if I'm missing something.) Get a large flat 1/2" piece of metal, outline the shape of the bell housing, measure the location & sizes of the bolt holes, measure the location & size for the shaft hole, cut metal, drill holes, mount in car. My friend (sometimes) has access to a laser cutter. He used that for my coupler and may be able to use it again for the large hole.

It's just in practice getting precise locations of the bolt holes could be a challenge. I really need to go out there and give a shot at it to see how difficult it is before I ask for too much help.

I appreciate the offer for machining help - don't think I'll need it (yet). I was just thinking that if your transmission housing matches mine then I could just use your dimensions.  (And buy you what I've bought everyone that has helped me out, lunch at their favorite fast food restaurant. )


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I might take a piece of cardboard and put it up against the bellhousing to get the pattern. Then you just need to transfer that patter from the cardboard to the metal. You can probably punch the holes into the metal right through the marks on the cardboard. I'd oversize the bolt holes just a slight bit so that you don't have to worry about such a precise alignment. Locating the hole in the middle is trickier. I don't have any brilliant ideas for that.

I suppose I could measure my plate a bit and give you some dimensions. It happens to be sitting next to me. What exactly would you need? How about the flat bottom distance to the center of the main hole?


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> I suppose I could measure my plate a bit and give you some dimensions. It happens to be sitting next to me. What exactly would you need? How about the flat bottom distance to the center of the main hole?


I probably need to make sure your plate matches mine before I start using the dimensions - which means I'd need more/less all the dimensions. Do you have plans handy or would that be a chore for you?

Thanks!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Well, first let me tell you the dimensions of the plate. I followed closely to the flexplate but it may be off by 1/4" I suppose. 

The widest dimension (from the starter hole across) is 15 5/8" and the height dimension is 13.5".

It will be difficult for me to measure out the dimensions of my plate. I'd have to CAD it up and take very careful measurements. I think it's easier to use cardboard or similar to transfer the hole locations for your specific transmission.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Just to keep everyone updated on progress (I know you're all on the edge of your seat!) we finished up the brakes last night. The drum brakes were quite a pain, and there was a blockage in one of the front calipers, but we managed to fix everything and bleed the brakes. I didn't take any photos, because there's nothing interesting to see.

Next on our plate is figuring out the battery racks. I'm thinking of putting 5 up front and 5 in the trunk/gas tank space. In the mean time I'll need to re-machine the shaft coupler and start making the motor mount.

Has anyone had any problems with "hard" mounting the motor into the vehicle? The other option is using a thick hard rubber washer under some bolts.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Just to keep everyone updated on progress (I know you're all on the edge of your seat!) we finished up the brakes last night. The drum brakes were quite a pain, and there was a blockage in one of the front calipers, but we managed to fix everything and bleed the brakes. I didn't take any photos, because there's nothing interesting to see.
> 
> Next on our plate is figuring out the battery racks. I'm thinking of putting 5 up front and 5 in the trunk/gas tank space. In the mean time I'll need to re-machine the shaft coupler and start making the motor mount.
> 
> Has anyone had any problems with "hard" mounting the motor into the vehicle? The other option is using a thick hard rubber washer under some bolts.


I can't imagine mounting the motor hard to the frame is the best plan. Not sure the negative repercusions but being that stiff something is liable to break, how-ever I guess forklifts have the motor hard mounted,, also being hard mounted the vibrations may be felt through out the car and that also would be unpleasant. I mean they mount the ICE motors on rubber mounts and there must be good reason for it. It must be for brakage and shearing bolts , or ripping bolts out.

Brian


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Next on our plate is figuring out the battery racks. I'm thinking of putting 5 up front and 5 in the trunk/gas tank space. In the mean time I'll need to re-machine the shaft coupler and start making the motor mount.
> 
> Has anyone had any problems with "hard" mounting the motor into the vehicle? The other option is using a thick hard rubber washer under some bolts.


What are your plans for the motor mount? I was thinking of just building a metal cradle underneath the motor (and strapped overhead) bolted to the original engine mounts, and then probably a torque rod connected to the rear end of the motor and somewhere on the frame to stop rotation.

I was also planning on adding a thin rubber layer along the cradle and rubber washers at the bolt locations to help with vibrations.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

When I dry-fit the motor+adaptor plate to the transmission I could see exactly where I am going to attach my motor mounts. The rear of the motor is just ~1/4" - 3/8" proud of a straight line between the existing motor mount bolt holes. I'm going to use some of the 1/2" aluminum remnant that I have left over to bolt to the rear of the motor and use some hard rubber washers (I'll buy some hard rubber from McMaster and just slice it off) to fill in that 1/4"-3/8" between the plate and the motor mount holes. I'm not going to lathe out the center hole this time, but rather just bandsaw out a hole. The lathe took too much time. I probably won't get to the rear motor mount until next week though.

Some old Spitfire forum guys gave me the suggestion to definitly brace the motor mounts, as the engine was support for the shock towers. And that the engine side of the bellhousing was constant throughout Spits and Heralds.

By the way, I finally got a buyer for my old engine. He's driving 1.5 hours out of his way to pick it up. I'm glad to no longer have that boat anchor taking up valuable real-estate in the backyard.

I am borrowing a cable cutter and crimper, so I'll finally be able to test out the motor this weekend!


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> By the way, I finally got a buyer for my old engine. He's driving 1.5 hours out of his way to pick it up. I'm glad to no longer have that boat anchor taking up valuable real-estate in the backyard.
> 
> I am borrowing a cable cutter and crimper, so I'll finally be able to test out the motor this weekend!


Congrats on getting rid of the engine! The guy that took mine actually drove from L.A. to me in Phoenix (6 hours), picked it up late morning, we ate lunch at In'N'Out, then he drove back that same day. Looooong drive.

I think he was pretty excited. My ad said, "I have a complete -running- internal combustion engine system including engine, carburetor, exhaust, fuel tank, and radiator. I am converting the car to electric and no longer need them."

If it weren't for the combination of the Spit's finicky carburetor and Arizona's crazy emissions testing that car could have been a daily driver as it was.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I got antsy and I decided to buy my batteries. I decided on T-1275s. Rather than get stuck on analysis paralysis that many EVers seem to experience, I made a spreadsheet of some popular 12V batteries. I decided to go with a good brand and a good capacity. I know that I shouldn't have bought them until I'm ready to put them in, but I'd really like to use them while building the battery rack. I'm going to have to design a way to maintain the water levels with limited space in the rear. It might also be good to know just how low the rear of the vehicle will be. I might have to beefen up the springs in the vehicle and the sooner I know the better. Besides, it's time that I start working through the charger issues that Brian had. I'll take some photos tomorrow when I work on the project.

By the way, I paid $180.52 each.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

I pretty much gave up on the chargers issues, even the brand new ones i never touched are acting flakey now,, I ordered a Zivan NG3,, they ahve a new one that is automatic 110VAC or 220VAC so I ordered one, it is 4-6 weeks out though, but no controller for a while so what the heck. I really really hope you do nat have the issues I did but I can never see myself ever having 100% confidence when I am out of town on business and the wife is left to deal with charging,,, if they over charge BAD if they under charge BAD,, at least with one charger they are all either charged or not.

Brian

PS they said they sent my "factory tuned" chargers and I have yet to get them


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## TelnetManta (Jun 5, 2008)

OUCH. I used the same batts but got them for $150 each. Did you shop around any?


Ben


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

When did you get them, Ben? Apparently the price of lead shot up recently. Earlier this summer they were more like $140. I did shop around, and this was the best price I could get by at least $10. I'm getting them at shop prices because of my friend. By the way, what size stud is on the T-1275s. I searched Trojan's website. They show lots of pictures, but don't say what the actual thread is. Is is 3/8"-16 or 5/16"-18 or what?


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## TelnetManta (Jun 5, 2008)

I got mine at the beginning of September and I did get a pretty good price even for then as that included the core charges.

They have a 5/16 stud on them.


Ben


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

The batteries show up on Monday. But, we still need to construct the brackets that will hold them. We made a couple of cardboard batteries and tried to jam them into the vehicle. On a cursory glance, it seemed like we couldn't get more than 5 batteries under the hood with the motor. But, once we started playing with the cardboard, we realized that there are some perfect spots for batteries, they use the space very efficiently. We realized that we can get 6 batteries under the hood with great access to the water fillers. Now we just need to think about the other four in the trunk. The separation from the trunk to the gas tank is basically some vinyl covered cardboard. Likewise for the barrier from the cab to the gas tank. With a minor sacrifice to aesthetics, the four batteries can be placed where the gas tank was. The battery filler sides poke out and allow for easy access. I'll be giving up a few inches of space in the cab and the trunk, but I thought it would've been much worse. The only thing I need to worry about is good insulation of the terminals. They are close to the body, but some protective plastic will be an easy solution.

This actually gives me an option that I had been thinking about from the beginning. Stepping up the voltage. I've basically got an entire trunk that could fit another couple of batteries. I'd have to buy another pair of chargers, and my charging amperage would increase above many opportunity charging capabilities to ~18A. But, I'd increase my range and top speed by a bit. Of course, I'm not going to implement such a change until I drive the 120V for a while.

I need to make my shaft coupler and motor mount to get that out of the way. But, things at work have gotten busy lately, and I haven't had time to steal away to the machine shop for a couple of uninterrupted hours.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I promised some photos of my efforts this weekend. As it turns out, moving around cardboard batteries just isn't very interesting. We jacked up the front of the car, put the hood on, and crawled underneath to adjust the batteries. That way we can be sure of hood clearances. It's hard to photograph such adjusting, though.

At one point, we realized we needed to adjust the motor. We haven't bolted it up to the transmission yet, as the shaft coupler needs to be remade. My crazy mechanic guy just hopped up on the car way up in the air and muscled it around while I moved some pieces of wood from underneath the engine. Maybe you had to be there, but it was quite funny.

I'm staying late to work on the shaft coupler this evening. I don't forsee any problems, but steel always takes a while on the mini-lathe I'm using.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

just put some terminals on those cardboard boxes and save a ton of money and weight..

B


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Well, first let me tell you the dimensions of the plate. I followed closely to the flexplate but it may be off by 1/4" I suppose.
> 
> The widest dimension (from the starter hole across) is 15 5/8" and the height dimension is 13.5".
> 
> It will be difficult for me to measure out the dimensions of my plate. I'd have to CAD it up and take very careful measurements. I think it's easier to use cardboard or similar to transfer the hole locations for your specific transmission.


Using a combination of shoe polish, cardboard, and tape measures, I obtained the dimensions of my adaptor plate!

My widest dimension was 15 7/8" and height 13 3/4" - give or take an 1/8". I had the drawing printed out on 17"x22" paper to test fit. There were a few bolt holes I had to adjust but the next print out fit the transmission very well. (A metal plate has a little less flexibility than paper so I hope the dimensions are close enough!)

From your photos it looks like the '65 transmission housing is the same as my '78. Please keep the pictures coming! Especially with your motor mount!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Sometimes you have to get creative. I'm glad you were able to measure out everything.

I have all of the measurements for the motor mount, I can CAD them during some downtime at work. I'll likely CAD the holes and leave the outside of the plate up to the whims while I'm at the bandsaw. 

If you can scratch out a few lines on some aluminum you can make the same plate that I'm making. I'm sure there is no difference between our years. There's some fudge room where I'm going to put some rubber (from McMaster) that will allow for some slop.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I finished remaking my shaft coupler. It took a while, but I am happy with the results. I spent an extra hour on the lathe, trimming down some excess weight. I probably shaved off a couple of lbs of rotating mass. One lesson I learned is to put the coupler on a 1 1/8" shaft and hold it in the lathe using that shaft. That will keep the part true to the bore, which is all you care about anyway. I'll take some photos tonight before I install it onto the motor shaft, don't worry.

I'm going to be able to mate the motor to the transmission finally. I'm even hoping to spin the wheels!

I still need to make the final motor mount, but I'm not too worried about it now.

The battery mounts will take time, but that's the last big hurdle. The rest is all just small potatoes. (Ha!)


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Here are some photos from the night's work.

You can see a before and after shot of the shaft coupler piece that I made (I had ordered an extra). I made sure to assemble the coupler together with loc-tite, just to make sure that everything stays where it is supposed to. When we tested it on the motor it ran true.

We tightened everything down and mounted the motor onto the transmission. It went together perfectly. I'm surprised actually, how easily it was. I could've done the entire operation by myself in 10 minutes with no sweat.

After jacking up the car, we used some jumper cables and one of my recently arrived batteries to make the wheels turn. Hmmm.... That was easy.... Before long we're driving down a deserted back street going around 7 mph. We tried all gears, and everything worked perfectly. We only had brakes, steering, and an on or off accelerator (touching the wires together). But 12 volts is pretty slow. I am now glowing with just a hint of that EV grin. We have some video of the first drive, but the camera cut off 4 seconds into the actual driving. Anyway, it was a blast.

In more sober news, we put 4 batteries in the trunk to see how low it made the suspension. It wasn't the best I've ever seen, but it's driveable. I'll be able to replace some rotted out rubber to stiffen it up a bit, though.

I compared the batteries that arrived with the cardboard dummies that we whipped up. Luckily, the batteries are smaller and slightly shorter than our carboard. But, they seem to be slightly heavier. Hmmmm...


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> I compared the batteries that arrived with the cardboard dummies that we whipped up. Luckily, the batteries are smaller and slightly shorter than our carboard. But, they seem to be slightly heavier. Hmmmm...


Gee, wonder why. Love the spelling on the mock up btw.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> After jacking up the car, we used some jumper cables and one of my recently arrived batteries to make the wheels turn. Hmmm.... That was easy.... Before long we're driving down a deserted back street going around 7 mph. We tried all gears, and everything worked perfectly. We only had brakes, steering, and an on or off accelerator (touching the wires together). But 12 volts is pretty slow. I am now glowing with just a hint of that EV grin. We have some video of the first drive, but the camera cut off 4 seconds into the actual driving. Anyway, it was a blast.
> 
> In more sober news, we put 4 batteries in the trunk to see how low it made the suspension. It wasn't the best I've ever seen, but it's driveable. I'll be able to replace some rotted out rubber to stiffen it up a bit, though.


Congrats on the low speed test! I'm jealous 

Without the engine, the front end of my car is very high. I'd really rather not mess with beefing up the suspension if I don't have to - I'm glad to hear 4 batteries in the back of your Spit were still okay. You fit them up higher where the gas tank used to be right?


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## TelnetManta (Jun 5, 2008)

Slightly!!! LMAO

Those things will kill you lifting in and out! My back still hurts.

Ben




Bottomfeeder said:


> Luckily, the batteries are smaller and slightly shorter than our carboard. But, they seem to be slightly heavier. Hmmmm...


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Actually, we need to create a small shelf for them first, before we can put them where the gas tank used to be. They were just sitting in the trunk, right where the spare used to be. So, having them closer to the front will improve the situation as well.

If you do have problems with the rear spring, you can try this fix: http://www.triumphspitfire.nl/rearspringpads.html It's not too difficult and it looks like it can make quite a difference. It's a project that can wait until you're driving, though, so just store that link for later.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I made it down to the machine shop for my lunch break and whipped up a motor mount for the rear of the motor. It also spans the shock towers and provides support for the suspension. I haven't finished drilling the holes in the plate for the actual motor, because the endplate is rotated slightly for the timing adjustments. I don't know what the exact rotation is at the moment (one of the pains of being 30 minutes away from the car) but I can drill out the two last holes later.

I'm posting this here for you Clint, or any other Spitfire converters using WarP 9 motors and 1/2" adaptor plates. None of the dimensions of the shape are that important. As long as it clears the 2.9" end on the motor and spans the shock towers. I made sure to scribe the 6" diameter circle onto my plate before cutting everything out. You'll need that circle for drilling the holes for the bolts that go into the motor.

I'm waiting on my rubber from McMaster, but I'm going to do a dry fit tomorrow. There's always something that needs adjusting...


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Well, now I'm not so sure as to the best solution for the motor mount. My mechanic friend tells me that the way I've designed it won't allow flex when flex is needed. This will put undue stress on the shock towers and other parts of the frame.

His suggestion is to use the original style motor mounts (we know they fit) and attach the motor mount to them so that they distribute the weight in a similar way as the original engine (actually they weigh a similar amount). This seems logical, but I'd have to redo my motor mount, which is always a pain.

Here are some photos of the mount I put in anyway, even if it's just a temporary measure. There is rubber between the aluminum mount and the shock tower, as well as between the aluminum and the motor. But the bolts provide a rigid attachment which may not have enough give.

Any insights? Should I redo the motor mount or keep it the way it is?

http://electricmopar.blogspot.com/2008/09/motor-brace.html
I noticed that this Duster's WarP 9 is hard mounted. I think this is someone on this forum, but I lost track of who. Any suggestions?


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

my guess is that in time the mount will become sloppy from the rubber wearing out, I assume this will happen pretty quick too. You could make a regular motor mount with 2-3 " pipe, cut it about an inch long stuff the center with rubber and use some huge fender washers, do ya know what I am trying to say? I can post a drawing if ya want.

