# Woody's EV Project



## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

I don't yet have any suggestions for what you should do except that I would *love* to see a wooden EV! Even if it is not *all* wood, but still styled in it, just to see a lovingly-made electric horseless carriage would be wonderful. 
________
WANKMYHUGECOCK live


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

For a woodie I was thinking of steel chassis rails to hold the mechanical bits and batteries under the floor and a roll over hoop. The whole thing would then be clothed in angular ply panels to look a bit like the Apache helicopter or the T-Rex so it would be a single seater with luggage or a small seat behind. Not so much horseless carriage really.

I would use an MGB front suspension member and shaft drive motorbike rear wheel to make it a reverse trike.

A simple conversion would be easier though.


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## fritzgutten (Jul 4, 2009)

Hey Woody, yes a conversion would be mush easier without having a shop to work in. 
If you havent yet, you might want to check out the plans built vortex. I've only seen gassers but for the most part, the chassis is plywood built, with a fiberglass overlay. the drive and suspension bits are steel.
theres a huge weight and complexity issue with doing the fiberglass overlay though.
there are other wood based trikes out there as well. you can check out reversetrike.com to see whats out there.
fred


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

The options on whether to build or convert will wait until I am there and I will then see how it goes. The lack of covered space is an issue, Manchester isn't known as the rainy city for nothing!

In the meantime I have very roughly mocked up the mechanical speed controller as featured in this thread.
I did it as simply as possible using some 22mm copper water pipe cut and then glued to a 20mm pvc conduit with some epoxy.
The 12v supply went to the moving contact and the fixed contact at the bottom end of the controller went to the motor.

The copper tube doesn't need to be full length but it saved the trouble of maintaining the diameter across the cut.

You can't really see the speed of the gear motor very well due to the resolution of my camera phone, however, you can hear the sound of it speeding up and slowing down.
Here's the video:

As you can see it is very low budget and made from the scraps bin.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

That's fantastic! Well done!

Si


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

SimonRafferty said:


> That's fantastic! Well done!
> 
> Si


I was looking at the amount of arcing and thinking how cool that would look in a glass tube mounted in the dash. It would be an easy way to monitor brush wear and provide a 'Back to the Future - flux capacitor' effect!

Anyway, I figured that if I had two micro switches fitted on I could have one at the 'no throttle' end to switch the controller drive off and another at the 'full throttle' end to switch in a short circuit contactor to take the controller out of circuit and switch off the controller motor again. That way the controller motor only spins during part throttle settings and the controller doesn't need to carry the full throttle currrent.


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## order99 (Sep 8, 2008)

Well, I have nothing to add, except:

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/08/16/build-your-own-mahogany-sports-car/

Not quite what you're planning, but perhaps you can get some ideas about the chassis.

Given my own current budget though, i'll be lucky to get one of these:

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/10/19/rubber-bands-run-this-flivver/


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

order99 said:


> Given my own current budget though, i'll be lucky to get one of these:
> 
> http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/10/19/rubber-bands-run-this-flivver/


That's about my budget too!

I like the woody build link too but I was thinking along the lines of the Africar from 1984 for plywood simplicity though this Hispano-Suiza would be much more fun to make.


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> though this Hispano-Suiza would be much more fun to make.


That one's awesome! I don't want to know how long time it took to build it and I definitely don't want to consider how it'll handle a collision, but it's beautiful.

About the mechanical motor control, drop that idea. It's one thing to run a few Volts and Watts through a tube for fun and quite different when you start to get into SERIOUS power. Get a cheap Curtis on E-bay instead.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Qer said:


> About the mechanical motor control, drop that idea. It's one thing to run a few Volts and Watts through a tube for fun and quite different when you start to get into SERIOUS power. Get a cheap Curtis on E-bay instead.


I probably will do but the playing is a good learning curve that cost nothing and it does show me in a very physical sense how PWM works and where the limiations are.

As I get the components together I will see what I can afford to buy and what I can afford the time to experiment with. Good controllers are expensive but if a kit of bits or a comprehensive design plan was available I could then have a shopping list of electronic components to buy and assemble.

However, I would still be interested in seeing how a properly built mechanical controller with carbon brush contacts would cope with more power and where its limitations were. If nothing else it would make a good college teaching aid to demonstrait PWM at a base level.


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## OHM (Jun 30, 2008)

I still think not everyone in poorer countries or with limited
budgets can aim for expensive and non self-servicing controllers.
This is an interest of mine as I still believe Lead acid batteries
can work in the right setup for a 40-60 mile range vehicle that
has lower technology and efficiency but easy to be locally repaired.
If a modern controller fails you end up waiting weeks of months
for repairs or replacements and with an old controller you could
be back on the road with a little sandpaper or hands on with the
right knowledge and care.