Brian

if you do use what you have be sure to use a nylo nut to locks the bolt together.


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## Gary Sconce (Oct 4, 2008)

I have a different take on the motor mount. An internal combustion engine vibrates due to the recipricating up and down movement of the turning of the crankshaft and piston/rod masses. You do not have that in a modern balanced electric motor at all. If your spinning mass of the motor is attached as perfectly as possible to the transmission you should have low vibration. The motor mount you have made, attached to the shock towers will be mostly fine. I would take two 3/8" parallelogram-shaped plates, weld them to the present mount perpendicularly directly in front of each original motor mount at an angle down toward the mounts, and then 'T' plate to the motor mounts to suppliment the mount you have made.

So to summarize, add two parallelograms of 3/8" plate to the present mount you have made extending perpendicularly from your plate to the original motor mounts with a flat 'T' at the ends that will be bolted to the mounts. This will make a bulletproof mount that will support the shock tower mounts to the frame and the original motor mounts. If you want, you can mount thin rubber blocks to all positions of the motor mount fasteners cut from old but not rotten tires. 

Best to your build. Gary


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## TX_Dj (Jul 25, 2008)

As Bill Dube' corrected me just a couple months back, the motor mounts, trans mount, etc, also absorb shocks in the driveline coming from the road.

Few people, in my experience, use rubber isolation on their EV motor mounts, and go with a hard-mount setup.

If you're bolted in to the same location as the stock motor went, I don't see any issue with it.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

there may not be much vibration but there sure is a lot of movement from torque when starting and stopping.

Brian


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Spitfires have an odd layout for the heater, and I'm wondering what suggestions you guys might have. The air input is from the middle, and is blown out to both sides by an impeller. To have the heat go to both sides, I will need at least two ceramic heaters. I was considering using those small Honeywell heaters for this purpose. But, how to hook them up. Two heaters in parallel will be really hot for this small car. 3KW is a lot of heat. If I hook them up in series, though, I'll have 750W.

For people with ceramic heaters, what are your opinions? Would 750W be enough for a small, poorly insulated car? I guess I should also say that I'm only going to deal with cold snaps in the 40s. But, my blood has gotten thinner since I moved to Southern California.

Any other sources of ceramic heaters besides taking apart those small space heaters?

Thanks!


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Spitfires have an odd layout for the heater, and I'm wondering what suggestions you guys might have. The air input is from the middle, and is blown out to both sides by an impeller. To have the heat go to both sides, I will need at least two ceramic heaters. I was considering using those small Honeywell heaters for this purpose. But, how to hook them up. Two heaters in parallel will be really hot for this small car. 3KW is a lot of heat. If I hook them up in series, though, I'll have 750W.
> 
> For people with ceramic heaters, what are your opinions? Would 750W be enough for a small, poorly insulated car? I guess I should also say that I'm only going to deal with cold snaps in the 40s. But, my blood has gotten thinner since I moved to Southern California.
> 
> ...


I wonder,,,,,,the way the cermic heaters are there are 5 wires on each heater 3 white two black (or visa versa) what if you experiment with them and not use one or two of those wires and perhaps get the draw down to 1000 watts or so ( not sure the magic # but if there are 5 wire and you get rid of one it may drop it down to a nice level for you.? Then
use them both in parallel. Or I guess you could leave the temp control knob on both of them and simply dial it in to where you want it,,, That I think is the answer!!! By the way they are $16.99 each right now at Target.

Brian


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

How does that temp control knob work, exactly? I always thought it would require AC or something. That is a great price, I'll swing by later this eve.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> How does that temp control knob work, exactly? I always thought it would require AC or something. That is a great price, I'll swing by later this eve.


you may be right but I am not sure,but easy enough for you to figure it out once you have a heater in your hands. wonder if you start off with cutting the AC cord off and plugging it into your car,,, I think the motor for the fan will still work, again though not sure.

Brian


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

Congratulations on the first test drive! 

About the heater. The control electronics won't work on DC, it is usually powered by a small 60hz transformer and the relays are not DC rated so they will weld the first time they try to break the current. The built in fan is usually powered by a single pole motor and also won't work on DC. 

The ceramic heaters usually consists of multiple elements in series. So if you find that you have too much heat you can bypass some of the segments to reduce the heating. 

Though, paralleling the elements may not have the desired effect. Due to the negative thermal coefficient (see curve), the hottest element may hog all the current and get even hotter (up to a point), so you may get uneven heating between left and right element. It's hard to predict as there are many variables involved. You may just have to try it out.



```
Resistance 
ohms 
    |                                        | 
 25 |                                        | 
    |                                        | 
 20 |---___                                  | 
    |      ---__                             | 
 15 |           --__                        / 
    |               --___                  / 
 10 |                    --__             / 
    |                        --__       _- 
  5 |                            --____- 
    |_________________________________________ 
   0        50        100          150      180 
             Temperature degrees Celcius
```


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I'm hoping that both elements get hotter than 150 degrees, so that they will balance themselves out in the positive thermal coefficient regime. But, we'll just have to plug them in and see.


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

The best option would really be to heat a single air stream and then split it to left and right. How does the original heater work, are there two of them?

I guess what I'm asking is, why can't you heat the intake air? Are you worried about melting the impeller?


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I don't know why I didn't think about having the heaters in front of the impeller. Because of the geometry the heater would actually be under the hood, but that seems like a much nicer place for it anyway. I'm going to look at the vehicle a little closer next time I'm working on it, and see if it's feasible.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Today I adjusted all 10 of my Jacob-Schauer chargers to handle the large batteries of an EV. And I thought I'd share the process for anyone else to follow. I utilized an electronic load, but I don't see why it was needed. I could've done everything with the right power resistor and an ammeter.

If you'll recall, the chargers that I (and Brian) bought weren't suited for large batteries. The charger doesn't know when to kick out of the constant voltage mode into the float mode because the current never drops below the preset threshold of 1.4 amps with our larger batteries. The charger will stay in the amber mode until it boils the water out of the battery and kills it, or overheats itself. Luckily the threshold is adjustable. But, getting it just right can be tricky. Here's what I did, following the manufacturer's instructions as best I could.

I opened up the fan side of each charger. This reveals the 4 pots inside. Each pot controls a different feature (charge voltage, etc) but we're only worried about the bottom pot. I used an exacto knife to get rid of the epoxy that keeps the pots from moving. Then I hooked the chargers up to an electronic load I had lying around the lab (you don't need one of these, though). I set the load to constant resistance and fiddled with the values until I got about the right current out of the chargers (2.7 amps). The resistance ended up being 4.5 ohms. So if you can get a 4.5 ohm resistor that can handle ~3 amps, you don't need the electronic load, as far as I can tell. At this point the LED on the charger is yellow, signifying that it is still in charge mode. We need to adjust the threshold until it just barely turns green. Then we are done. As you can see in the photos, in one the LED is amber, in the other it is green. The pot barely needs to turn for the threshold to change. I then used some epoxy to hold each pot down in place again. I don't want it to jiggle loose while driving!

All in all the process was simple, and quick. It took a few minutes per charger to adjust. But, having said that, I haven't tested them actually charging up batteries. I tested it on a mostly full battery and the modified charger turned green, while the unmodified charger stayed amber.

I'll be able to tell you in a few weeks if this solves the charging problem. Let's hope it does.

By the way, I also finished messing with my wiring harness. I added the extra wires (volts, amps, etc.) to the harness and taped it all back up. I strongly suggest getting wire harness tape for this purpose, as it worked much better than normal electrical tape. And it keeps that OEM look. (Ha!)

That was a productive Tuesday.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Today I decided to hook my charger up to a battery next to my desk so I could monitor it. The battery had been charged up previously, so I wasn't expecting a long charge time. I hooked it up and the amber light came on for about 15 seconds. Then the green light came on. This is about what I'd expect for a battery that's already charged.

Of course, I only checked one charger, but so far, I would call this experiment a success.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

well sounds like you may have nailed it,,, I have been down this road and things were just never the same even after only adjusting the 4 the pot. Also chech to see what the float voltage is after an hour or two of the light changing to green. Also what voltage was the charger putting out when it went to float mode? should be 14.7- 14.8. If the 4th pot is a bit out it may go over this or under this voltage, I also noticed it seemed to make a difference how discharged the battery was when testing.

Brian let me know how it works with all the batteries later


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I'm going to check the float voltage after an hour or two. But, I did just check to see if the current did what I thought it would do. I measured the current and I could see it falling from ~5 amps (the battery is charged after all). Once it got to 3A the charger kicked over to the float mode. I'm happy so far.

The voltage on the e-load is not to be trusted. The thing reads 1V when nothing is hooked up at all. So, I don't mind if it reads only 12 volts in that photo. I am the first person to use the e-load since we bought it second hand from the failing fuel cell division of GE. (We also got a few of their employees.)


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

The float voltage after a number of hours remained at 13.6V, which seems just about right to me.

Last night we began the process of figuring out the battery racks. My mechanic guy is a bit of a perfectionist, so his plan is to create dummy batteries first. The cardboard boxes weren't good enough so the first thing we did was make molds of the top of the batteries. He wants to make sure the fillers and the lugs are accessible. As before we determined that we are able to get 6 batteries under the hood. The battery rack will be once piece that will be welded outside of the vehicle, then bolted in. The rack will also provide additional support between the shock towers of the front suspension, as they are under supported in Spitfires and I'm sure the additional stiffness will only help. Next we will construct a wooden mock-up of the frame.

All of this seems a bit bizarre to me. I prefer measurements and doodling to molds and wood while I'm designing things, but we're going to do what my mechanic is comfortable with. Some are concrete thinkers, others abstract thinkers. Here we have the perfect example of the difference.


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

Make sure you leave some space between the batteries, they tend to swell up as they get older. If you make the box too snug you won't be able to get them out again.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Great suggestions for leaving room for swelling. The battery locations we're playing with seem to come in pairs. We're tight for vertical tolerance more than anything else. T-1275s are tall batteries. For a little added safety I'm investing in battery cable covers for each battery. I'm good with my hands in general, but I manage to drop a lot of tools. And the proximity of the terminals to the hood or body of the car is just a little too close for comfort. Hopefully I can avoid some difficult lessons.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Progress lurches forward again! It had been a while since I actually got to work on the car, and it feels good.

We built shelves out of scrap wood so that we could mount all of the batteries in the car. The tolerances are very close in the car so we wanted to be able to easily modify our battery mounts. Now that the wood is done, we can go back and build the racks out of steel. 

The batteries in the rear do not impinge on the cockpit of the vehicle at all. I wanted to keep the batteries out of sight as much as possible. I've seen some other Spitfires that weren't as lucky concerning that. And the batteries were visible right behind the seats. 

This was also the first time I got to look at the car with most of the weight in it. We were missing one battery (it was at work where I was fiddling with the chargers) but the car looked very drivable. I'm still going to put air shocks in the rear and probably upgrade the springs in the front, but I won't have to worry about that immediately. 

We can now begin working on the welding cable and the placement of the chargers. Things are definitely getting closer!


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> I'm posting this here for you Clint, or any other Spitfire converters using WarP 9 motors and 1/2" adaptor plates.


 I just noticed that comment.

Thanks man! Keep those posts and pictures coming!


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder,

I was playing with battery layout today as well. With your batteries in the front, you have a group of 2 at the very front between the frame, then a group of 3 over the motor.

I cut up a cardboard box to the size of 4 (similarly sized) batteries side by side, and put it about where your 2 batteries are (just turned 90 degrees). I set the box on the frame (near the bumper) and on the 2 posts (on either side of your 2nd battery back). I'm thinking those are good supports for 320 pounds of Lead. Also, even if I turn the wheel fully over the tires aren't near the box.

Your solutions looks fine - I'm just wondering if you tried my configuration as well. Is there a problem with it I'm not seeing?

Thanks!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

We made some mock-ups of the batteries and made some decisions. Our goals were to keep the batteries as close to the center of mass of the car as possible. Low if we can, and close in. We moved around the mock-ups with the hood down (from underneath) and realized that we would be able to put 4 batteries over the shock towers and motor, and just barely have room to close the hood. I don't remember what batteries you were using, but height was a big issue for mine. I suppose I got lucky because I didn't really take the height of the batteries into account before purchasing them. If my batteries were a 1/2" taller I would be having a much harder time of finding places for all 10.

Oh, the pack of three over the motor is actually three batteries and a mock up. It will be four batteries the next time I work on the car.

If you are able to make a simpler battery rack, I would suggest it. But, keep in mind that the car will handle better if the weight is low and closer in.

Warning, Clint! That drawing that I made isn't optimal. I didn't realize that the engine mounts weren't symmetric in the car. So that plate will cause your motor to be slightly tilted to the side. You can try to measure out the difference and account for it, but I personally think a different design is better. I'm now going to bolt to some GT6 motor mounts, which will properly decouple the motor from the frame through rubber under compression. I'll take some photos when I make it and put it in.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> If you are able to make a simpler battery rack, I would suggest it. But, keep in mind that the car will handle better if the weight is low and closer in.
> 
> Warning, Clint! That drawing that I made isn't optimal. I didn't realize that the engine mounts weren't symmetric in the car. So that plate will cause your motor to be slightly tilted to the side. You can try to measure out the difference and account for it, but I personally think a different design is better. I'm now going to bolt to some GT6 motor mounts, which will properly decouple the motor from the frame through rubber under compression. I'll take some photos when I make it and put it in.


Thanks for the advice and words of caution!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I finally added the 10th battery to the pack in the car. Now I can see the minimum of how bad the sag is going to be in the front. There's definitely a low ground clearance, but I think it's drivable. I also learned that if you tilt the camera just so, the front end doesn't look so bad. 

After I get the car on the road I will measure the front end weight, plug them into a excel spread sheet I got and get the information for the proper springs up front. The rear will be raised by adding some pressure to the air shocks.

I took some measurements for the front motor mount and it will be welded and completed next week.

For the weekend I am going to devote my time to running the wires and making battery cables. The battery rack welding has been put off for a bit.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I spent the day making battery cables. With the right tools, it is a snap. I borrowed a huge crimper, and invested in a $20 cable cutter from Home Depot. I also borrowed a tool for removing the insulation, but I'm not convinced of it's necessity. I made all of the battery cables I was certain about, but I left a few to be finished once I know exactly where the controller and contactors are going to be mounted.

I went to an electric club meeting and got to see a real live Tesla zipping up and down the street. I didn't get a ride, but it sure looked fun.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Here is a zipped excel spreadsheet that I am using to calculate how stiff the front springs will have to be. Clint will likely need this, but I'm sure the spreadsheet can be modified for other vehicles/suspensions.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Here is a zipped excel spreadsheet that I am using to calculate how stiff the front springs will have to be. Clint will likely need this, but I'm sure the spreadsheet can be modified for other vehicles/suspensions.


Right Click, Save Link As, Electric Car, Save


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I finally got my motor mounted permanently into the vehicle. I used GT6 motor mounts which are beefier than the Spitfire motor mounts. This way the drivetrain is still floating somewhat on rubber. The idea is to reduce as much road vibration.

In the meantime I have cut and prepped 10 battery frames for welding. The steel has been purchased and now we just need to cut, grind, and weld until all of the batteries are mounted into the car. Then we'll be ready for a spin around the block.

Part of the hold up is my mechanic friend. He's been struggling with other projects and hasn't been able to devote as much time to my project as he would like.

I've also weighed the front of the vehicle with a load cell. Now I just need to calculate the height and spring constant for the front springs. I'm planning on replacing the trunnions and bushings for the front suspension when I put everything in.

When I'm not working on the car, I'm daydreaming about building a noisemaker for under the hood. It will consist of a few voltage controlled oscillators and use the RPM of the motor to output a sound at low speeds. I've simulated the sound on my computer to get the right tones and whatnot. The goal is to sound like the futuristic Jetson's car while in parking lots.

I can't believe it, but my zip file is 0.6Kb to big to be uploaded onto the forum. I guess you'll just have to imagine the sound.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Here are the photos of the motor mounted in place. The black spot on the front of the aluminum is from the c-clamp used to hold things in place while welding.

All in all, I'm very satisfied with the results. I measured out everything and it came to fit exactly like I designed it to.


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## atzi (Jun 26, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Hello,
> 
> After months of body work and waiting for parts to arrive, I am finally ready to begin putting EV parts into my vehicle. Inspired by Brian's useful build thread, I decided to start my own. Please feel free to add any comments, praising, chastising, heckling, or questions.
> 
> ...


I really like your schematic. You say you used "Visio"? I made one for the 144 volt cables in an EV project so LATER I could keep up with the routing of the big cables and also the layout. (where all the cables and components are located)
I used TinyCad. Your program has the feature where the wires intersected but were not connected there is a little hump. It makes it easier to read.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Thank you. Visio comes with the Microsoft Office. It can be a decent tool, but I'm not a huge fan of things Microsoft. It just happens to be on my computer at work. Your schematic look great. As long as you know how to use it, you'll be fine. One suggestion I might have is to make the lines thicker for the high voltage lines. You can also change the colors more to create easy lines for your eye to follow. I plan on keeping a copy of the schematic in the glovebox (first I'll need to make a glovebox) along with an emergency pack fuse and a wrench.


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## atzi (Jun 26, 2008)

Thanks 
"_make the lines thicker for the high voltage lines_"
Well this diagram/layout was just the 144 volt LARGE 2/0 CABLES not any of the smaller 144 volt wiring going to the charger, DC/DC, heater: or any of the 12 volt wiring.
I plan on making a full diagram like yours where the components are not on top may try to buy different software unless I can find another open source program that does wiring diagrams better.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

As many have noticed, there have been a rash of blown Logisystems controllers. I, of course, have a Logisystems controller that I haven't installed yet. I called them up today to see if I would have a problem when I did. They told me that mine is one of the defective ones and that I should send it back for a refurbishing. I suppose that's not the best news to hear, but in the process I realized something. I thought my controller was 120-144V, but instead it was 72-120V. Around the time I bought the controller back in June I was considering 108V. But, now that I've checked things out more, I'm designing for 120V. But, I have the room for a couple more batteries in the trunk for a total of 144V. Logisystems is doing an upgrade for free as well. I also hear that they are shipping out controllers again. Let's hope the turn around won't take too long. I've still got a ways to go, so I'm not too annoyed. It's much better to learn now than while I'm driving around the block.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Slight progress...
Last night I installed the air shocks for the rear of the Spit. The air shocks will allow me to bring the ride height back up after adding 4 heavy batteries to the rear. I was very pleased with how they turned out, but the installation was quite a chore. Getting the old shocks out was a 5 minute job. Realizing the air shocks I had weren't correct and having to modify them enough to get them installed took the better part of the work night. At the end of the day, though, the air shocks work beautifully. I pumped them up and the rear went rather high. All I need to do is lower the pressure to bring them back down. The only point of caution is that with cars with independent rear suspension, the vehicle needs to be rolled back and forth so that the height can be normalized. With IRS, the camber changes with the height, so the friction of the tires on the asphalt will fight the adjustment. If you roll the car back and forth a bit, it will let the tires/camber/height equalize. 

Battery rack welding began as well. Hopefully that won't take too much longer.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I've got all sorts of excuses why progress has stalled for my vehicle. Weather, colds, weddings, holidays, etc. But I decided yesterday to stall no further. I began installing the new front springs to bring the ride height up to a better level. It was grueling and difficult work, but we managed. Well we got the spring changed on one side, at least. Here are some photos. Also photos from the rear air shocks.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder,

Is that a sensor for a tachometer on the tailshaft of your motor? If so which one is it / where did you get it from / is it compatible with your existing tachometer? 

I've been looking into Hall Effect sensors and am wondering if you already found a good one that might work for my Spit.

Thanks!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Sorry for the silence, Clint. I was off for some adventures in Baja, Mexico. But, I'm back now. I bought the sensor from EVSource.com, but it's rather simple, and could probably be fashioned out of most Hall Effect Sensors. My sensor definitely doesn't work with my tach yet, as my tach is mechanical. I'm going to purchase an electric tach and have it worked on by a local speedo and tach shop (who even knew they existed?!) to be fitted for my sensor. Your later model Spit has an electric tach already. If you know anything about electronics you could use a hall effect sensor, a frequency to voltage chip, and a simple adjustable gain to calibrate your tachometer. I have some ideas, and when I get around to it, I'll write them up for you.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I called Logisystems again today, to find the ETA of my controller (upgraded to 144V-750A). They tell me that it is going to ship on the 16th. I'm not too far off from having my batteries mounted, and it's possible that when it arrives, I'll be able to slap the controller in and give the car it's first full voltage test drive. After a few months of busy holidays/vacations, I'm starting to get excited again about finishing this project! There are lots of little things to do, but most of of my other obligations are out of the way.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Sorry for the silence, Clint. I was off for some adventures in Baja, Mexico. But, I'm back now. I bought the sensor from EVSource.com, but it's rather simple, and could probably be fashioned out of most Hall Effect Sensors. My sensor definitely doesn't work with my tach yet, as my tach is mechanical. I'm going to purchase an electric tach and have it worked on by a local speedo and tach shop (who even knew they existed?!) to be fitted for my sensor. Your later model Spit has an electric tach already. If you know anything about electronics you could use a hall effect sensor, a frequency to voltage chip, and a simple adjustable gain to calibrate your tachometer. I have some ideas, and when I get around to it, I'll write them up for you.


If you don't mind I'd love to see a schematic/similar on how to use my existing tachometer. And it must be added to the site's Wiki


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> I called Logisystems again today, to find the ETA of my controller (upgraded to 144V-750A). They tell me that it is going to ship on the 16th. I'm not too far off from having my batteries mounted, and it's possible that when it arrives, I'll be able to slap the controller in and give the car it's first full voltage test drive. After a few months of busy holidays/vacations, I'm starting to get excited again about finishing this project! There are lots of little things to do, but most of of my other obligations are out of the way.


dude that is exactly what I had done to mine please be sure to tell me/ us that is works perfectly (I hope thats not wishful thinking)

Awesome man!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Just as I was clearing things out of my life, my mechanic friend is suddenly swamped. He kept trying to do the old "will tomorrow be better for you? I'm busy today" gag. I finally went over to his place and got him to help a bit. The result is some progress made on the battery racks. They're certainly not perfect, but they'll hold the batteries. We're not done completely, but another solid day of battery rack work and it will be ready for paint.

My new controller arrived from Logisystems yesterday. I'm very thrilled. They threw in some muffin fans, standoffs, and screws. Now I just need to finish the battery racks and I'll be ready to test the car with full voltage. Once I can move the car around easily, I'll probably drive it back to my house to finish the restoration there. 

Here's a photo of the front battery racks tacked together.


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## Guest (Jan 23, 2009)

Those racks look just fine. A good grind on some high spots and some good primer and paint and your good to go. Don't forget to put in some hold downs to keep the batteries from tipping over. Looking good.

Pete : )


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Pete. I will certainly put some tie-downs on the batteries. The plan was to weld some strategic tabs on the racks and use some simple hardware to hold everything down. We'll have to drill a few holes into the frame to bolt the battery racks down, but it shouldn't be too hard.


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## PatricioIN (Jun 13, 2008)

you know I used heavy duty indoor/outdoor ty wraps and thought that they'd be temporary, but actually they've held up perfectly. They hold the batteries very tightly.. no movement at all. And hey, I think I paid maybe $10 for a bag of them... I've not had any problems with them. They were VERY simple to put on. Just an idea...


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I might go with a nylon webbing strap. They're not too expensive from Harbor Freight, and they're nice and simple.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I'm headed over to work on the car this evening. I'm hoping to get a solid day's work done tonight, as well as make some headway again on Saturday. If I can get the batteries and throttle mounted between today and Saturday, I might be ready for a quick full voltage test. I realized that my 12V system really only needs to power the contactors. I'll just tap off of one of my pack for a bit. Since each battery gets an individual charge, things won't get out of balance. I'd like to know sooner than later if my Logisystem controller will blow up. I have the 144V 750A version, so I'm hoping I won't have anything to worry about.

Sorry, Clint, I haven't gotten around to working out the schematic for the tach. That's low on my priority list right now.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Sorry, Clint, I haven't gotten around to working out the schematic for the tach. That's low on my priority list right now.


Not a problem at all! It's low on mine as well.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

We made some progress on the battery racks last night. The front battery racks are all tacked together, they just need a final weld and some paint. Then I'll need to drill 4 more bolt holes to hold everything down. So far, so good. The rear battery racks won't be nearly as difficult. I've already cut most of the steel for them, we just need to weld things into place. A fast worker could have it done in an hour. Of course, my mechanic friend will take a week.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I spent another few hours yesterday working on the car. The front battery racks are mostly finished. I need to drill a few holes, clean up some bad welds with some judicious grinding and paint it. All in all, I'm very pleased. We even figured out the mount for the controller. The rear battery racks are also progressing nicely. I cut away some supports for the gas tank to make some room, and made part of the racks removable so I can slide the battery in the tight space. I'm hoping that all of the battery racks will be done by the upcoming weekend. 

The front springs ended up being quite a chore. I had used a calculator made for calculating spring lengths and loading specifically for the Spitfire suspension. I don't know where the mistake was made but the springs I put in resulted in a very low ride height. I'm going to salvage the springs and just add in a spacer under them. The ride height needs to be raised by over an inch (and I haven't added the seats/carpet/passengers, etc) so I'll be putting in about 2 inches of spacer. In trying to re-figure out the spring calculations, I'm arriving at the same result, so I'm still perplexed.

But, progress is being made! We discussed the end-game strategy of when we paint the car, what colors, etc. There will still be a lot of work to be done after the EV parts are finished. But re-installing the trim, seats, and carpet will be a nice change of pace.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

after having the one charger now I really like it compared to having 12 of them BUT I think you need to consider this,, contact the manufacturer and find out what they want to be charged at,, I thought 14.8 was fine and the maximum but I found out that my CROWN batteries need at min 15 volts and 15.5 is not bad either, from what they explained to me the batteries need to boil to remove the sulfides and stuff and 14.8 may not do a sufficient job of that, after all those chargers were designed more for regular car batteries and not deep cycles,, I could be way off base here but just something else to think about, I know you can crank up the voltage on the chargers and that may not be a bad idea either. Just food for thought.

Brian


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Great advice! I am comfortable with changing the pots inside the chargers. My lab has a few electronic loads, which allow me to adjust the pots just like they would at the factory. I'll contact Trojan to see what charging voltage they prefer. Thanks for the heads up. Unfortunately, I'm still a few weeks away from a test drive. Having my car at a shop 30 minutes away was definitely a mistake!


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Great advice! I am comfortable with changing the pots inside the chargers. My lab has a few electronic loads, which allow me to adjust the pots just like they would at the factory. I'll contact Trojan to see what charging voltage they prefer. Thanks for the heads up. Unfortunately, I'm still a few weeks away from a test drive. Having my car at a shop 30 minutes away was definitely a mistake!


ya I couldn't imagine having to comute that far to work on my ride but its a whole lot better than not doing it... I knew you could adjust the chargers and heck ya might as well get that out of the way before you need them,, of course this is after you were already inside them once. Oh well. We are taking the e-car out for dinner tonight might be a bit chilly but we will survive.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Finally I made some great progress this weekend. The battery racks are 90% complete. I need a few nuts and bolts and the batteries will be secured!

I also mounted the controller and I have 90% of the cables completed. I need to create a mount for my contactors, throttle pot, shunt, and circuit breaker. Then I'll be ready for a test drive!

The car itself still needs a lot of work: a little more body work, rusty floor pan, then paint. Once the car is painted it will just be a matter of putting everything back onto the vehicle.

I'm very excited about the work done this weekend. The car had been dormant for a few weeks while I had other projects and my mechanic friend was busy/sick. Now we're very close to spinning the wheels on the pavement.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I'm kicking myself for not bringing my camera to work yesterday. We made some serious progress. All of the batteries were mounted and strapped down. We laid out the contactors, breaker, and shunt on a piece of plexiglas and finished wiring the high voltage stuff up. After checking and double checking we threw the breaker, which gave full voltage to the controller. We jacked up the drive wheels and spun the tires slowly. Things were finally coming together!

Of course we had to take the car for a short little drive around the back alley. The front suspension wass way too low, and we were sitting on milk crates with absolutely nothing on the just-primered car. The front tires were scraping the wheel well during turns, but that was really the only problem. The acceleration was nice and fast, the brakes worked well, and ths steering is solid. We only got it up to about 25 mph, but it was quite fun! We took some video, but it's on my mechanic's camera/computer. 

Now we can finish up a few small things around the car and begin prepping it for it's final paint. Once I get the paint finished, I'll tow the car to my backyard and finish the restoration there. I'll be able to work much faster in my backyard, of course. So hopefully the car won't take that much longer. Maybe another 4-6 weeks? Since I'm already going to the DMV for another reason tomorrow, I'm going to get the car re-registered with its original black CA license plates. (In California, the car keeps the license plate from when it was first registered. It's a small bragging right to have the original plates from the '60s.) 

The car will take a lot of work to properly finish (rechroming bumpers, etc) but I'll be able to drive it soon, I hope.

By the way, did I say "Whoo Hoo!" yet?


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

dude thats great news all of it glad to hear progress


Brian

now git er done


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

My plan is to get the car painted and brought back to my backyard as soon as possible. There are a few more things that I need to weld in that I'd like to finish before putting that nice British Racing Green on it.

Weld shoulder belt supports in
Drill holes and weld nuts for hardtop attachment
Weld nuts for the battery racks (fixed nuts that will make removal easier)
Paint the battery racks (simple black rustoleum?)
Drill out the holes in the bonnet that we did body work over.
Floor pan repair
Final Body work (a few minor dings)
Prep for final paint. (Dupont GS378)

I'm guessing that it will take another 2-3 evenings to finish up the little bits and pieces, then a full weekend to prep for paint, and paint the darn thing.

Sadly, my week is already full of other projects, and my weekend is booked solid as well. So next week, I'm going to head over to the garage where it's at and get the car ready for paint.

Once the car is in my backyard, I'll be able to work on it much more. I can put a few hours in here and there and make much faster progress. I imagine that once I have the car painted, putting it all back together won't take more than a couple of weeks. I'm the one that took it apart, so I nominally know how it all goes back together.

I got a temporary registration as well. All I have to do is drive it to the DMV for a simple inspection, and it'll be fully legal.


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

Congratulations on the first full power test drive! I can't wait to race you down orange grove 

I've been putting ~500 miles on my EV since I got it registered, so far no major problems. I've spent very little time working on it since I got it registered, I've mostly been fine tuning the toe in and trying to get rid of as many squeeks and creeks as possible.

It is a pretty great feeling pushing the accelerator and being whisked along completely silently.

Good luck


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Thanks, it indeed was a lot of fun! But, I've got quite a few tasks to finish before we drag race down Orange Grove.

I'm glad to hear that you haven't had problems with your shaft coupler. I followed your design and can only hope that mine will hold up like yours.

Say, do you have any suggestions about hardware for utilizing public charging stations? I emailed someone at LAX and learned that they don't offer any NEMA style plugs. I'm looking into buying an Avcon inlet, so I can charge while taking advantage of the free parking at LAX. Have you utilized any public charging stations yet?


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

A friend of mine has one of the adapter boxes on this page: http://eaaev.org/eaa_merchandise.html

It seems to work for him. 

I haven't had any need to recharge at a public location yet. I also don't fully trust my charger to leave it unattended just yet.


Unfortunately the paddle chargers are unusable to us mere mortals without RAV4 EVs.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Well, I purchased an AVCON inlet from avconev.com. I'm going to construct Tom Stockebrand's pilot emulating circuit and save a few bucks. The inlet was $230 + freight, which is more than the outdated website advertises. But, I figure that after a couple of weeklong trips with free, primo parking at LAX the inlet will have paid for itself. I plan on putting the inlet in the front grill. On my car, it's low and hidden enough to not detract from the looks, while still being accessible.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I'm starting to look at some throttle linkage choices. Basically, my plan is to mount the pot box lever over a lever that is connected to my accelerator. I can either use a ball chain style linkage (like one for anchoring pens at the bank, but much beefier) or a threaded rod with a clevis on each end. Both will be very adjustable. The ball chain will only pull, while the threaded rod will be stiffer, and allow for pushing and pulling. With both of them I'll be able to adjust the linkage points, so I can fine tune things to get the lever action to feel right. Any words of wisdom?


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I made some serious progress this weekend. First, I installed a bunch of weld nuts into the frame of the vehicle for attachment points. I really should have bought these earlier, as they are extremely easy to use. Just drill a hole, weld them in, and clean up with a grinder. This makes attaching things very simple.

I also installed the seatbelts into the vehicle and aligned and mounted attachment points for the hardtop. This stuff is obviously not related to the conversion itself, but rather the restoration. But, I am getting the vehicle road legal.

The last bit of welding is for the passenger side floor pan. I'll cut out some steel and weld in a patch. Once that is done the initial painting will commence.

Here is the order and rough timeline:
Tuesday: Fix floorpan, prepare inside of vehicle for painting.
Saturday: Paint inside of vehicle, removable windshield frame, some small bits
Sunday: Install glass into windshield frame and mount. Tow vehicle home to my backyard!

Once the vehicle is in my backyard, I will be able to work on it every day and finish making the car street legal and drivable. There are lots of little things that I need to install: headlights, brake lights, etc. And I need to finish the rebuilding of the front suspension. I already have it psuedo-registered, and I'll be able to test drive it legally. Then I'll drive it to the DMV for a final inspection, and reclassification as an electric. At this point the cosmetics of the car will not be finished, but I'd like to get it legal as soon as possible and drive it around to iron out any kinks before final paint is applied.

My goal is to have the car driving and possible painted by the end of April.

Whoo Hoo! I'm getting excited now. It's the home stretch!