I wouldnt mind seeing a perfected mechanical controller.
I did ask someone to make a contactor controller for me
based on his perfected design but has used my funds to
build something totally different from his original design
calling it an all-in-one prototype which I never requested.

Hopefully someone succeeds in a mechanical controller that
can help the poor to economical electrical transportation.
If such a controller is available online for others to build there
could be more EVs out there instead of polluting clunkers.


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

OHM said:


> I still think not everyone in poorer countries or with limited
> budgets can aim for expensive and non self-servicing controllers.


The price is much because controllers are built more or less by hand and in small series. The price for the components also keeps dropping so that, in combination with a (hopefully) raising demand, should affect the price in a good way.



OHM said:


> If a modern controller fails you end up waiting weeks of months for repairs or replacements and with an old controller you could be back on the road with a little sandpaper or hands on with the right knowledge and care.


On the other hand, controllers shouldn't fail. If you do a good design that's well tested it shouldn't break more than any other core part in the car. There's literally tons of controllers out in the industry and they're quite reliable and well-proven by now. And, of course, why we see weeks or months now is because demands is bigger than supply. If people are gonna use EV's for every day's use these parts has to be on the shelf, just like any other spare part for a car.

A mechanical controller will fail more often because they will wear down. Also, to get a PWM of 8 kHz means the bar has to spin with 480000 rpm! At 6000 rpm you will get 100 Hz which will probably mean a rather jerky ride plus that it will put quite some strain on batteries (you can't get a cap pack for that frequency), motor, drive train etc, not to mention it's a dumb controller that can't react smoothly on over current etc so people are likely to burn things up (like the motor).

Forget about it. A mechanical controller is definitely nothing but a DIY-toy today.


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## OHM (Jun 30, 2008)

With NSK type bearings as the only expensive part can they help with the speed issue?
Some NSK bearings are rated at 5000hrs of continuous use at 50,000rpm.
How big does the copper bar have to be for ideal operation?


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

There are a number of issues around controllers both in terms of cost, reliability and kindness to the motor and battery pack.

My gut feelings is that anything electro-mechanical, no matter how it is made will have some reliability issues. Even electric motors will require brush replacement and commutator cleaning to maintain its best performance.
reliability comes from being one or the other but not really both. I reckon that an electronic controller that is looked after will require no maintenence or repair. The sealed bearings in a motor will, likewise, also require almost no maintenence or repair if they are not over stressed.
Where the two meet, electricity and mecanical movement, there will be a constant need for servicing and inspection.
That will be the case for a speed controller whether it is made from a rotating cylinder or a set of contactors.

The advantage I can see in the mechanical controller does lie in very low cost and ease or repair in use.
For the time being if I was to be in a position where I wanted to have a failsafe I would have a mechanical speed controller and a box of spares but that is only because of the cost of carrying a whole spare electronic controller for lack of testing equipiment for repairing one. Also it is because I can repair just about anything mechanical and nothing electronic. An electronics person may dispute the ease of repair I speak of because of their own expertise.

However, a well made and modular, sealed, electronic controller would probably never fail. And if it is made as two or three sealed units then that would make any repair or adaptation easier and potentially cheaper. This does lead to it becoming a throwaway device with the corresponding waste of resources.

There are no easy answers.
If an electronic controller was to only cost $200 all in as a standardised part that required a standard pot input and had a rated output and a standard display output that worked on a standard display screen then things would be great. That will come in time if manufacturers were to standardise their interfaces and had sufficient market to bring the price down.

In the meantime mechanical is a great learning tool that may find itself in an experimantal off road fun/development vehicle. If I were to 'perfect' it then it might get on the road, I would like that. But the investment may not be economically viable as I really do want, not only reliability but, ease of use. I don't want to spend all my commuting time fussing over my speed controller, I want to take it for granted. I am not sure I can afford that right now though, but equally I am not sure I can afford not to if I want to have a reliable motor and a lithium battery pack.

I feel that the investment in components has to be matched. It would be a waste of money to have the best of one thing and a bodge on another except in the development stage.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

OHM said:


> With NSK type bearings as the only expensive part can they help with the speed issue?
> Some NSK bearings are rated at 5000hrs of continuous use at 50,000rpm.
> How big does the copper bar have to be for ideal operation?


Cross posted.
There wouldn't be an ideal really, just big compromise. The bearing would never be the problem any more then they would be on the vehicle drive motor. The problem would lie in the moving parts of the system. From what I have seen in my simple test rig and from my experience of electric motor repairs it is the moving brush that would be the main issue. If the brush stayed still then the wear on the copper would be low, as it is on a motor commutator, as it would bed in. It is the constant and irregular speed change movement that causes uneven wear on the brush and copper. That leads to greater arcing that accelerates the wear.

I servicable controller would require a quick replacement copper cylinder and brush set. The rest of the system would be fine.