Attached photos are of the rear battery mounts, the seatbelt without the seat (notice the safe shoulder belt!), and a weld nut installed for the hardtop attachment point.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I also wanted to talk about my experience with insurance. I'm not sure why, but I've had some trouble trying to get insurance for the vehicle. I currently use AAA to insure my car,truck, and motorcycle. The price is right, but I wanted to join Better World Club, which has less anti-environmental policies than AAA. Better World seems to sell insurance through third parties, which is fine enough. But apparently only one of their underwriters would even consider the EV conversion. I got a quote for all of my vehicles, but the price much higher than I anticipated, almost twice what I pay through AAA. I decided to call AAA to get a proper quote and see what I would be paying through them. The first guy I talked to told me that they don't insure conversions. I knew this was wrong, as I'd inquired many months ago. So, I asked to speak to someone else. He kept trying to tell me that they I'm going to hear the same answer from them too. I insisted, and spoke with the supervisor. She was able to help me. The quote was very reasonable. I need to take the car to the California Highway Patrol for an inspection for road worthiness, but they're office is close, so that's no problem. I have principles, but I'm not going to pay a few hundred extra a year to keep them! I'm going to give Better World a chance to match AAA's quote, but if they can't, I'm going with AAA.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> I'm starting to look at some throttle linkage choices. Basically, my plan is to mount the pot box lever over a lever that is connected to my accelerator. I can either use a ball chain style linkage (like one for anchoring pens at the bank, but much beefier) or a threaded rod with a clevis on each end. Both will be very adjustable. The ball chain will only pull, while the threaded rod will be stiffer, and allow for pushing and pulling. With both of them I'll be able to adjust the linkage points, so I can fine tune things to get the lever action to feel right. Any words of wisdom?



they make some pretty cool RC clevis's here is just a sample,, totally adjustable and they even have some ball and joint stuff as well,,, some very high quality titanium even if you want.

http://www.stevensaero.com/Ball-Links-Clevis-p-1-c-76.html


Brian


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## aktill (Jun 18, 2008)

rctous said:


> they make some pretty cool RC clevis's here is just a sample,, totally adjustable and they even have some ball and joint stuff as well,,, some very high quality titanium even if you want.
> 
> http://www.stevensaero.com/Ball-Links-Clevis-p-1-c-76.html
> 
> ...


Just stay away from the nylon ones. They've been known to break in cold temps, and they're not as pleasant to use. The Sullivan brass plated ones are nice, since they come with a little locking clip.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

aktill said:


> Just stay away from the nylon ones. They've been known to break in cold temps, and they're not as pleasant to use. The Sullivan brass plated ones are nice, since they come with a little locking clip.


I don't think cold temps will be a problem for me in Southern California. I already have these nylon clevises from McMaster. They're beefier than those from the RC supply. When I install the throttle mount, I'll take some photos.


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## aktill (Jun 18, 2008)

Yep, those are much better, since they use a c-clip to hold the pin in. The nylon hobby ones pop apart, which you can only do so many times before they wear out.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I cut out the rust in the passenger side floor pan and fashioned up a steel replacement. I had to leave it for my mechanic friend to weld when he gets a chance, but it's one less thing for me to worry about. My weekend will be busy with sanding, masking, and painting. And if I'm lucky, I'll be towing it home late Sunday night. I'm really getting excited now!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

My mechanic friend was very busy, so I handled all of the sanding and masking, etc myself. I left him with the car in the spray booth, and he's going to spray it tonight (if he hasn't already). This first spray will be for the trunk sill, the dash, and the door sills. The windshield frame will also get its coat as well. The idea is that the very visible parts (the bonnet, the doors, etc) will get a careful coat later. This coat is for the parts that people see, but don't have to be perfect.

Tomorrow I haul the car to my backyard to continue the restoration. Once I've ironed out all the kinks, I will drive it back for some final, minor body work, and we'll put the pretty paint on. I'm going to hire a professional to do the buffing. Then I'll start buying all of the cosmetic parts of the restoration such as carpet and proper door panels, etc. But, I'll still be able to drive it everyday. In a month or so, this car will look fantastic.

Here are some photos of the car in the booth.























Don't you love how the windshield frame is removable?


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Wow, you're Spit is going to look great. Any ideas for a paint design?


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Solid British Racing Green. Nothing fancy. The hardtop will also be BRG. I'm even going to paint the wheels BRG, but the chrome hub caps cover most of the wheel anyway. Right now the wheels are rusty creme, which has just got to go. After checking the calendar, and seeing what I can possibly achieve, I'd like to have the car driving this weekend. Then my goal is to have the car completely painted the weekend of the 25th/26th. We'll see how it goes!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

We towed the car to my house last night with no major issues. Right now it is sitting in my backyard, with a large pile of parts, waiting to be put together. I worked just a little bit this morning and at lunch, and I've already run into issues. The rubber that goes around the windshield is too long (will be replaced soon), and the new dash isn't exactly correct (no true replacement available). But, things are coming right along. I got the front tire with a slow leak repaired (twice, actually) and I'm ready to start dismantling the suspension. Once the suspension is fixed, I'll be able to start putting the lead back in. After that I'll have the headlights and taillights to run. 

I've got things to do tonight, but the work will start right up tomorrow evening and every evening after that. All of the parts are in, and it's just a matter of putting things together.

I really like having the car in my backyard!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Here are some photos of the latest developments:


The towing.









The paint and fitting the windshield rubber. Is the rubber too long?









Yes, it is. But the right rubber is on the way, and might be here tomorrow, if I'm lucky.









This stand here holds the throttle box. Unfortunately, the accelerator pedal location has made it difficult to get the pedal action correct. I'm going to have to tweak this some more tonight to get it just right.









We also put the hinges and latches on the boot. The next big project will be the front shocks. I'm hoping to get one side finished tonight.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Will your windshield rubber fit a 1978 better? Mine is completely trashed from the Phoenix sun/heat.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Sure would! But I've got to return it to get the right part. If you need information regarding sources of Spit parts, let me know. It's much easier to find stuff for your later model Spit than my '64. I've even sent emails to Spit boneyards in the UK to get parts.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

How much was it?


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

About $40. It's another $15 or so for the chrome finisher, but that's not needed.

Check out http://www.spitbits.com for parts and prices. It's amazing how much of the car is replaceable 30 years after they stopped manufacturing them.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I just picked up the correct windshield rubber and the chrome finisher. (It's not needed, but I really like the look.) I'll hopefully be able to put my windshield in the frame this weekend. I found these great instructions, Clint, if you have to do the same eventually: http://www.triumphspitfire.com/Windshield.html. I'm going to wait until the middle of the day, so the rubber is warm and easy to work with. It's not a bad idea to leave it out in the sun, to make sure it's nice and pliable.

I spent last night trying to wrestle a spring onto a shock. My spring compressors were getting in the way. I got a tip on a Spitfire forum to just use the weight of the car to compress the spring. Makes complete sense to me! I'm going to give that a go tonight.

Once the springs are renewed, I'll be able to start putting the batteries back in. Then I'll spend a couple of nights wiring everything up. I sure am getting excited. Every day I make progress on my To Do List.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I made some definite progress this morning. Both sides of the suspension have been rebuilt. The springs have been upgraded with the spacer that I made (pictures will be forthcoming). I had to remount the throttle, but I am pleased with it's new location. The only thing I need to do is add another spring to strengthen the throttle return.

I mounted the battery tray for hopefully the final time, and I started adding batteries. I took a break to give my back a rest. That was a lot of work for one day. I feel like half a Brian!

Tomorrow will be busy, but I might be able to get the windshield installed. Possibly the seats as well.


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## m38mike (Dec 27, 2008)

I'm very impressed! You're moving along very well with this Spit. I hope your suspension fix works out well for you. Will the 2 inch lift affect how it handles? 

I got a laugh out of your idea for the Jetson's sound at low speeds. I would love to learn more about how you're doing that, and what it sounds like. My conversion is an old Army jeep, but I was thinking about having it make sounds like a tank while I'm driving in town.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Alright, it's photo time..

Here is my throttle solution.
















It was the best I could do with the limited space I had to work with. I need to add a second return spring, but it does work as is. It does feel nice to push on the accelerator and have it actually do something for a change!

Here is the rebuilt suspension. The aluminum spacer underneath the spring was needed after I chose incorrectly on my spring values. Yes, I was that far off!








I had to redo the trunnion on this side as well.









But now check out the ride height.









Time to put in the windshield...


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Using only some string, vaseline, and a bicycle tire tool I managed to get the windshield in. It was exhausting, difficult work, and took 2.5 hours. And for some reason the last 3 inches took at least 30 minutes. I couldn't be happier with the result however.










Putting the frame onto the car won't take more than 10 minutes. The next step is to re-wire the batteries and put in the wiring harness. Then I can do real test drives around the block. Whoo Hoo!


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Using only some string, vaseline, and a bicycle tire tool I managed to get the windshield in. It was exhausting, difficult work, and took 2.5 hours. And for some reason the last 3 inches took at least 30 minutes. I couldn't be happier with the result however.


Very nice! Let me know the next time you're in town and I'll let you do mine.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I put the windshield on, and started getting the car ready to be road legal. Headlights, bumpers, mirrors, etc.

It's time consuming to find all of the little nuts and bolts that got misplaced in all of the jostling and moving that we did. And, there are a few bolts that need replacing, but it's not that bad.

One larger problem is the doors. I put in new weather stripping and now it's extremely difficult to close the doors. The passenger side only half latches. I'm looking into what I can adjust to get the doors to close well.

I also need to re-key the trunk before I accidentally lock it.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

About 10:00 last night we took a little drive down the road. The wiring harness is still not in, but I just couldn't wait any longer. The front springs seem just about right. The tires turn well, etc. But, I'm having issues with a jerky throttle. The same issues that Brian had. It is almost certainly the pot box. I measured the pot, and it would jump around by 1K just as the microswitch actuated. I think I'm going to have to build a similar geared contraption to Brian's and just use a normal 5k potentiometer. It may be easier considering my tight space anyway.

I won't make much progress until next week. But, I've made it a long way! As soon as the wiring harness gets in, I'm going to start adjusting the logisystems controller. It's set at the lowest settings right now, and I'm already impressed with the acceleration. It wasn't tough to peel out in my backyard!

I was thinking about the reverse problem that people seem to have with the Logisystems controllers. I believe Brian was going to use a second pot at 1K for reverse, for instance. What about a 1K or 500R fixed resistor in parallel with the potentiometer for reverse? It would set an upper limit for the throttle, and would effectively smooth out the potentiometer. You could actuate it by a switch, for backing up, or even use it as a valet mode.


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

Congrats,

I'm gonna have to come down and take a look at your speed demon soon.

Putting a resistor in parallel works but you'll end up with a curved throttle response. It will be very sensitive in the beginning and less sensitive toward the end of travel, a sort of inverse parabolic response. This may not be much of an issue since the total throttle response will be less than 1/5th of the full range.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Alright, it's photo time..
> 
> Here is my throttle solution.
> 
> ...


if you want a better "feel" on the gas pedal use some open cell foam under the pedal ( up high where it hinges) so it crushes when you depress it,, it gives the pedal a nice feel and makes it easier to make small depressions. It gives it a better feel than just springs.

By the way lookin GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDD!!!!!

Brian


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

peggus said:


> Congrats,
> 
> I'm gonna have to come down and take a look at your speed demon soon.
> 
> Putting a resistor in parallel works but you'll end up with a curved throttle response. It will be very sensitive in the beginning and less sensitive toward the end of travel, a sort of inverse parabolic response. This may not be much of an issue since the total throttle response will be less than 1/5th of the full range.


Definitely, I haven't seen your car since you got it on the road either. I'm going to be out of town this weekend. But I don't have anything planned for next week/weekend except working on the car. We can share restoration horror stories.

Right, the asymptotic response of the extra resistor in parallel, should be just fine for the low speed of backing up.


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

Here's tip while you still have access. Lubricate every bushing, every joint and all the coil spring cups! I've been chasing squeeks and kreeaks on my car for a while now. 

At first it sounded like an old wood boat with a birdie trapped inside, whenever I drove over bumps it would goo eeerrrrkkkk, squeeee squeee chiiip eee. It's much better now thanks to excessive application of WD-40.

At some point I will be removing the front coil springs to cut a turn off (I have an unusual problem for EVs, my car is too light). I'll be sure to grease up the A-arm joints while I'm in there.

I'll give yo a call next week then. 

See ya.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Luckily, the Spitfire allows for plenty of access to the suspension just by popping the hood. So far, my transmission is the loudest part of the car. But, I have a hunch that it needs some fresh gear oil. I suspect this because it's not leaking! I bought some hypoid gear oil and I'll put some in the transmission and differential. Hopefully that will bring the noise down a lot. I also need to install the tunnel cover. Once I can actually hear the squeeks in the suspension, I'll start chasing those down as well.


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

Yes, the transmission in my car is quite noisy as well. Except in 4th gear which is a 1:1 ratio gear. I have no problem driving it exclusively in 4th gear though so it doesn't bother me much. Acceleration is a bit sluggish below 20mph but enough to keep up with traffic. I occasionally use third gear to keep from lugging the motor on hills, or to merge with fast moving traffic.

I'm thinking about getting a more powerful controller and going direct drive. I'd love to get rid of the noisy and oil leaking transmission. 

Or possibly getting a final drive from a powerglide for a 2 speed setup. That would be far more work though.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I drove a few laps around the block in 4th, and I was very happy with the acceleration. And I haven't adjusted the settings on the controller yet. I'm not going to win any drag races, but it's definitely not slow.

I didn't spend very much time thinking about direct drive. But now, I'm considering it. It wouldn't hurt my feelings to have another noisy, oily part removed from the car.

Unfortunately my speedo is sticking, so I don't know just how fast I'm actually going. If I went direct drive, I'd have to completely change the speedometer and odometer anyway.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> I drove a few laps around the block in 4th, and I was very happy with the acceleration. And I haven't adjusted the settings on the controller yet. I'm not going to win any drag races, but it's definitely not slow.
> 
> I didn't spend very much time thinking about direct drive. But now, I'm considering it. It wouldn't hurt my feelings to have another noisy, oily part removed from the car.
> 
> Unfortunately my speedo is sticking, so I don't know just how fast I'm actually going. If I went direct drive, I'd have to completely change the speedometer and odometer anyway.


So 4th gear gave you decent acceleration from dead stop to 40+? How do you think it will handle with hills in 4th? I wouldn't mind direct drive with my Spit, but my motor is quite a bit smaller.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I need to finish up a few things such as lights, throttle, and charging. Then I can get the thing registered fully, and start driving it regularly.

I have the same questions you have, and I'll be sure to report back.


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

My vehicle is very light, just 2000lbs (estimated) but I only have a 500Amp Curtis and I have no problem accelerating up decent slopes in 4th. (pasadena 2 altadena)

I generally avoid it because the sustained high current is not good for either controller or motor. Especially with a shaft mounted fan on the motor. 

If I were to go direct drive I would add a dedicated blower on the motor to keep it cool at low rpm, and a higher power controller so I don't have to operate it at its limit.

On flat ground my current 9" motor and Curtis controller is not stressed much at all.

<edit>
If you have a 6.7" motor you probably shouldn't attempt it. It would overheat much faster than a 9" due to lower mass and higher flux density needed to achieve the same torque.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Well, I have been taking it a little slow with the EV this past week. I'm not Brian, and it's actually possible for me to get burned out on a project. I made some progress with the lights on the car. 90% of the wiring harness is in the car, I just need to make a few connections and test some things. But, I imagine that it will take about an hour.

But, I did have some potentially disastrous and expensive setbacks concerning the chargers. I was planning on utilizing 10 Jacob-Schauer 12A chargers, one for each battery. And I started hooking them up this weekend. I was charging the first battery while I was hooking up the second, when all of a sudden there was a huge spark. I had set the chargers on top of one another, and the cases almost welded themselves to each other. Does this mean the cases are not isolated from the batteries? That's not what I expected at all! I was planning to bolt each case down to my battery racks, but not it seems I won't be able to do that. I blew a couple of fuses and there was a touch of the smell of fried electronics. I'm not sure if replacing the fuses will bring them back. I was so disgusted I left them alone and worked on other stuff.

In the mean time, I started thinking about an easier solution. I would really like to charge via 110VAC for home, and 220VAC for opportunity charging. But, it seems that pack chargers that are flexible run about $2K. I'm not in the position to drop another 2 grand on charging. But maybe an $800 Russco charger. It doesn't accept 220VAC, but I can install a heavy step down transformer for $60. My avcon inlet can be hooked up through that, and my wall plug will go straight into the Russco. Seems like an easy solution. What's another 28lbs at this point?


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I realized what I did with the chargers. I should've re-read Brian's posts on the wiring. I forgot that he had isolated his chargers. I really hope that I only blew the fuses, and didn't destroy two of my chargers. If I did do that, I'm not going to buy more of them. I'm just going to rotate which batteries I charge, until I buy a Russco charger. Ugh, what a pain.

I finally made some more progress last night. I wired up the gauges and did a better job with the solenoid control wiring.

Things I still need to do before I get it registered:
Redo the throttle.
Figure out the lights.
Run the high voltage lines through conduit.
Chargers.
Mount the DC/DC converter (it's going where the present throttle is now).
Put the front bumper on.

Tonight I'm going to take a quick spin, to see how many amps I pull. Now that my ammeter is finally hooked up, I'm curious to know how much current I'm sucking down.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Phew! A big sigh of relief!

I finally got some fuses for the chargers that I had almost blown up. I wasn't sure if the fuses would've protected from the abuse I gave them, but luckily, they did. Well, I'm not 100% sure, but the lights came on when I plugged them in. I'm going to stick with the J-S chargers, and just wire them up "properly" (isolating their cases from the chassis, and snipping the ground wires).

What with all of the quick tests and joyrides I've been taking my state of charge is down to 70%. It'll be nice to bring that back up to 100%.

I'm also making some progress with my throttle. I think I've got my tight geometry figured out. I just need to start putting things in.

It's good to see some progress again.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> I realized what I did with the chargers. I should've re-read Brian's posts on the wiring. I forgot that he had isolated his chargers. I really hope that I only blew the fuses, and didn't destroy two of my chargers. If I did do that, I'm not going to buy more of them. I'm just going to rotate which batteries I charge, until I buy a Russco charger. Ugh, what a pain.
> 
> I finally made some more progress last night. I wired up the gauges and did a better job with the solenoid control wiring.
> 
> ...


sucks about the chargers I have accidentely let them touch and blew the fuses but I believe they all came back to life ok, I am currently using some chargers I got from China, I have gotten 4 of them now and finally having pretty good success with them. If you are interested I can get one for ya, takes about 2 weeks and 520 bucks. They are 180 vdc (adjustable) 160 vdc float (adjustable)10 amp, 3 stage chargers, easy to adjust but requires taking the lid off. I still like the idea of seperate chargers but now that I am down to one charger I like that even better, Glad to hear your out cruising around!!!

Brian


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Can you post a link to the chargers?

For right now, I'm going to stick with the chargers I have. I might change them out later, once I have some spending money. I'm still recovering from April: taxes, insurance, and hang gliding lessons did a number on my bank account!

I'm going to have to baby my chargers for a while, as I only have a 15A line running outside. And I need to see which chargers need to be fine tuned. All of this stuff is a pain. And I'm leaning towards a pack charger. But, I'm going to fully test out these chargers first. Who knows, maybe an even better, cheaper charger will come out in the mean time!


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## High Tension (Apr 29, 2009)

As a Triumph Vitesse Convertible owner and a newcomer on here I've just sat down and read this thread from end to end with great interest as I think my Vit just has to go electric! I ripped out the 6 cylinder engine years ago and replaced it with a smaller 4 cylinder with auto transmission and it will only run on LPG. As I had to widen the gearbox area to take the autobox I was minded to go for direct drive as you guys have muted as I have the space for a largish motor which would leave more room for batteries. The only concerns I had with your conversion was the new overall gross vehicle weight. I understand from my local vehicle testing station [the Isle Of Man] is that if the vehicle exceeds what it was designed to bear, [allowing 75kgs per passenger] then, as the song goes 'there may be trouble ahead' for me in the paperwork department. So I'll have to consider a small battery pack. Also the brakes, never a strong point on these cars as we know! Does it stop well?

Anyway, congratulations on an excellent job very well recorded and so informative.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

High Tension said:


> The only concerns I had with your conversion was the new overall gross vehicle weight. I understand from my local vehicle testing station [the Isle Of Man] is that if the vehicle exceeds what it was designed to bear, [allowing 75kgs per passenger] then, as the song goes 'there may be trouble ahead' for me in the paperwork department. So I'll have to consider a small battery pack. Also the brakes, never a strong point on these cars as we know! Does it stop well?


With LiFePO4, my Spitfire should weight about the same post conversion as it did with the gas engine. They've really become affordable lately thanks to some forum members here finding great deals / group purchases.


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## High Tension (Apr 29, 2009)

Ah that's great regarding weight. Do you know of anyone that's tried direct drive with a similar Triumph? From my ignorant standpoint the more antique stuff that can be removed, [i.e. the gearbox] the better! I'd guess there would be some low ratio diffs about to help....


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## High Tension (Apr 29, 2009)

Oh and... I_ think_ Triumph Dolomite Sprint alloy wheels should fit and Minilite's do come up now and then on Ebay. Probably not much use to you over there but stock Morris Marina wheels certainly will fit.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

High Tension said:


> Ah that's great regarding weight. Do you know of anyone that's tried direct drive with a similar Triumph? From my ignorant standpoint the more antique stuff that can be removed, [i.e. the gearbox] the better! I'd guess there would be some low ratio diffs about to help....


I noticed that when my car is jacked up, my wheels encounter quite a bit of resistance to spinning. Both front and rear. I've been worried what that will do to my amp draw.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I'm learning that with my Warp 9, direct drive would definitely be an option. If I start in 4th gear, I still have plenty of acceleration from a stop and can drive it on the interstate. I haven't fully tested the car with hills, etc. But, I'm sure I'll know in the next month or so.

I agree that getting rid of the gearbox would be a good idea. When I started posting on http://www.totallytriumph.net/ (a Triumph forum) everybody told me to get rid of the gearbox if I could. Now that I have it running I understand. It's the loudest part of my car.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Clint,
When I get the rear wheels off of the ground I noticed that the axles rub on the frame. Things are fine when there's weight on the tires, of course. Now I have two shiny spots on my axles from my testing. Gotta love British engineering, eh?

Your brakes might be rubbing a bit, which might get better as you drive a bit. Or, you might need to repack your bearings. Don't worry, it's not difficult, just a little messy, and it's probably worth doing anyway.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Clint,
> When I get the rear wheels off of the ground I noticed that the axles rub on the frame. Things are fine when there's weight on the tires, of course. Now I have two shiny spots on my axles from my testing. Gotta love British engineering, eh?
> 
> Your brakes might be rubbing a bit, which might get better as you drive a bit. Or, you might need to repack your bearings. Don't worry, it's not difficult, just a little messy, and it's probably worth doing anyway.


I've actually already re-greased the bearings (yeup, was messy). I didn't know about the axles rubbing on the frame. Maybe between that and a few miles to rub off the brakes it will clear up.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> I'm learning that with my Warp 9, direct drive would definitely be an option. If I start in 4th gear, I still have plenty of acceleration from a stop and can drive it on the interstate. I haven't fully tested the car with hills, etc. But, I'm sure I'll know in the next month or so.


Definitely keep us informed! My sister is shopping around for her donor, and if we can do direct drive with a 9" then that's the motor we'll go for.


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## High Tension (Apr 29, 2009)

Planning direct drive for my Vitesse I found this useful regarding lower diffs that are available... 4.85 from your 3.89 would probably help quite a bit.

http://herald-tips-tricks.wikidot.com/rear-axle:specs


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Actually, my rear end is a 4.11, but thanks for the info!

I just drove (illegally, shhhh) to the grocery store with no problems. Pulling less than 100 Amps, cruising up a slight hill at 30 mph in 4th gear. Very smooth starts, too. The only sound is a little rubbing on the brakes (new pads) and the transmission.

Even the rough spot on my potentiometer which resulted in jerky starts is gone.

My only concern is that I might need to blow some air on the motor if I only drive it in 4th gear. But, 100 amps isn't much for an EV.

Now to wire up the chargers, finally.


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

Congrats,

At low RPM the motor current may be much higher than your battery current so the 100amps is not a good indicator to go by. Put your hand on the motor after a long drive, if you can leave your hand on the motor without getting burned you don't have anything to worry about.

You may want to put a temperature sensor on the motor field coils in case you're really worried (part of my own todo list).


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Now I've got another problem... My motor connections are not isolated from my chassis. I've taken off the connections to the controller, so the motor should definitely be floating from everything else. But I still definitely measure a short between the two cables going to the motor and the chassis. I've double and triple checked the cables (they're underneath my batteries) and I can see around each terminal. There's nothing touching the terminals directly, and the cables seem intact.

Is this normal? I thought the idea was to have the chassis completely isolated from the battery pack. Right now, my chassis sits at a potentially shocking 120V from the most grounded battery.

My car was originally wired for positive ground, but this is ridiculous.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Now I've got another problem... My motor connections are not isolated from my chassis. I've taken off the connections to the controller, so the motor should definitely be floating from everything else. But I still definitely measure a short between the two cables going to the motor and the chassis. I've double and triple checked the cables (they're underneath my batteries) and I can see around each terminal. There's nothing touching the terminals directly, and the cables seem intact.
> 
> Is this normal? I thought the idea was to have the chassis completely isolated from the battery pack. Right now, my chassis sits at a potentially shocking 120V from the most grounded battery.
> 
> My car was originally wired for positive ground, but this is ridiculous.


what are you probing with your volt meter? (most grounded battery???)is that t he last one in the chain, going to the controller? I assume you are getting this while not charging? I do notice I get a bit of a buzz when I am leaning against the car in my shorts and touch some of the battery terminals, never checked for voltage though. So it does seem a bit normal ( I guess) certainly I also have the high volt system 100% isolated from chassis


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

I just tested mine out and at the last neg (at the controller) to the chassis I have 100 vdc as well????????????????? Must be normal as mine has been going fine for months. I am sure there is a reason and some one soon will chime in with the explanation.

Brian


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

If you're getting a buzz when you touch a terminal and the chassis, they're not isolated. Perhaps it is normal. But it's certainly surprising to me.

I'm probing between the motor terminal and the chassis of the car (a nice grounded bolt). Since the high voltage is connected directly to the motor, the car chassis sits at 120V (related to the most negative battery terminal). I don't like having any connection between the batteries and the chassis. I'm clumsy and drop wrenches all the time.


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

A digital multimeter often has an input impedance of 10Mohm so it may give you a large voltage reading when there's only a tiny tiny current flowing.

Try putting a 1k resistor from terminal to chassis and measure the voltage across it. If it is less than 5V (5mA) you're ok, it should preferably be 0.

There are a three potential sources for your leak that I can think of. The motor may have carbon tracking from brush dust inside it. Disconnect the leads and measure the resistance from terminal to case to determine if the motor is the culprit. It seems unlikely since it is brand new.

Acid tracking from the most positive battery to the frame. Flooded lead acid batteries will always leak a little bit of acid which is conductive. Disconnect the leads from the battery to the controller and measure if your voltage potential is still there. The acid can be washed off or neutralized with baking soda.

Controller. The controller may have a high value resistor from case to B+ for some reason. Disconnect the cables and try to measure it with an ohm meter. It should have at least 100k between any terminal and case, preferably higher.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I knew that the high impedance of the DMM will pick up even a minuscule current, so I disconnected the controller from the motor completely. I measured the resistance from the motor's windings to the chassis, and got 1 Ohm.

I've chased down ground loops before, so I know how much of a pain this is. And I'm trying to avoid taking out the batteries to get to the motor terminals themselves.

My question is: if my motor's windings are shorted to the frame, is that a problem that needs addressing? At the moment it doesn't seem to be a big problem. I can still drive around the block.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

peggus said:


> A digital multimeter often has an input impedance of 10Mohm so it may give you a large voltage reading when there's only a tiny tiny current flowing.
> 
> Try putting a 1k resistor from terminal to chassis and measure the voltage across it. If it is less than 5V (5mA) you're ok, it should preferably be 0.
> 
> ...



But do we care?

Brian


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

it has to be coming in through the motor to the chassis there is no other place, but I am sure it is OK.

Brian


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

rctous said:


> it has to be coming in through the motor to the chassis there is no other place, but I am sure it is OK.
> 
> Brian


Howdy,

Are you guy's using a pre charge resistor? Could this be the source of the voltage/current you are seeing. It does after all connect to the M+ terminal, so it is not only chargeing the caps in the controller it is also in the motor windings and then back to the controller through M-.

Just a thought from a non electrical guy.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

Jimdear2 said:


> Howdy,
> 
> Are you guy's using a pre charge resistor? Could this be the source of the voltage/current you are seeing. It does after all connect to the M+ terminal, so it is not only chargeing the caps in the controller it is also in the motor windings and then back to the controller through M-.
> 
> Just a thought from a non electrical guy.


I am not using any precharge resistor

brian


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I'm not using one (yet!) either. 

I think I need to make this a little more clear. I disconnected the wires that come from the motor, completely. They are dangling in the air. But, when I measure the resistance from either of those leads to the frame of the vehicle, I get a dead short. Either something is touching that I can't see, or the windings of the motor are internally shorted to the case. I can see each connection fairly well, and everything looks like it has clearance. But I suppose I'll have to take out the batteries to have a better look.

Is this something I should be worried about?


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

Definitely something to worry about, this is a major shock hazard and fire hazard. It can also send high voltage through your 12V system killing anything connected to it.

The hard short is likely a shorted field winding or comm bar, most likely a manufacturing mistake in your motor. This really sucks since you have to take the motor out and have it shipped back to the manufacturer.

If you disconnect the cable from the field terminal to the brush terminal ( A1-S1 ) you should be able to figure out if the short is in the field or armature.

There is a possibility that the bolts you use to attached the front motor mount are too long and are touching the brush rigging inside which is live. Try removing them and see if the problem goes away. 

You could also have some metal shavings in the motor. Remove the brush guards and try blowing the motor out with some compressed air.


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> I'm not using one (yet!) either.
> 
> I think I need to make this a little more clear. I disconnected the wires that come from the motor, completely. They are dangling in the air. But, when I measure the resistance from either of those leads to the frame of the vehicle, I get a dead short. Either something is touching that I can't see, or the windings of the motor are internally shorted to the case. I can see each connection fairly well, and everything looks like it has clearance. But I suppose I'll have to take out the batteries to have a better look.
> 
> Is this something I should be worried about?


if you have both motor wires unhooked it cant be the motor windings ,,, right? You have already driven the car right?


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

There's no return path from the chassis to the battery terminals, so the dead short doesn't keep the motor from turning. But, if anything connects a terminal to the chassis and makes that bridge, it could be spectacular! (not in a good way)


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> There's no return path from the chassis to the battery terminals, so the dead short doesn't keep the motor from turning. But, if anything connects a terminal to the chassis and makes that bridge, it could be spectacular! (not in a good way)


Maybe that is why some people have been blowing up battery chargers when they grounded them to the chassis. I think I have read about two in the forums.

Of course my electronic skills are pretty low so I might be off on a tangent again.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I think it's also likely to kill a DC to DC converter. I haven't hooked mine up yet, but I could imagine that it might fry it.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I'm about to be finished with my month-long hiatus. I've been traveling and working on other projects, but I just started to find some time to work on the EV again.

I haven't done anything with the EV aspects in a while, but I did source some hard-to-find parts from a local guy. I now have a NOS convertible frame, and I'll soon have some original seats to reupholster and put in. This car may end up being very close to original.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Put a new dashpad in the car. It looks much better in real life, the flash picks up the dust. I also started figuring out the final charging scheme. I'm hoping to get it registered on Wednesday morning. Woo Hoo!


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## rfengineers (Jun 2, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> I'm about to be finished with my month-long hiatus. I've been traveling and working on other projects, but I just started to find some time to work on the EV again.
> 
> I haven't done anything with the EV aspects in a while, but I did source some hard-to-find parts from a local guy. I now have a NOS convertible frame, and I'll soon have some original seats to reupholster and put in. This car may end up being very close to original.


Did you ever resolve your HV on the chassis problem?


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I haven't actually. I was trying to avoid the pain of removing the batteries to get to the motor terminals. But, I do need to look into the issue more. I'll pull off the leads to the motor and see if the terminals are still shorted to the frame.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Major milestone achieved!

I drove the vehicle to the DMV this morning, and after 3 hours, I left with an "electric" classification, and a temporary registration for the original black CA license plates from '64. In California it's desirable to have the original plates, and besides the black and gold plates look cool. The next step towards full legality is to have the vehicle inspected by the California Highway Patrol (which won't be difficult) so AAA will insure the car. Of course, I'll need to have the lights working before then.

I'm also going to pull the batteries out again and check to see if the motor is indeed shorted to the frame as I suspect.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Major milestone achieved!
> 
> I drove the vehicle to the DMV this morning, and after 3 hours, I left with an "electric" classification, and a temporary registration for the original black CA license plates from '64. In California it's desirable to have the original plates, and besides the black and gold plates look cool. The next step towards full legality is to have the vehicle inspected by the California Highway Patrol (which won't be difficult) so AAA will insure the car. Of course, I'll need to have the lights working before then.
> 
> I'm also going to pull the batteries out again and check to see if the motor is indeed shorted to the frame as I suspect.


Congrats! Hopefully my wife and I will make a trip out to your area this year. Mind giving me a ride?


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Sure thing! Just give me a heads up. Hopefully it will be fully painted with a beautiful interior by then.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

rfengineers said:


> Did you ever resolve your HV on the chassis problem?


Alright, this has been nagging in the back of my mind for a while now, and I finally decided to do something about it.

I pulled the batteries over the motor out (my back will thank me later, I'm sure) so I could get to the motor terminals and test them properly. I took a photo of the results. *Waits for you to look at the photos.* As you can see, the motor terminals are not externally connected to anything. But, the commutator terminals are shorted to the motor case (and thus the entire chassis). When everything is hooked up properly the high voltage is shorted through the connections on the controller through the motor, and to the vehicle chassis. Not good.