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## OHM (Jun 30, 2008)

thats what I was looking at, Id be happy to change the points, sparkplugs and adjust the timing so to speak once in a while knowing that I can. This is better than a Curtis, Electrosystem, Warpcore or whatever affordable modern controller would be if it had to be shipped back over oceans for a replacement or repair.

Surely an understatement to someone in a third world country running some kind of tuk tuk EV or goatless cart.

The commutacar and ev1 did it with contactor controllers, not the most efficient way but more reliably than most EVs out there.


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

OHM said:


> ...but more reliably than most EVs out there.


You probably should say "...but more reliable than most DIY-EVs out there."

As far as I know, for example RAV4-EV is considered a rather reliable car and some of those has been on the road for over 10 years without popping the controller. And, of course, the whole industry has moved from contactors to transistors to get *more* reliable controllers, not less. 

Finally, electromechanics isn't cheap as well. It quickly adds up when you start to put it all together.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Shall we shift the reliability and usefullness of electronic vs electro-mechanical controllers to the thread in the controllers forum?

I am interested in the discussion but I don't want it to be the dominant factor here. I see it as a good learning curve, as I have said, and there are pros and cons on both sides. I will err on the side of a mechanical system being easy for _me_ to repair but I also believe that a well made and encapsulated electronic controller would probably not need any repair at all but costs more at the moment.




In the meantime....

I went out with an ex girlfriend today, no no, nothing funny going on. She has been thinking of trading in her car for something larger. Also her son now has a replacement car for his one which is no longer running. It means that, if I play this right (again no funny business), I might have the choice of a 1997 VW Polo 1.4 or a 2000 Nissan Micra 1.0 to convert.
The Polo is a little battered and needs a bit of body work to make it look good but it is a non runner and so scrap value on a good day.
The Micra is a fantastic runner and in excellent condition with only a tiny area of corrosion just begining underneath so still has a fair trade in value.

I don't know if either would be suitable for what I want but at least I know both cars are honest and not messed about with.

Any thoughts about these options would be good. I will check the garage to see if there are any existing conversions of these.

Cheers,
Alfred


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## OHM (Jun 30, 2008)

Glad to hear you will persist this logical route Alfred. 
You never know what could come of experimentation.

On the Polo vs Micra front.
The Polo would be easier to convert as they have the same box 
as the Golf which kits should be available for, but apart from that 
they are not as well put together as the Micra in quality.
The Polos trim age ungracefully making it look tatty faster.
The gearbox are known to be full of gremlins.
Electronics are not far off the Lucas days.

I would check for the Micra clubs to see if someone has done an 
conversion to EV if going the micra route.
The Micra has classic well rounded lines, should be lighter than the Polo as a glider, 
In japan they are collectables so after market parts are plentiful.
Electronics are excellent and the body alignment of the panels is superior
to the Polo. Its also a preferred Micra model over the newer ones in Japanese 
Micra forums due to its lines and overall package.
Aerodynamics should be superior also.

However it depends if you have access to a cvt or manual version of the Micra? 
I keep thinking what would be of a cvt mated to an industrial engine with a simple 
controller that runs at it optimun rpm range thanks to the cvt.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks for that info, OHM.

Both the cars have 5 speed manual gear boxes and the Micra is also manual steering and windows and no aircon. I don't know if the Polo has power steering yet as the lad wasn't in to ask.

The Micra is definately the nicer of the two but the only EV Micra I could find is this 1988 model. 
I will have to wait for the Micra and probably stump up a decent bit of cash for it. I do have the advantage that the ICE bits are good so may sell for some funds. I can also drive it the 35 miles home. I'm not sure that there would be enough space to locate batteries without using the back seat space though.

The Polo will probably be free or a beer or three but it needs a door, a bumper, at least two wheel rims and four tyres, replacement door locks, brake service, I think a wheel bearing and a suspension bush and CV boot/joint. It also has a full length Webasto sun roof which is nice but may also leak and add to drag, it may also get slashed where I go to work. It is a non runner so will need to be recovered home and also it is covered with Police stickers for abandonment.

Overall I am tempted to go with the Micra even though it would feel odd driving my ex's car. The cost of it will probably be the same or less then putting the Polo right.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I have found a 1989 Daihatsu Charade on Freecycle and put my name forward for it. It is currently a non runner as the diesel cylinder head has cracked. All parts and a spare gearbox are supplied. I shall go and see it tomorrow to see if it is suitable for me. I know nothing about them.

I am also still looking at the scratch build method that is basically a cockpit on a battery pack slung between 3 or 4 wheels. I just don't know how much space I will need for batteries as there are so many variables to consider.

ETA: The Daihatsu has gone now so that's one option off the list.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

So, based on the findings from this thread I am getting a better idea of what I need to pull together in terms of battery pack and so that will guide me better towards my conversion (or build) of choice.

I am watching Ford Probes on Ebay but I'm not sure there is much space in one for batteries.