I called up Netgain and started talking with their rep. So far, they're being very helpful, but this looks to be a problem that may require sending the motor back for repairs. I sure hope that's not the case.

Ugh.


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

Try removing the brush guard and see if you can spot anything weird looking in the brush wiring.

You can also try lifting the brushes very carefully and see if the short goes away. Be very careful when lowering the brushes again, they could fracture if they slam into the commutator. 

If it's a short in the brush wiring then it's relatively easy to fix by just taking off the CE end of the motor. No need to remove the whole motor.

You'll of course have to check with Netgain about the warranty if you try to fix it yourself.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

peggus said:


> Try removing the brush guard and see if you can spot anything weird looking in the brush wiring.
> 
> You can also try lifting the brushes very carefully and see if the short goes away. Be very careful when lowering the brushes again, they could fracture if they slam into the commutator.
> 
> ...


I'll definitely give this a shot. I'll wait to hear back from Netgain tomorrow. I really don't want to have to crate this thing up and ship it back.

In the meantime I started fitting the improved throttle, a la Brian's geared potbox design. There are many pieces to line up and adjust to get just right, but I think the end result will be worth it. There are lots of other things to work on if the motor has to come out. It'll just be harder to move around.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I just got the go ahead from Netgain to dissect the motor. They have enough confidence in their beasts that they I can't void the warranty. I'm going to need to buy/borrow an engine hoist, though, so it may be a few days.

In the meantime I finally got started running the conduit underneath the vehicle. I already stuffed it with the copper, I just need to support the conduit where the exhaust used to run. It's a pain working underneath the low car. Pictures will follow once I make some pretty progress.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> It's a pain working underneath the low car. Pictures will follow once I make some pretty progress.


A pain? Just do this! http://78electricspitfire.blogspot.com/2008/08/video-spitfire-squats.html


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

That's simply hilarious. Perhaps I can get a couple of guys to hold the car up while I work underneath. Maybe I can get my girlfriend to help?


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Made some great progress today. I finally ran the conduit underneath the car. Inside of the conduit are the two battery pack lines, as well as a few 12 gauge wires for charging. I'm satisfied with how it's held in there, but I would've preferred a few more inches of workspace while installing it.

I also loosened the motor mounts and pulled the motor up a few inches. I took off the debris guard and the motor short went away. Apparently the debris guard had been bent in slightly on the bottom where I could not see it easily. Naturally it was touching the copper lines that go to the brushes. All I had to do was bend it back slightly and reinstall everything. I'm glad it was such a simple problem. Now to reinstall all of the battery mounts and batteries. But first I'm celebrating with some ice cream!


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## 2fast4u (May 31, 2009)

Nice! Can't complain for an easy fix!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I'm ready to get back to working on the Spitfire full time again. I just wrapped up a engine swap I did for a friend. Now my time is mine again.

I started mounting the chargers under the hood permanently. So far so good. Up until now I had been plugging in the chargers manually and rotating them around. Soon I'll be able to just plug the car in and all of the batteries will charge without my babying of them.

I whipped up a new piece of wood to mount the controller and chargers to. I even painted the wood green to make it pretty. I had to fabricate the mounts for the chargers, but all in all it wasn't that difficult, once I figured out how I wanted it. I made sure to keep the indicator lights visible and the fuse accessible. The rest is trivial. I mounted half of the chargers and decided to check for clearance in the vehicle: less than an inch in all directions.

Soon I'll be driving her again!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Here's a photo of the newly installed controller and charger board. As you can see it's holding all 6 chargers for the batteries under the hood. The chargers are all isolated and I think this will be a good solution. When the hood is open the indicator lights are readily visible, so I can see if one charger isn't working, or what-have-you.










The next step is to finish installing the throttle under the dash. I've got most of it worked out I just need to drill a few more holes, paint the metal, and tighten all of the shaft collars down. Then I can get all of the batteries back in, wire them up and drive it around town again.

I've got a much lighter schedule this week, so I'm hoping to make some great progress.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I've been battling the throttle pot for the past few weeks. 

Two steps back and one step forward. But this time in the right direction! I spent a few days wrestling the potentiometer under the dash. Everything was a tight fit and it was a pain to work on anything with me on my back and my legs up on the headrest. After getting everything in, I realized a fatal flaw in my design. It will take a while to explain, because of the complex mechanism I was trying to implement. Let's just say complex things rarely work the first time, and tweaking the design would've been extremely unpleasant and difficult. So, I started fresh.

I decided to use the gears, but this time, put them in a more accessible location. Under the dash I installed the springs, to return the pedal to it's up position. They were a pain to put in, but I'm finished with it, and now the result is very satisfactory. The pedal feels just right to step on.

Now I just need to mount the potentiometer to a little bracket that will bring the gear to just the right spot. This shouldn't be too difficult. It will likely require some cutting and welding to make the bracket, but I've got everything set up at the moment.

Once I get the throttle finished, I'll be able to put the batteries back and take the car for a spin again. Woo Hoo!


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

sounding good so far,, what potentiometer did you wind up using? Logitech and I have found some very good ones that are expodential,, the first 50% gives you about 20% of the 5K and the last 50% of pedal throw is the last 80%,,, it makes for very very smooth starts, forward and reverse. They are about 12 bucks from Digi Key,,, they have been out of stock for awhile but if you need one I am sure I have a couple of them here. Looking good glad to see the voltage/ motor short issue was an easy fix.

Brian


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I did the calculation for how much the pot rotates vs how much of the throw of the pot I'll be covering. It looks like I'll need a 20k pot. I'm going to order one soon, but for now I'll make do with a 10k from Radio Shack. I am interested in this linear/log pot. It sounds like it would really do the trick. I'll have to change up my piece a bit to accommodate another gear, but that's not too difficult and I might have to do that anyway.

Here's a photo of my much simpler solution:








The big gear is attached directly to the pivot of the gas pedal. It only rotates about 20 degrees, which is my main problem. But, this will be a stopgap solution for a bit. I figure I can just ramp up the pots on the controller to get a decent speed.

I'm going away for the weekend, but when I get back, I'll lob the batteries back in and get back on the road.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

http://www.celesco.com/linearpot/index.htm

just look at the specs and inch throw you can get all straight in line - you can get less expensive position sensors and I have used them in industrial places with dirt and grease all over the place ... They are simple you can use them inline with a spring or well you get the idea ... They are made for harsh environments... I have some working still after 20 years!

anyway just a thought... 

Dave


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Not a bad solution! I'm going to measure my space to see if I have the room for it, and if I do, I'll give them a call to see how much they run. It does look dead simple. I'm going to be busy with other projects for the next few days until I head out to the desert for almost two weeks. So, now's the time to order the pot and have it arrive before I get back.

Once I get back, though, this car will be driving and painted within a few weeks, I'm sure.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Not a bad solution! I'm going to measure my space to see if I have the room for it, and if I do, I'll give them a call to see how much they run. It does look dead simple. .


I used them as an example you can find them many places perhaps they will only sell in wholesale quantities - if you like the idea I will try to get hold of one of my old engineering supply people... I will probably be looking for one when MY pb-6 fails!!!!!!!!!!


Dave


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

http://www.ev-propulsion.com/controllers-throttles.html

has a rather pricey use of them in a box you can do-it-yourself but you get the idea now!

Dave


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I finally got around to fixing my throttle problem. The pedal feels like a real pedal and the potentiometer gives me a decent range. I'm charging up a few batteries tonight, and tomorrow I'll take it for a test drive. It'll be nice to be back on the road after so many delays.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

The first test drive in a few months was successful. I've still got to tweak the Logisystems controller a bit to raise the current limit past 175Amps, but even with that she's got a lot of pep. I'm really enjoying driving the EV again. I'll take some fresh photos of my throttle solution. It's still not the best, but it's definitely not bad. In the next few weeks I hope to make some progress on the chargers and the DC-DC. If I can get those things finished the vehicle will be ready for its final paint job, hopefully sometime mid October.

Progress feels great again!


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Hey great! Did you stick with the rotary pot or did you work out the issue?
Wanna see them pics!

Dave


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I got a different pot, and made my 4th throttle assembly to hold it in the right spot. This one is the simplest yet. The new pot is a 25K rotary pot, and it works just fine. If I go slow on the accelerator, the "catch point" for the controller is right where it ought to be, and if I floor it, the pot reads 4.5k, which is good enough for me.

I'd take some photos, but suddenly I'm having issues with the chargers again. A few of them decided to take a break and only put out 10V. I'm under-impressed with them. Who knows, I may just bite the bullet and get a decent charger.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Here's the photo of my fourth and hopefully final throttle solution.








The large gear is being held directly to the rod that turns when the pedal is pressed. Now that I'm happy as to where the gear is positioned, I'm going to put a dab of threadlocker on the screw and some epoxy on the gear to keep it from moving in the future. The smaller gear is held fast to the potentiometer.

My charger woes are getting annoying. Right now I've got 3 chargers with blown fuses. (More fuses on the way.) And 4 chargers are on the fritz, even though their fuses are fine. They're just not putting out more than 10V. Which is an unacceptable problem. They're still under warranty, so I'm going to call and see what my options are. It'd be nice to get a completely different charging system. I'm looking at the ElCon HF PFC 2000 as a possible replacement. http://store.kta-ev.com/elconhfpfc-2000charger.aspx There's no link to it, but the manual can be downloaded through http://store.kta-ev.com/PFC2000.pdf. I'm really looking for a charger that can charge from a 110 or 220 outlet. I've got an AVCON receptacle that I'd love to take advantage of. My house only has 110AC, so I'm stuck with that limitation as well. I'm just not happy about spending another $700 right now. But who would be?


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I decided to go with simplicity and I ordered a single charger for the whole pack. It's supposedly being tweaked to charge my specific battery pack, and I should get it in the next two weeks. I guess I can sell the other chargers on ebay to get some dough back. Ugh.

I played with the adjustment screws on my controller to see how much performance I can get with it. I brought the current limit and ramp speed up until I thought the acceleration was fitting for a small sports car.  But, it's still easy to slowly drive with a light touch on the throttle. Perfect! It sure added a lot of pep to my jaunts around town.

I still need to mount and wire up the DC-DC converter and figure out and reconnect the lights. I'm going to drop off my speedo and tach at the specialty shop. The speedo needs to be fixed and the tach needs to be converted to an electric tach, so I can connect it to the speed sensor on the motor.

I'm also going to have the bumpers re-plated. It's exciting to be finishing with the EV stuff and getting into the cosmetic side of things. That means I'm almost done!


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> I decided to go with simplicity and I ordered a single charger for the whole pack. It's supposedly being tweaked to charge my specific battery pack, and I should get it in the next two weeks. I guess I can sell the other chargers on ebay to get some dough back. Ugh.
> 
> I can relate to the charger issue man as you can recall I am sure. I have had this last one for a couple months and it has been flawless. It does about 7 amps at 180 vdc max,,, I really like this one.
> 
> ...


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Whoops, too late! I opted for a 15A charger. It was $700. But, I think the faster charging time will be worth it. Thanks for the offer, though! I finally found a charger that can take 110 or 240 and it charges efficiently, if the manual is to be believed. And the price was less than $1K so that was cheaper than expected.

I'm starting to help a buddy to plan out a new build. He's got the dough to invest in a no compromise setup. I'm going to be following along your new build for tips! He's got a bunch of people helping him, including a couple of Tesla engineers, so it will surely be interesting to see it come together.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I ordered an ElCon charger on Monday. They had to program it for my battery type and voltage and send it out from the factory. I was told to expect two weeks. Yesterday it showed up. Two days instead of two weeks. Initially, I'm impressed with the product. It is made out of sturdy steel and has a number of features that I wasn't expecting. There is an automatic charging interlock for the KSI switch. All I have to do is run a wire from the charger to the controller. When it's charging it sits as 0. When it's not, it goes to pack voltage. Perfect. It's also got a temperature probe for putting in the middle of the battery pack. I don't really have a middle, but I'll strap it to a battery for good luck. The connector on the end of the charging wires was an Anderson connector. I thought "Darn, now I either have to cut this off, or go buy one." But when I moved the shipping box, I noticed a small little box inside. They had even included the other Anderson connector I was going to need. I haven't installed it or charged with it, but so far I'm impressed. Not bad for a $700 2KW charger.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

I will be watching this as I also like the idea of seperate chargers (and as Brian says if they would work!) but if this does the job without all the balance 
problems I will reconsider heading that way.. B&D smartchargers look good and don't need to be setup all the time! BUT again they are individual and need to be tested and they are in a larger case than I would like.. Keep on it!!

Dave


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

What type of batteries are you using? My flooded lead acids will definitely take some abuse, so I'm not as afraid of the unbalancing.

In general I find that multiple chargers just means a larger headache.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> What type of batteries are you using? My flooded lead acids will definitely take some abuse, so I'm not as afraid of the unbalancing.
> 
> In general I find that multiple chargers just means a larger headache.


Floodies also - this is why I am watching how they do with your new setup!

I wanted to use one 12 charge circuit and pulse it quickly to each battery - much like a reverse battery monitor... Sounds a bit undesirable - if for each battery I monitor I would turn around and give it a charge pulse from a single charger through a electronic switching arrangement. If we can use BMS to monitor why not the reverse? Might take longer to raise pack to full... 

Just another A.D.D. thought from Dave


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

A quick little update. I had my first night drive! I finally hooked up the DC-DC converter and wired up my lights. The wiring wasn't perfect, as I had to drive with my brights on and with no blinkers, but with such a small car, it's not like I was blinding anyone. I drove 20 miles round trip. I am still hesitant to bring it on the interstate, but it won't be long! After sitting for a while to let the batteries rest, the SOC gauge reads 70%. Not too shabby! I was hoping for a 50 mile range, and it looks to be about right. I'm going to have to test it a bit more, of course, but I'm very optimistic.

I'll be out of town this weekend, so no more progress until next week. But soon I'll fully test out the new charger and prepare everything for the final paint job. Then the rest of the work will be cosmetic.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Sounds great - I'll be lurking!

Dave


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

So far, so good. The charger charged all of the batteries overnight, from about 50% DOD. I don't know how long it took, but I'm sure I'll get that information in time. I'm driving it every day now, as I'm building confidence with the car. I haven't taken it on the highway yet, but perhaps soon!

Now I need to get the speedo and tach fixed, get the lights working properly, get the bumpers rechromed, align the doors, put the final paint on the car and attach all of the shiny chrome stuff, etc.

I am loving driving this EV more than I thought I would. It's peppy, smooth, quiet, and relaxing. I've got a permanent EV grin on my face when I'm riding!


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

That's what I'm talk'n about !!!! That EV grin


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I managed to get AAA to insure the vehicle! Every time I called them I got a different answer. At first, it was impossible, they didn't insure conversions. Then I was going to need an inspection from the CHP to get a green light. Now, I can get liability, but not comprehensive through them, I have to use another sub agency, which I don't fully understand. Either way, I got the liability insurance so my drives are legal!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I must say, it's getting more and more fun to drive this car. Yesterday I drove her about 40 miles round trip with plenty of hills. I was going as slow as possible coming home, but she still had a few miles left in her. The charging took over 9 hours to complete, but that's not too bad in my book.

I dropped off the front bumpers at the chrome plating business. They should be done in two weeks. The speedo and tach will take about three weeks. They're going to roll the odometer back to zero, as the conversion is a good milestone for a restart. I'm hoping to paint the vehicle next weekend. Once that is done I can start putting everything else back on. I can't wait.

Tomorrow I'm going to take some glamour shots and post them, as I realize I haven't posted any photos of the vehicle in a while.

I put another 20 EV miles on her this evening. Did I mention that I love this car?!


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Tomorrow I'm going to take some glamour shots and post them, as I realize I haven't posted any photos of the vehicle in a while.
> 
> I put another 20 EV miles on her this evening. Did I mention that I love this car?!


Definitely get those pictures up, and how about a video?


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

A video will take a bit more time to whip together, but here's the car in my backyard, smiling for the camera.


































I'm now focusing on the cosmetics of the vehicle. I'm planning on painting it next weekend. Once the final paint is on, the bumpers should be back from plating, I'll have the carpets in hand, the door panels, etc... I simply can't wait!


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

Looking good!


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## Mo_Bandy (Aug 25, 2009)

Bottomfeeder said:


> I ordered an ElCon charger on Monday. They had to program it for my battery type and voltage and send it out from the factory. I was told to expect two weeks. Yesterday it showed up. Two days instead of two weeks. Initially, I'm impressed with the product. It is made out of sturdy steel and has a number of features that I wasn't expecting. There is an automatic charging interlock for the KSI switch. All I have to do is run a wire from the charger to the controller. When it's charging it sits as 0. When it's not, it goes to pack voltage. Perfect. It's also got a temperature probe for putting in the middle of the battery pack. I don't really have a middle, but I'll strap it to a battery for good luck. The connector on the end of the charging wires was an Anderson connector. I thought "Darn, now I either have to cut this off, or go buy one." But when I moved the shipping box, I noticed a small little box inside. They had even included the other Anderson connector I was going to need. I haven't installed it or charged with it, but so far I'm impressed. Not bad for a $700 2KW charger.


Hi bottomfeeder,

Great project you have going there, I bought the PFC1500 version from KTA.. Wister is a great guy... I love this charger! I also was quite pleased with the inclusion of the Anderson connector as well. I went with Optima's but they are pretty much a stepping stone as I want to go with lithiums and I figured it best to learn on the optima's since the price is sigificantly less if I screw up LOL

I have been reading the posts and I think I know where your error was with your coilovers... They base the coils spring rate with the shock vertical, your shocks are angled like on my Corvette roughly 30 degrees...
Due to the angle of the springs and shocks the actual spring rate of 375 is only about .66 times the spring pounds per inch. (375 * .66 = 247 lbs/in.). 

So is you figure the spring rate you also have to compensate for the angle of the spring with will sigificantly reduce the actual spring rate... I have a webpage www.ndneyes.com/mo if you go to the coil over section I show the math for calculating this. I know you already have this worked out, but for the benefit of others working on a similar build it might be helpful.

Great job!

MO


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## m38mike (Dec 27, 2008)

AWRIGHT Bottomfeeder!!
I'm glad to hear you've got it running well! Man, it sure feels good when it's running! 

Thanks for the pix. I thought my jeep was tight on space. Looking at your car, I don't feel quite so cramped in my jeep now. Your car should just glide through the air. I'm anxious to see it painted up. What do you think you'll get for a top range on it once the batteries are broken in and you're driving it on a summer day?


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I'm liking it BF, Well done on getting it running and legal.

A part of me wishes I'd kept and converted my MGB.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Thanks everyone!

Mo, I did take into account the angle of the coil. I followed a well made Excell spreadsheet that the other Spitfire enthusiasts use to calculate the spring rates vs. length of spring. I don't know what happened. But, either way, I have my solution.

Mike, it is a bit cramped, but everything fit just perfectly. If the batteries were a 1/2" taller, it wouldn't have worked. But, that's why we measure! I think the range will end up being 50 miles on a good day, without showing off. I did take it on a 40 mile trip, but that included showing off, and a wrong turn up a steep hill. (I had to pull over and cool my brakes on the way down!)

Woody, I considered MGBs as well. But I fell in love with the curves of the Spitfire. That and I found a really cheap one.

I'm hoping to get it painted next week. I've got a hot date to a Halloween party, and it'd be a blast to take her in a sharp looking Spitfire. That's the goal at least!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I guess brakes and down hill runs are going to be a big issue with an EV conversion. Upgrades are going to be a must for me.

The Spitfire would also be a huge weight saving over the MGB. Mine was heavy and felt harder to push then my Land Rover.


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## MJ Monterey (Aug 20, 2009)

Bottomfeeder said:


> I did take it on a 40 mile trip, but that included showing off, and a wrong turn up a steep hill. (I had to pull over and cool my brakes on the way down!)


Have you upgraded to GT6 front brakes? You'll need the master cylinder also but it is a bolt in for large diameter brakes and better stopping!

Jack


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I haven't upgraded the brakes to GT6 brakes. But, that's still an option. There's also a conversion for rear disc brakes instead of drum. My Spit brakes do a decent job of slowing me down right now. That hill was rather extreme, and I don't travel on them very often. But, I'd surely upgrade if I were to move to San Francisco!


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## MJ Monterey (Aug 20, 2009)

I never was overly concerned with the rear brakes. If the fronts are good enough the rear tires nearly come off the ground and the brakes can not do much!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I had my front bumper straightened by the re-chroming company. I'm going to drive 14 miles on the interstate to go "try it on". It's nice to see some parts starting to come together. I'm also going to head down and pick up some varied bits and pieces from a parts guy tomorrow. He's got a packed warehouse to sort through to find the parts, but he's got them in there somewhere. I'm going to go help him look. His prices are worth the effort.

This weekend I'm beginning the final bodywork and sanding for the paint job. I'm hoping to have the paint finished by next week. Then I can start installing all of the small things that will bring this car back to it's full glory.

Meanwhile, I can hear a slight squeek coming from under the hood when the motor is turning slowly. I don't know where the noise is coming from, but I need to fix it for sure. I just hope it's something simple. Now that the car is so quiet those little noises will drive me crazy.


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

The squeak could be the brushes squeaking, they tend to do that at low speed when they're new. It will go away as they get worn in.

It could of course also be the coupler or any other spinning part so chasing it down with the garden hose stethoscope will be useful, just to be on the safe side.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

peggus said:


> The squeak could be the brushes squeaking, they tend to do that at low speed when they're new. It will go away as they get worn in.
> 
> It could of course also be the coupler or any other spinning part so chasing it down with the garden hose stethoscope will be useful, just to be on the safe side.


I just got back from a 22 mile ride on the freeway, and sure enough the squeak is now gone. Let's hope it doesn't come back. If it does, I'll be under the hood with a plastic tube.

Driving on the freeway was an experience. I can keep up with the cars on the right just fine, but the passing lanes were a bit fast for me. The faster I go the smaller the car feels. Perhaps it's just confidence, as it was when I was learning to drive the motorcycle. So far, so good.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

I had traced mine to a brush break-in and it went away after I ran it on a 12 volt battery for a while... Mine has not been on the road just squeaked and scared me also.. So I think it is common (lol I hope too!).. It is stone cold here so progress will be cold in the Northwoods on the EV!!


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

peggus said:


> The squeak could be the brushes squeaking, they tend to do that at low speed when they're new. It will go away as they get worn in.
> 
> It could of course also be the coupler or any other spinning part so chasing it down with the garden hose stethoscope will be useful, just to be on the safe side.


My car is squeaking too, I thought it was the coupler rubbing, but glad to know it may just be the motor braking itself in!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Yesterday I dropped the vehicle off at an auto body and paint shop. For a bunch of money they're going to finish the body work and paint the car. It should be done by the end of the week.

I also picked up the refurbished speedo and tachometer. They look beautiful. I still need to hook up the tach wires, but that shouldn't be too difficult. I'll finally know how fast I'm driving and how fast the motor is spinning.

Later this week I'll pick up my rechromed bumpers. I'm also picking up some original seats that will need to be re-upholstered.

There sure are lots of costly cosmetic things to pay for, but I think I'm through the worst of it. Now I just need to spend the man hours to put install everything. But, nothing is too difficult.

Hopefully I'll have pictures by the weekend.


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## Mo_Bandy (Aug 25, 2009)

Look forward to seeing them!

MO


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

DITTO to that! Let's see the pics!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I called this morning. They're doing the final paint job today, meaning it will be ready tomorrow morning. The wait is killing me!

My bumpers should be ready soon as well.

I placed an order for a whole slew of cosmetic parts, from carpet and door panels to chrome bumper bolts.

The original seats need to be reupholstered, but the metal is in great shape, very little rust, etc. Apparently Spitfire MK1 seats can fetch a high price, due to their rarity. I got mine for a relative song. I also picked up a steering wheel. It's from an MK3, but it looks much better than mine does.

My goal is to have the car looking great to pick up a cute lady-friend from the airport next week. It's going to be tight, but I think I can do it.


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## MJ Monterey (Aug 20, 2009)

The car is simple and basic you can handle it, just stay focused!

It's about 16 hours to reassemble......... I've been there. A second set of hands if you have to hang body panels is helpful.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I picked the car up from the paint shop yesterday. I was definitely impressed! The body work wasn't perfect, they missed a few dings that showed up when the paint was applied. But in general it looks great! They forgot to paint the wheels, but that's okay, I might just have some local guys spray on some white paint.


















I'm going to spend the rest of the week putting on the chrome bits that really make the car look awesome. I've already added some today, and it's coming right along. 

A box arrived full of carpet sections, door panels, etc. This is going to be one good looking car!


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Gorgeous car!


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2009)

Green  What a perfect color. like my Ghia it is green and charged with solar power 

Do you have solar to charge with? 

Pete


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

BRG was the original color of the car, so it was a bit easier to keep it green, as I don't have to worry about the places like the underside of the bonnet, under the carpet, etc...

I pay a bit extra on my electricity bill to get "green" power. Which, is 99% wind and 1% solar. If I wasn't renting, I surely would have a few PV panels up on my roof. Eventually...


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

Sexy! 

Droool....


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Fantastic, and the perfect colour. I like it very much.
Chrome wire wheels?

Shame about the minor dings that were missed. Were they supposed to do all of them? 

When I worked for a garage we would go over a car with a fine tooth comb looking for every scratch and ding and sort them all out on the under coats before we even applied top coat. Sometimes it was days of examining with a bright light and fixing before we were happy.
It was 28 years ago and cost the customers about £1500-£2000 though.


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## RKM (Jun 9, 2008)

What a difference in a quality coat of paint! Looks great. 

The plan is to get mine painted by a pro later in the week. I was talking with a friend about the possibility of painting myself. He wisely pointed out that the paint is the first impression. 

Your car looks fantastic, a head turner.

Rob


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Woody,

Sure, they were supposed to get all of the dings, but I only paid $850 for the entire job, and there were a lot of spots that they had to fix. I'm certainly not a perfectionist, and I never intended to create a show car. As long as it looks decent (and it looks awesome) I am happy. I looked into chrome wire wheels, but they aren't cheap. Maybe one day I'll upgrade to them, but for now I'll stick with my wheels, painted white of course, and the chrome hubcaps.

RKM,

I would definitely suggest taking it to a professional. Sure, it's expensive, but it's difficult for an amateur to get right. And there's nothing worse than redoing a botched paint job. 


Thanks everyone for the compliments. I've been getting a lot already, and I still haven't got tired of them.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

It is still a very nice paint job and at a reasonable cost. I would be very tempted, money permitting, to respray mine when it is ready. I do like the colour, just a shame it wouldn't suit my more modern vehicle shape.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> They forgot to paint the wheels, but that's okay, I might just have some local guys spray on some white paint.


I have a friend who does powder coat and if you can find someone in your neck of the woods that does that - do it it !!! they sandblast off the rust and powder coat in colors that you can beat with a hammer ! hard to rust again 

Car looks great!!!!!! Love the green!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

More showing off:
















I've still got to put in the newly re-upholstered seats, but things are moving right along. I hope to have the hardtop ready soon for installation, so I can keep everything dry during the "rainy season" here in Southern California.


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## electromet (Oct 20, 2009)

That's one sharp looking EV. Congratulations on a job well done. I've always been a big fan of British cars. I'm assuming you didn't rely on any Lucas components where it counts. I'm hoping my Metropolitan turns out as clean as your Spit.

Mike


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## MJ Monterey (Aug 20, 2009)

Now I want to go dig mine out of storage..........


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

wow!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

electromet said:


> That's one sharp looking EV. Congratulations on a job well done. I've always been a big fan of British cars. I'm assuming you didn't rely on any Lucas components where it counts. I'm hoping my Metropolitan turns out as clean as your Spit.
> 
> Mike


After I bought my Spit I found a couple of great looking Metros that needed restoration. I thought they'd make a great conversion. I look forward to seeing your final product.


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## electromet (Oct 20, 2009)

I've had my Met for about twelve years and have been looking for some inspiraton to restore the car. I'd driven it very little with the ICE before the right side steering idler decided to pull away from the unibody. It's been on jack stands since then. I've started a disc brake conversion, and am trying to sort out a rack & pinion steering arrangement that will mount above the motor (probably 9-10"). I'm going to pull the column-shift tranny and replace it with a small 5-speed. The rear axle ratio has been changed fron 4.22 to 3.9. With the motor and trans moved back in the chassis about 6", that should leave room in front of the motor for batteries. Ideally, the centerline of the batteries will be behind the centerline of the front axle. The car will be an in town cruiser, and my wife is looking forward to driving it to work. 

Mike


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## Guest (Nov 3, 2009)

Lookin very nice. 

Pete


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Yesterday I finally got around to adding water to my batteries. I was lazy and the water had gotten a little low. Some of the cells had just the tops of the lead exposed! Whoops. I haven't noticed any problems, but I definitely want to avoid that. During the watering ritual, it gives me time to look over the car and try to find potential problems (rubbing cables, etc). I found a broken bolt on the battery frame that holds up 4 batteries. The other 5 bolts were fine, and there didn't seem to be any other damage, but I'm definitely going to replace the bolt with a grade 8 bolt. It must've popped off during a spirited turn or possibly a harsh bump. It's good to know your vehicle's limits!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Well, it looks like I'm in for some major surgery. The transmission got jammed somehow in 3rd gear. I pulled the top of the transmission to find out what type of fix it would be.








That splayed out gear is the 3rd gear synchro. It seems that I need to pull the whole thing out and rebuild it. I'm taking this as an excuse to pull out the whole transmission and go direct drive. I'm confident that it will be fine, as I was routinely driving around in 4th gear before the transmission got stuck in 3rd.

Here's the plan:
Mate the motor to the transmission's rear extension. This will allow me to still use the speedo drive, as well as the transmission mount etc. I'll need to swap out a wet bearing for a sealed bearing so I can get rid of the oil.
The motor will need a new mount on the rear end, but that can be fabricated using some proper motor mounts.
I will use the gear selector to act as the switch for the reversing contactor. (I'm a fan of keeping the stock look of the car. And having no gear selector in a british sports car might be against some international regulations.)
I'll need to figure out a good way to do forced air cooling of the motor.
The rest of the vehicle will stay the same for now. I hope that such a fix will take a couple of months. I'll have progress updates as things move along.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Ouch! and haven't seen much action from this thread glad to see ya here - but not good to see the transmission like that!...


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Nasty bit of damage.

Just a thought. 

Can you get hold of a lower ratio rear axle? There is a 4.11:1 in some models and also the 4.875:1 from the Triumph Herald that might fit.

Then get an overdrive gear box and use the overdrive and tailshaft from that. It will give you a two speed on a gear knob switch and maybe easier ratios for hills.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

My diff is already 4.11. And, as I said before it's fine for driving in 4th gear. I have no problems going up hills at all. I may have to go a bit slower than normal up a steep one, but that's fine, this is a great car to cruise slowly in!

An overdrive unit would be expensive, and further complicate this project. And I'm not convinced I need the complexity.

Thanks for the advice though.

I'm definitely going to need help with the forced air cooling...

-D


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I made some progress on Thursday. The first thing I had to do was get the motor and transmission out. I pulled all of the batteries off of the motor so I could get to it. 








I didn't have an engine hoist handy, so I improvised one with a 2"x6" plank, some chain, and two friends. It wasn't the heaviest thing I've ever lifted, but it was close. After about 5 minutes of heaving and guiding the transmission out, we got everything out successfully.








I did a quick test to make sure the motor will fit deeper into the tunnel. Sure enough, it will fit snug as a bug. Access won't be easy, but I'll just make sure everything is right before putting it in there...

Progress feels good.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

So how far can you get the motor into the tunnel? Will there be enough room to put the batteries between the wheels at chassis level?


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I can probably put one battery at chassis level in front of the motor. But, since I'm already thinking of upgrading to Lithiums, it's hard to worry too much about the optimization of the weight distribution.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Good news and bad news. And the bad news is really good news in disguise. First the bad news...

My coupler was loose as a goose. The set screw holding the keyway had backed out. I must've forgotten to put Loctite on everything. The bolts holding the clutch plate also had backed out a bit, letting the pins that hold the clutch springs fall out. I think this is the source of my low speed motor squeaking. And since I'll be replacing this whole contraption with a simpler solution in my direct drive set up. I don't have to worry about this anymore. 









Now the good news: so far everything is falling in place for the direct-drive setup to work perfectly. The rear extension housing seems to solve a few problems at once. It's got a nice bearing, the speedo cable setup, mounting flanges, and it's built to mate to the driveshaft. I took it off of the transmission, and I can tell its going to work beautifully.

















I cleaned everything up and found out it's actually aluminum. First I'm going to replace the bearing with a sealed bearing. Then I'm going to machine down the shaft to accept a shaft coupler. If I find the right coupler, I may put in a keyway. It's about an inch (I'm not sure yet), so it's a little smaller than the 1 1/8" output of the motor shaft.

I also used a concrete pouring tube to simulate the motor in the transmission tunnel. It's got just enough clearance in all directions. So, the new layout will fit without any major modifications.









So far so good!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Lucky you found the loose coupling before it caused any major damage.

The tailshaft housing will 'scrub up' nicely to make it look the part with the motor too.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I've got some plans on how I'm going to mate the motor to the mainshaft. I'll post progress on that soon, hopefully.

But, I'm curious about using a blower for the motor. Does anyone have any suggestions for which size blower to use? I've found a $10 12V blower with 60CFM. Or should I shoot for a $50 240CFM blower? I suppose I could spend some more time looking, but eventually I'll have to pick something and start figuring out how I'm going to put it in.

Thanks for any advice.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Have you had a look at Todd's Inhaler project? He is fitting a blower. Towards the end of the thread he mentions what the CFM is so that may give you a starting point to decide how big and how much you need in comparison.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Todd's really going overkill on the blower. But I wonder by how much? Hmmm... Perhaps I can simply measure the temperature of my motor and upgrade the blower as needed.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Todd's really going overkill on the blower. But I wonder by how much? Hmmm... Perhaps I can simply measure the temperature of my motor and upgrade the blower as needed.