I have figured that weight is going to be a big thing at slower speeds and being a big element of the rolling resistance but aerodynamic has an even bigger effect at the high speeds I need to drive at for most of my commute.

That leads me to think that a slippery shape and small frontal area is going to be more important then overall weight but still keep the weight low if possible.
Also avoid open wheel vintage car layouts, convertables and vans due to the air resistence at speed.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I just processed some figures based on my current car, Skoda Octavia Estate, if I were to convert it to an EV.
Given:
Mass = 1800kg
Cd = 0.31
Frontal Area = 2.3m2

Rho = 1.29 (density of still air at 0C)
Crr = 0.03 (rolling resistance of car tyres on asphalt)

At 60mph it would need 384.5 Wh/mile
At 40mph it would need 302.2 Wh/mile

If I used 50 LiFePo4 180ah batteries I would get 160v
Range at 60mph would be 60 miles at 80% DoD
Range at 40mph would be 76 miles at 80% DoD

It would need to loose a lot of weight or I couldn't afford the batteries.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I have a donor car!

I went out to have a look at this MR2 and decided to have it.

The seller wasn't wrong when he says there is no rust. The only rusty things I could find were a bit of surface rust on the fan mounting in the drivers side vent and the heads of a couple of bolts in the engine bay.
Comes with a shed load of spares too.

I will be getting it transported to mine this weekend all being well.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

That looks a bloody good starting point! 

My Freeloader is being inspected for the insurance on Wednesday - so hopefully I'll be on the road wed evening!

Si


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Good luck with the inspection, Simon, I'm sure it will be fine.

I'm reckoning on recovering all or most the cost of the car through selling off the unwanted bits, and there are a lot of unwanted bits.

The only bad news is that I wasn't expecting to get a car so soon and with the delivery costs it has blown my budget for the time being and I am going to lose the bidding on the engineering lathe I want. I can't afford to get both at the moment.

If I could get the lathe I could do most of my own turning for the conversion.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

Shame you are so far away - I have a pretty good workshop with CNC lathe & mill. A Lathe is definitely worth buying - probably the single most enabling tool I have.

If you need any quick stuff turning - send me a drawing and I'll see what I can do.

Si


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

SimonRafferty said:


> Shame you are so far away - I have a pretty good workshop with CNC lathe & mill. A Lathe is definitely worth buying - probably the single most enabling tool I have.
> 
> If you need any quick stuff turning - send me a drawing and I'll see what I can do.
> 
> Si


Cheers Simon, I will do that. It may be help in making up the adaptor plate.

The lathe I was after was old and on a cast iron legged frame but big enough to get a motor armature onto it. It would be easy to dismantle and take into my basement workshop where my engineering stuff lives. And it was local too to make collection easier. I should really up the bid and borrow the cash to cover it as it is too good to let slip. It should still be cheaper then paying a local engineering firm to do work, I would hope, plus I get to keep the lathe afterwards.


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

SimonRafferty said:


> A Lathe is definitely worth buying - probably the single most enabling tool I have.


I heartily agree with this. I was lucky enough to find mine on Freecycle, and even though it is a 60-year old rustbucket and missing parts it is still extremely useful. (It's a South Bend lathe from the 1940's; for the whole story go here: http://electricle.blogspot.com/2008/09/lathe-of-heaven.html )

There are things on the bike project I could not have done without it. Well, maybe I could have, but they'd've been handmade and filed and nowhere near as "precise" as I got using the lathe, and would've taken days or weeks to make! 






> If you need any quick stuff turning - send me a drawing and I'll see what I can do.


I wish you were in the USA  I have a piece I need for the bike that I can't make on my lathe, since I'm missing all the threading gears except the one that's on it (not the right one unless I swap out the AC motor for my treadmill motor and use my ebike controller to get the right speed).
________
Marijuana seed


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I am using some assumptions on this MR2 to get some idea of battery pack size.

Weight = 1400kg
Cd = 0.31
Frontal Area = 2sqm

I would be looking at 18.76kW to push it to 60mph giving 313Wh/mile.

If I used 50 x 150Ah LiFePo4 that would give me about 61 mile range at 160 volts and a pack weight of about 280kg.

160Ah cells would give me 66 miles and 180Ah cells would give me 74 miles.

I must get a motor next to see what pack voltage I can go up to.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Well, I drove 45 miles to pay for my MR2 and to get the keys off the seller and had arranged for a tow truck to collect the car at the same time, 6pm this evening.

































The money and the keys were fine, the seller put jump leads on the car and showed me that all the electrical bits worked and even managed to start the engine. It sounds like a big end has gone.

Anyway, that was fine, we pushed the car onto the road and the seller went out for dinner with his wife leaving me to play with the car and wait for the collection.

The tow truck driver called to say he would be delayed and that pick up would be nearer 7pm. OK, no problem.
Then he said he was caught in traffic due to a crash so maybe 7.30 ish.
Then he called to say his satnav has stopped working could I give him directions.
I had no idea where I was as I had only followed the satnav myself so I arranged to meet him out of town at the end of the motorway.
So I am sitting there in a layby waiting for him and he calls. The engine fault light is on and his truck is stuck at 30mph safe mode!

So I gave up. He is going to do the collection and take me with him tomorrow afternoon for free. That will save me a drive and the cost of the transport. 
So I should have my car on my drive by the end of the afternoon.
Not such a bad end to the day I thought as I arrived back home.
I had dinner and a shower and decided to look for another lathe on Ebay as the ones I was bidding on all went well over my greatly increased (borrowed money from Dad) bids.
Then I heard big trucks outside and has a nose out the window.

My few doors away neighbour's house was on fire. 
She was just completing the sale of it and had already moved out. Not bad considering the current market situation to have got the sale.
But the house was now on fire.
I phoned her but her phone was off so I dived in the car and drove off to get her.
I have been out there with her for the last 4 1/2 hours watching the fire crews at work. The Police have now closed it off as a crime scene as it was found to be arson. Police and fire crew will stay in attendance until day light.
It is now 1.30am and I will try and get some sleep as I have a hospital appointment in the morning before I fit in getting my car back. Then I am off to theatre rehersals for the evening.
And then, if the Police have finished with the house, I will be boarding it up and securing the doors.

What a life!


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## fritzgutten (Jul 4, 2009)

WOW, thats a day for the record books!
life would get pretty boring if it didnt throw this type of stuff at us.
hope things work out with retrieving the car!


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## OHM (Jun 30, 2008)

gee cars are sooooo cheap in the uk.
Good score!!!
Personally If I lived in the UK and had the wage of Harry Kewell or Eric Bana I would have gone for the last of the xjs12 to show Jaguar how they should have powered it in the first place ).

Must make the front a flip front with chrome style custom bumpers without daggy driving lights. It would leave a ton of room for batteries and siamesed motors instead of the jag Box and tailshaft. Should weigh in at original factory weight.


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## vpoppv (Jul 27, 2009)

Wow, that car really IS the dog's danglies! (ok, I had to look that up, but that car really IS great looking)


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

Snazzy idea: Rebuild that muffler and tailpipes in lexan tubing, and light it up inside like a plasma ball while on the road, blue big and bright while accellerating, changing color to red while braking. 
________
Buy bubblers


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

It was really cheap, not sure why it was so cheap though as I have seen worse looking ones going for more.
Maybe it was no tax or MOT, non runner and an import model that put people off. Maybe there is something I've not seen yet especially as I don't know anything about MR2s.
I will know soon enough when it gets to my house.
I know the stereo has been taken out and there are big holes inside where the speakers were, the door cards are loose for the same reason I think and the inside is full of litter and loose bolts and about £1 of small change. It is also a smokers car so I will need to de-fume it.

The light up exhaust idea did cross my mind but I will use the space for batteries.
I also want to change the 17" 45 profile rims and tyres for something a bit easier to look after, those are going to suffer just getting up my driveway so I may need to lay a wooden ramp to help it up the kerbs.

The one thing that is bugging me is that to get the engine out it has to be pulled out from underneath. That will involve the back of the car being lifted 3' into the air with the rear suspension removed.
I might try and dismantle the engine in situ and remove it in bits.

OHM:
I remember seeing a Top Gear programme that showed a Jag XJS V12 that was 'sorted out'. Apparently there is/was a company that was stripping down Jags and rebuilding them sorting out all the original faults and shoddy parts and workmanship. The finished Jag looked just like any other tidy Jag except it was still running!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

The car delivery chap let me down again so I went to someone else.
I will get my car tomorrow morning at twice my original quote from the first company (they seemed a bit cheap anyway).

I have just been back to have another look at the car and to bring back the battery to give it a charge. That's another 90 mile round trip.

Tomorrow morning I will need to be there for 9am to meet the truck and so another 90 mile trip.

All in I will have driven 360 miles for this car, much of it at speed to meet a schedule that never happened. I iwll have to factor in the fuel costs now.

Anyway, I will be out late tonight and then I will have an early start, 7am and in the rush hour traffic.

The neighbours house seems to have been doused in petrol so CID have been asking questions.


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## m38mike (Dec 27, 2008)

Woodsmith,

You certainly lead an 'interesting' life! Have faith that the car will be what you want when you get it. It's amazing what some cleaning, and stripping out the ICE, can do for your attitude about an EV project. I know that once I repainted mine, it begain to look the way I envisioned it, and that really helped my morale and motivation.

Good luck with your tow. Wish I was closer, I'd take my truck and trailer over to get it for you.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Cheers Mike,

I had half a mind to just build a car transporter trailer but I already have two trailers on the drive so another one would have to live underneath one or both of them.