This help? 

http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showpost.php?p=172114&postcount=1


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## elanmel (May 3, 2010)

Congrats on getting your direct drive project underway, and thanks also for the time you took with me a few weeks ago to show me your great project! One of the things I have enjoyed about my early experiences with the EV world has been how generous everyone has been with education, advice and resources....

The idea of using the rear section of the transmission has several obvious benefits; as in so much of my planned project, I am going to copy this idea from you too! One thing I learned yesterday was that the early Triumph trannies had shorter transfer cases than the later ones (I measured 12-1/4" from back of the tranny case to the u-joint)--if you have difficulty fitting the motor under the shroud with the case you have, you may be able to use a later one. However, the u-joint is also slightly different (round 3-3/8"), so that might have to be swapped as well.

Of course, this would also compromise your great efforts to keep the car as original as if Triumph built it electric from the factory!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I'm not worried about the stuff under the hood (obviously) so whatever works, I'll use. My rear extension is long enough for the motor to not get in the way of the transmission cover. It's got at least an inch in all directions, which seems just about right, in my book. Of course, people won't be able to see the motor when I show it off, but that's a relatively small problem overall. I'll be posting my progress as I go. I just bought a bunch of metal from Industrial Metal Supply, so I can start making the front motor mount, as well as the rear adaptor plate.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I've been making a lot of progress on the Spitfire. But, I've been documenting it on my personal blog lately, and it's tough to describe it twice for some reason.

You can check it out at:
http://www.danielbusby.com
All of my EV related stuff is organized in the Sparkfire category.

I just dropped off the newly painted wheels at the shop, they'll be put on soon. Pictures to follow.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Back on the road! Direct drive is great! I gave it a test drive last night, and drove it to work this morning. At freeway speeds there is a slight buzz of vibration. But, it's minimal. The speedometer conked out on me after 2 miles, but I'm not sure why. I'm going to peek in there and see if it chewed up my nylon gears, which is always a possibility.

In the long run, I may have to rebuild my machined mainshaft in order to get the speedometer working and vibration quelled. But, I don't need to worry about it right now. I think I can change the mainshaft without pulling the motor out of the vehicle even.

It's nice to have the EV grin back...


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Now that is great news!  !

More pics LOL........


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

For now, you can have at the whole album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/busby.daniel/Sparkfire#

Let me know if that doesn't work.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

This weekend I decided to give my Spitfire a "birthday". There were a few problems creeping in concerning the vehicle, and I finally had some free moments to address them.

Here are the problems I had: 

1. The 12V system had a current leak somewhere. My workaround was to disconnect the small battery every time I stop the car. But, if I forget to do this, I would have to "jump" the solenoid off of one of the traction batteries. Finding and fixing the short is a much better solution.

2. Corrosion around the batteries. The acid spray coming out of my battery pack was causing some of the battery mounts to corrode a bit. Better to deal with this soon, before it eats through part of the body.

3. This same acid was allowing for shorts to the vehicle frame in a couple of spots, discharging batteries, as well as making the corrosion worse.

I pulled all of the batteries out and scrubbed them with baking soda and water. It was interesting to see the solution immediately bubble up wherever acid was present. I gave 'em all a good rinse and they looked good as new. I also scrubbed the battery mounts a bit. Some of the mounts had lost their paint a bit and are starting to show some signs of surface rust. I plan on pulling the battery mounts out at some point, so I can put in some Lithiums, but that may be a few years off still. I also soaked my nylon straps in baking soda water, as they were acidic and allowing current to flow and corrosion to develop. I don't suggest a strap that wicks fluid in it. But once again, in my mind this is a short term solution.

As for the 12V drain, here's what I did. I put my current meter in line with the battery ground. The current settled around 750mA. Then it's a matter of disconnecting things until the current drops. Then find out why it's shorting and fix it. It definitely wasn't a problem before, so something had failed. I have a terminal block that all of the current for my vehicle passes through. I unplugged the wire that goes to all of my vehicle's normal car electrics (lights, wipers, etc). No change on the meter. When I unplugged the Iota DC-DC power supply, the current dropped to 0mA. Oh no! Something is leaking current inside of my DC-DC. I'm not sure exactly what to do about this, so I'm going to continue my disconnect method. But, at least I've isolated the problem. Any suggestions on how to fix it? Has anyone seen this problem before? I'm going to try and contact Iota about it.

One odd problem that I haven't been able to figure out is where the short to the car frame is. The frame of the car is not isolated from the batteries, and it's not clear where that short is coming from at all. I'm going to continue working on this problem soon. But, these problems sometimes require a lot of work to figure out.

I also finally mounted the charging inlet in the gas cap. It's definitely a much sexier way to charge. No more cords dangling out of the trunk.

Pictures will be uploaded soon.


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## MJ Monterey (Aug 20, 2009)

If the DC-DC converter is leaking on the 12 v side. I would start My high voltage check there also. 

You may have a gremlenoid dust bunny hiding in the case  
Also check for Lucas Components in the Converter

Al kidding aside, Glad to hear you have been able to enjoy it long and often enough to find the issues


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

All the Iota DC-DC power supplies will bleed your 12 volt... I think we had a thread on here somewhere on all of those issues and I think I even put some on my thread (below my signature) on the mods for an Iota.... I have mine only come on with the first contactor. A 70 amp DC relay comes on then on the 12 volt side of the Iota to the 12 volt battery.


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## Alexander_B (Oct 19, 2010)

I must say, I absolutely love your build  I had/have a (cheap) donor spitfire in my sights, when I spotted yours here, very very nice  read the thread from front to back too 

now to get a suitable e-motor and battery setup and some room to work first, then I'll go pick up the donor car (or get another spit, this one is 300 miles round trip away, and doesn't have a gas engine (thats why its so cheap) so that would mean renting a car-ambulance.

keep up the good work


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

That's not a bad solution, Dave. I'll have to get a 70A (or similar) relay and wire that in. Sure beats replacing the DC-DC converter.

Thanks, Alexander. I'm glad you like my conversion. I'll look for your thread when you start building yourself. The flat Netherlands would be a perfect place to have an EV. And the more EV Spits on the road the more Spitfires stay on the road.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Here's a pic of some of the corrosion on the battery mounts. I cleaned it off with baking soda and water to neutralize everything. I'm just glad its not on the body of the car.









More of the same: 









Here's me getting ready to glue the 110 inlet into the gas cap.









And what it looks like while charging:









(Gosh it sure needs a wash!)


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## The Toecutter (May 30, 2010)

I love this build. I still have yet to read all of the posts in this topic; I'll likely have a lot of questions when I am done.

You should build under body paneling and a grill block for this car. The Spitfire, being a convertible, is also a ripe candidate for a custom fastback hardtop that is optimized for the lowest possible drag.

These things have potential for extremely low drag; just note Jigsaw Racing's ADU1B LeMans Spitfire replica that could do 138 mph on the Mulsanne Straight with only 111 bhp. This is a CdA of about 4.5 sq ft, a CdA better than a first generation Honda Insight. You could get some serious range with a body like that... you'd need less than 120 Wh/mile to do 60 mph with the right LRR tires added.

The GT6 has a 'similar' body right from the factory, but it is handicapped with rain gutters and chrome trim pieces, and a more stylized front end(all bad for drag); an exceptionally efficient conversion can still be made from one, and Reverend Gadget chose to use a GT6 body for his Spitfire specifically for this purpose(It is one of those rare sub 120 Wh/mile EVs). A custom hardtop would be even better, but is something not possible with a GT6. I prefer the LeMans look, myself, and am modifying my GT6 to have that appearance, but with rear wheel skirts and other aero tweaks added.


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## Alexander_B (Oct 19, 2010)

The Toecutter said:


> I love this build. I still have yet to read all of the posts in this topic; I'll likely have a lot of questions when I am done.
> 
> You should build under body paneling and a grill block for this car. The Spitfire, being a convertible, is also a ripe candidate for a custom fastback hardtop that is optimized for the lowest possible drag.
> 
> ...


fastbacks are good for aero, good point. on the other hand, they decrease straight line stability (easy to fishtail at high speed) so be carefull.


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## PatricioIN (Jun 13, 2008)

that sure looks like a lot of corrosion. are you sure you're not overcharging or over filling them?


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## The Toecutter (May 30, 2010)

Alexander_B said:


> fastbacks are good for aero, good point. on the other hand, they decrease straight line stability (easy to fishtail at high speed) so be carefull.


A properly sized dorsal fin can mitigate this nicely, without adding any noticeable amount of drag, as can a properly angled rear diffuser. Of course, without wind tunnel access you have no way of knowing how much these things impact the vehicle, until you drive it at those speeds...


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## Alexander_B (Oct 19, 2010)

The Toecutter said:


> A properly sized dorsal fin can mitigate this nicely, without adding any noticeable amount of drag, as can a properly angled rear diffuser. Of course, without wind tunnel access you have no way of knowing how much these things impact the vehicle, until you drive it at those speeds...


correct, and a little wing (more pressure on back wheels) could also help, with the disadvantage of more drag. look at the 60's supercars, pretty much all of them have a little "ski ramp" modeled into the rear of the body, and all of them are fastback design, I guess they didn't know about diffuser back then.
















and I'm pretty sure corvettes of the day had the same thing.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

PatricioIN said:


> that sure looks like a lot of corrosion. are you sure you're not overcharging or over filling them?


I might've over filled the battery with the worst corrosion. As for over-charging, I'm not sure. I've got a 2kW Elcon charger and it has a preset charge curve for my chemistry and battery size. I'm not sure how I would get around that.

I'm going to be more careful with the overfilling in the future.

Thanks!


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Thanks for the praise and suggestions! I am definitely planning on putting in a grill block. But first I need to clean up my Aluminum grills (the block will go behind it, for cosmetic reasons). I also want to install two charging ports in the front. An Avcon port (there are AVCON chargers still around LA, believe it or not) and a new port that will be put on the Leaf, for when the new standard of chargers hits the streets. My goal is to keep the car looking stock as much as possible, so I have to figure out a way to flip down one side of the grill to access the charging ports. Spring loaded hinges are my first solution. I just need to do some fabricating.

I was just discussing a body pan earlier today. I am thinking of riveting in some polypropylene. I already have a factory hard top, and although it's not optimized for aerodynamics, it definitely helps. Current draw at 60mph goes down by 20-30% with the top up. Winter is coming upon us, even here in Southern California, so it will go up soon. I probably won't do too many other body mods. I like the stock look, and optimizing the range is only one of my goals.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

If you can find plastic trays or make them to catch that mess might help...

I do not like series chargers - I like individual chargers that charge overnight and do it in slow steps like *Genius 4 Bank Battery Charger*

.. I mean on LA batteries... I too have to wait for LiFeYPo4...


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I've been saving my money furiously, and I've finally got enough for a Lithium battery pack. I'm organizing a group buy with some other EVers here in Los Angeles. I'm going to need some help with choosing the batteries of course, but don't we all. I'm leaning towards 160Ah Thunderskys. But, I'll wait until January before making a final decision.

One of the concerns I have is with my Logisystem 120-144V 750A controller. My LA batts are 120V right now, but I'd love to upgrade to 144V if I could. I've heard of people having trouble when their Logisystem controllers are pushed to their limits. I couldn't find info on this forum though, but that's probably because I didn't spend enough time searching. Do you think 144V is a good idea? If not, which voltage should I go with. I'm going to have to get a new charger for the Lithiums anyway.

I'm planning on going with a miniBMS system to help protect my investment. The high and low voltage cut off alone seem worth the money.

I won't have to make these decisions for at least a month, so in the meantime, I'm open for opinions.


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## elanmel (May 3, 2010)

I did a quick search of the evalbum, and found a number of cars with Logisystem 750A controllers with 144v packs--including lithium. 

I have not searched the forums yet, but would love to know what part is the weak link in these controllers (mine's been rebuilt, but not used since the rebuild last year). 144V would have some advantages vs. less...especially if I go for the 100 ah cells...


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

From what I've read it is the controls, at least some models that were dissected lacked over current protection and over temperature protection.
The power-stage and cooling isn't a particularly good design either but it works and should hold up if properly protected. 

Here's a dissection:
http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forum...d-counting-43075p2.html?highlight=logisystems

Someone on here interfaced a ReVolt control board to their logisystems controller, not sure what the final result was but it might be interesting to try since these controllers can be had for so cheap.

To spare your controller, turn down the current pot, if you have one. No fun, I know. 
You can also try to maximize the cooling, perhaps liquid cooling.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

In other news, my company has installed chargers in the parking lot. We make them, so it's been a long time coming.

Here's a photo of it sucking juice on the company dime:









Woot!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Great photo! 

You'd have thought your company would have had them installed ages ago as an example of their product in long term use.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Tell me about it! I think the installation was sped up by the impending arrival of the VP's brand new Leaf.

We've got three EVs amongst the employees right now, and a few more will arrive once the Leafs start rolling off the boat. So, we'll likely need to expand our charging capabilities very quickly!

If anyone is interested in converting their cars to charge off of the new J1772 chargers that are being installed around the country, here's a great start: http://jackrickard.blogspot.com/2011/01/j1772-2009-charging-for-your-ev.html


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

I only had to wait two years from the the day my supervisor told me we'd have outlets in the parking lot in a couple of weeks.....Oh well, we're charging now!


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Nice...... - The stations have a credit card slot - right ?


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## PatricioIN (Jun 13, 2008)

Very cool! :d


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## Tahoe Tim (Feb 20, 2010)

What is the charge station brand? website?


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## peggus (Feb 18, 2008)

Aerovironment


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## Tahoe Tim (Feb 20, 2010)

You work for them?

I'm curious because our company is certified to install the Leaf chargers whenever they come to town later this year. I didn't realize they had a non-Leaf product. If you have a contact, I would like to pursue this offline.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Well, I finally did it. I drove over to Pomona, CA and picked up 45 CALB 130Ah cells. I've got a ton of work to do in getting the batteries to fit inside the vehicle, but it's much easier to fit them in with the actual batteries in hand. I'm going to try and get as much done as I can before taking the vehicle off the road, as my back up ICE truck died recently. I might have to endure a week or two of borrowing cars and bicycling. But, that will surely give me the drive to get this vehicle back on the road.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

I got the data from the factory concerning the internal resistance and capacity of each cell. The lowest reported capacity is 150Ah. Not bad for 130Ah cells. If this is true, I might get as much as 80 miles on a single charge! That's close to the range of the Nissan Leaf! The resistance varies from .31 to .77 mΩ. I'm not sure how they measured that resistance, so it doesn't mean too much to me, yet.

We're going to start charging and testing the batteries soon, so we'll have good confirmation of CALB's testing procedures.

I can't wait to put these into my car! The car is feeling more and more sluggish every day. I can't wait to lose those 400lbs.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Last night, Peggus, and I wired up all of the batteries on the bench and did the initial charge. (Many, many thanks to Peggus for his selfless help!) It took us a while to wire it up, but we didn't blow anything up! We're using our company's own BMS system known as SmartGaurd. I don't think they're available to the public, unfortunately.

We fired up a 10 Amp charge at first, just to make sure everything was working properly. We were recording all 45 voltages via CAN data straight into the computer. I'll post some detailed plots once we take some capacity and impedance measurements.

During the 50A charge we felt the bus bars with the back of our hands. Many of the bolts were getting quite hot. It was worth noting that it was only the positive terminals, which are aluminum. We had tightened them down adequately, but some tiny bit of corrosion was causing plenty of contact resistance. Lesson #1: Sand and clean your aluminum connections! Use a product like Noalox to prevent the corrosion from returning. Most of the warm contacts did not look bad upon visual inspection. After some light sandpapering, those connections cooled back down easily. We were losing 20-30mV per dodgy connection during the 50A charge.

I'm sure there will be more lessons learned during the impedance and capacity measurements we're going to do on Sunday.

Tonight I'm going to pull my motor out of the car to rebuild the driveshaft. I'm sure I'll have fun photos of that process as well.


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

The first capacity test done last week yielded 130Ah for the pack. While that is certainly within spec for the 130Ah batteries, the data from the factory testing puts the batteries at 150Ah. So, it was oddly disappointing to meet spec. But, it was clear that the batteries weren't very well balanced after all. So, I charged up the batteries as a pack (while using a power resistor to discharge the highest battery at any given point). Then I rewired all of the batteries to be in parallel:








I charged them with a low voltage, high current power supply over night. The charging takes a while, but I was patient. The next day the batteries closest to the charger were at 3.595V, while the batteries furthest for charger where at 3.570 or so. I stopped the charge and let the batteries equalize on their own for another 4 hours.

Now, all of the batteries are within 5 mV of each other. At the steep end of the charging curve, this doesn't represent much of an SOC difference.

The batteries are once again ready for rewiring in series for a capacity measurement. Hopefully I'll have the time tonight to get this done.

Right now I'm renting a car while this EV is in the shop. So there's a $25/day penalty for procrastination. That's a great way to find motivation, by the way!


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## The Toecutter (May 30, 2010)

Have you had a chance to test the range of it with this pack yet, and if so, how well did it do? What about efficiency?


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