I could do with more driveway space to work on the MR2 now but it is full of paving slabs, granite cobbles, concrete kerb stones and logs. The granite was supposed to be the driveway surface but I'll never get round to laying them at this rate.

There is a part of me that has stopped believing that tomorrow will go without a hitch.


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## OHM (Jun 30, 2008)

itll be worth the hassle youve gone through as its such a good car for the price. Here in Aus they fetch more than 30 times what you paid for it as the engines are affordable from importers.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Yay!

I have finally got it home. 
I've used a different recovery company and they were great. On time, efficient and with a decent truck. Straight through door to door and no trouble.


Off out to play on a canal boat now!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've had a great day on the boat, all day with the chug, chug, chug, of a two cylinder Lister diesel!

Anyway, here is the MR2 on the recover truck on it's way home.


And here it is on what little space there is on my driveway whre I will be carrying out all the conversion works.

Ignore the fire wood pile and building materials, the house renovation continues in the meantime.


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## fritzgutten (Jul 4, 2009)

thats a mighty fine looking platform you got there Woody.

BUT!! theres always a but, isnt there...anyhow, i think theres been a hickup in your plan.....i went back to your first post, and to my reckoning, this isnt anywhere near the schedule or style you were originally thinking....whats up with that? did you get bit by a bug or something?????

cant wait to see your progress.


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## DaveAK (Jun 28, 2009)

An electric canal boat. Hmmmm.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

fritzgutten said:


> thats a mighty fine looking platform you got there Woody.
> 
> BUT!! theres always a but, isnt there...anyhow, i think theres been a hickup in your plan.....i went back to your first post, and to my reckoning, this isnt anywhere near the schedule or style you were originally thinking....whats up with that? did you get bit by a bug or something?????
> 
> cant wait to see your progress.


Is it not?

It's a conversion that seats two with some luggage and if I get the conversion right then it will give me the range and speed I want, that is really just money and careful use of it.
I reckon that is pretty close to what I am after. It saves me from scratch building a trike that is a 1+1 so there is a time saving.
The only change is that I haven't got the fork lift motor yet.

Seriously though, it was crossing my mind that I could be spending several thousands of my hard earned pounds and I wanted something that could justify that spending overall as a car. That ruled out the scrap yard rescue due to the the fact that it will just be an electric scrap yard rescue.
I didn't want to have to be doing lots of body repairs and renovation work unless the car was a classis and worthy of the effort.
I didn't want to have a car that I didn't like as a car.
I wanted the car to still be a good car in ten years time when I invest in more LiFePo4s.

The MR2 just seemed to fit the bill quite well and I do quite like them.
There is almost no work to do with the body work or mechanicals that I want to keep.
There is no rust or accident damage.
The car looks quite nice if you like that sort of thing.
It looks good after 18 years and so should look fairly classic after 28 years.
It seats me and a friend and some bags.
There are lots of saleable bits with it and on it.
It was really really cheap.
The MR2 Mk2 has been converted to EV before so I know it is possible.

The only down side is that it attracts attention.
Some one came in my gated drive and flipped the car cover off to have a look this morning. I wouldn't mind if they knocked on the door to ask first!
At the most that is tresspass, at the least it is unreasonable nosiness.
I have just moved it so it is hiding behind my big trailer out of sight and nearer my front door, hopefully that will reduce the chances of people tresspassing.

There won't be much progress on it now for a bit as I need to get some work done on the house first and save up a bit for a motor and a lathe.


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## fritzgutten (Jul 4, 2009)

I was just giving you a hard time. I think its a great project, I had originally planned an MR2 conversion as well, but the one I knew of with a blown motor wasn't as cheap as I had hoped.

The MR2 is pretty much a perfect platform for a conversion, as far as I'm concerned. 

It's a little concerning that people feel comfortable enough to walk onto your property and peruse your stuff. not cool. good move on concealing it.

I think it'll bee a great project, just keep us posted 

BTW are you implying that my project sucks?


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## grayballs (Aug 27, 2008)

fritzgutten said:


> theres been a hickup in your plan.....i went back to your first post, and to my reckoning, this isnt anywhere near the schedule or style you were originally thinking....whats up with that? did you get bit by a bug or something?????


 
I was looking forward to the cabinet maker building a wooden body,,,,, stess-skinned or? Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose came to mind.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

fritzgutten said:


> BTW are you implying that my project sucks?


Yes but only if 'sucks' is a good thing!

I think your project is great but ultimately I went with the best option that came up and I think it will save an awful lot of time and money if all goes well. That will mean getting running sooner.

I need to figure out how to get he engine out now. I know the engine and gearbox are supposed to come out from underneath but I don't want to lift the car that high up in the air.

It really got me annoyed that someone came in my drive to have a nose round. I got rid of the annoyance by pounding a hole in that concrete pad the MR2 was on to fit a ground anchor for my trailer. That really took it out of me and I am knackered. I had food poisoning from my canal boat trip yesterday so spent most of the night in the bathroom. Today I have felt like poo so I have cancelled going to rehersals and will have an early night.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

grayballs said:


> I was looking forward to the cabinet maker building a wooden body,,,,, stess-skinned or? Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose came to mind.


Yeah, and look what happened to Howard Hughes!

I would go for an unstressed skin make from layered 2mm ply on a frame of hard wood webs and formers. The wood body would sit on a steel chassis. Maybe another day I will start yet another project.


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## OHM (Jun 30, 2008)

Maybe your next EV ?


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## grayballs (Aug 27, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Yeah, and look what happened to Howard Hughes!


 
Like all of us at some point, dead,,,, but the 'Goose lives on,, near flight ready, in a museum, on the Oregon (USA) coast.


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## WarpedOne (Jun 26, 2009)

I see I'm late to the party but nevertheless, this little gem deserves to be born:








More here: Peugeot LiiOn concept

I'm so in love with this concept that I started my own project. I'm no designer so my design comes nowhere near as of now. I've documented my thoughts here. I don't mind if anyone "steals" the idea and builds one


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## OHM (Jun 30, 2008)

You are right about not being a designer 
That thing will date faster than a Mayfly while a 2cv is eternal.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I think that Peugeot is more along the lines I would have liked but I'm no car designer and would probably make a poor job of translating my design into reality.

I also want to make sure the design of the car stays fairly fresh and so I tended towards a classic, even though the MR2 is a modern classic I think it will stand the test of time.

There were many modern Euro boxes I could also have had a look at but I know that they look old after a few years because of the speed of the design revisions.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

A quick hello to the MR2 Owners Club members who may be reading this thread now. I will continue the project write up here as I can't post in your projects forum.
-------------------------------

After work I had another quick play with the car. I removed the centre console behind the seats that had the big speaker cut outs and replaced it with the nice shiny and complete one that was in the boot. I also tidied up the door trims and cleaned out the cig wrappers and general rubbish inder the seats. There are a lot of saleable spares!

I did a quick fluids check and there is almost no PAS fluid, no washer water and probably no engine oil as you may determine from this video:


The back of the car is now up on ramps so I can start removing the big, shiny, noisy exhaust system and finally render the car a total non runner. I should be able to pull out the fuel tank too, that will give me a bit more fuel for my chainsaw.
Where it is now parked is on rough hardcore and granite chippings, not the nicest of surfaces to kneel or lay down on without a mat or creaper board.
I was even thinking of laying down some sand and paving slabs before starting work so I have a flat area to work from but that will be a fair job to do while the drive is full.

However, a part of me feels thast I should hold off dismantling the car until I get the registration documents back in my name in case something else goes wrong and I have to give up the car. Laying paving would pass the time as would being on the roof and building up the chimney and installing a wood burner in the house.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I just thought I'd spend a bit of time on the car so I removed the exhaust as that would be easy. So here it is out of the car:








Since when has silicone sealant been acceptable to use for sealing exhaust pipes?


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Well, I keep on pecking at it and now I have some nice bits of aluminium castings that I can probably sell on or weigh in. Then it started to rain a bit.

I am going to try and get the aircon disconnected in a bit and then saw off the heater hose that refuses to budge. Then there shouldn't be anything left holding the engine in place other then the mountings. I guess the point of no return is well and truely passed.
There is a horrid smell of petrol all over the car now since I disconnected the fuel lines. I can't stand the stuff, it's only good for chain saws. Maybe I have been running diesels for so long I prefer the smell of it.


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## fritzgutten (Jul 4, 2009)

hey woody,
to my knowledge, its never been acceptable to use silicone on an exhaust system 

bits and pieces at a time eh?

keep it up!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Yeah, bit at a time amongst the other work and it will get there. 
Silicone turns to a gluey non set jelly in exhaust pipes. Some people!

The rain is really heavy this evening and I'm too old to be on my back under a car in the rain.

I think I will have to build a temporary car porch to keep the rain off. It will mean that I can carry on working through all but the heaviest rain.

I just missed out on yet another Ebay lathe this evening, a big Colchester, 30" between centres and 9" swing complete with three phase converter. Ho hum.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've been looking for motors today and found a local place that rewinds fork lift motors. It was a nice old fashioned place where an older chap and his younger sidekick repaired motors of all sorts in a big industrial unit shed.
His motor references were still hand written and drawn sketches in a bound note book.

Anyway, he showed me a selection of motors so I took some photos and started a new thread in the motors forum for some opinions. Maybe one of them will be the right one at the right price.


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## fritzgutten (Jul 4, 2009)

that sucks about missing the lathe auction, but great news on the motor shop!

where were you going to put the metal lathe?

you're really getting into this arent you?


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Yeah, I love a good project, comes with the Asperger's!

I was going to put the lathe in my basement workshop if it was small enough or if it could be dismantled but otherwise I may have to leave it outside the side of the house and build a small shed over it. I already have a small shed at the side that was originally a garage for my Harley but since I sold the bike my Dad uses it as his wood workshop. (He also has a small electrical workshop in the basement at the back of the house under his granny flat and two sheds in the garden where he grows bonsai.) I would build a second shed at the side of the house leaving a gap for their kitchen window. Both sheds would have doors at both ends so that when opened it is still a foot path through to the garden.

The motors looked good and I was so tempted to just buy one but I thought as they weren't going anywhere I'd best get some opinions first and get the best one rather then the prettiest!

The motor place is only 2 1/2 miles away and quite friendly and helpful. just not sure if they are expensive or not as I have nothing to compare their prices to.

It has now stopped raining so I could get some work done on the car but I am off to theatre rehersals again tonight. I am singing Alfred Doolittle's part in My Fair Lady - 'With a little bit of luck!' in this autumn's musical review.


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

Hey Woodsmith, good choice on the MR2. My MR2 is now stripped of anything engine related and am now working on motor mounting design.

I installed a vacuum pump (same as the evcomponents.com kit) for the brake booster. Had it installed in under an hour! Very well made kit. I machined out the bolt hole on the bottom of the pump mounting bracket and bolted it on to the power steering pump reservoir. The problem I have with mine is that the vacuum pump is cycling once every second or so. There's no leak so I've narrowed it down to the volume of the vacuum system being too low. I could fabricate a vacuum reservoir but I found a bigger brake booster for $10 and will try it out this week to see if it solves the problem. The MR2's came with two different sized brake boosters - I think the turbos had the bigger ones.

Canterbury University here in NZ did an MR2 EV conversion a couple of years ago and have lots of data available on the faculty website. They went the whole hog with a 42V intermediate system for the 12V accessories and a CAN bus to tie it all together.

Sam.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Cheers Sam.
The MR2 sort of came by default far sooner then I expected and for a great price so I had to have it. I'm struggling with the engine removal due to the great British summer, wet, wet and more wet! Did you remove the engine from the top or from underneath? I've been told that it only comes out from underneath but I can't see why it can't come out the top if I took all the ancilleries off it first.

I have my eye on some vacuum pumps on Ebay, the sort found on diesel engines. I have a couple of small 12v traction motors that might be good for driving one and I will make up the tank with plastic drain pipe.

I'll have to check out the university site.


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Cheers Sam.
> The MR2 sort of came by default far sooner then I expected and for a great price so I had to have it. I'm struggling with the engine removal due to the great British summer, wet, wet and more wet! Did you remove the engine from the top or from underneath? I've been told that it only comes out from underneath but I can't see why it can't come out the top if I took all the ancilleries off it first.
> 
> I have my eye on some vacuum pumps on Ebay, the sort found on diesel engines. I have a couple of small 12v traction motors that might be good for driving one and I will make up the tank with plastic drain pipe.
> ...


I took mine out through the top but it was a bit tricky. You need to take the exhaust manifold off first. I ended up cutting through the manifold with the grinder because most of the bolts had ceased. I found lifting the right side first and bringing it out on an angle worked well. I didn't have the gear to take it out through the bottom - with having to lift the car over the engine. Also, if you take it out through the bottom you need to drop the crossmember out.

An issue to keep in mind with the vacuum pump is noise. You may end up with a practically silent EV but an annoying loud vacuum pump. The evcomponents kit is reasonably quiet.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Ahhh, I hadn't thought about the noise of the pump. I was already noticing that the electric PAS pump was audiable when it was running.

I am at the stage of cutting, chiselling, bashing bolts off the exhaust heat shield to try and get to the manifold, That is being a bit of a pig at the moment. I was also going to try and remove the fuel injection system and the inlet manifold too. Im not bothered about shearing off bolts as the whole engine will be broken down into steel and aluminium for weighing in as scrap (unless some bits are saleable). I am glad it is possible to remove it from the top as, like you, I won't be lifting the car over the engine.

I will remove the hubs and drive shafts and then drop the car back down again on stands. I think I will set up a scaffold gantry over the engine so that I can lift the engine out and then slide the winch along the scaffold tube to drop the engine to the side of the car.
I can't use a standard engine crane as the ground isn't flat or smooth and the space is a bit tight.


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

In my garage it just so happens there's a 6x2 rafter right over the engine bay when the car is parked tail first. I hoisted out the engine with a block and tackle and then wheeled the car out from underneath. There was the matter of clearance moving the engine over the boot - cleared it by less than an inch!

So I take it you're going with the usual manual tranny, clutch, Series wound DC motor, 144VDC, etc?

Sam.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

samborambo said:


> In my garage it just so happens there's a 6x2 rafter right over the engine bay when the car is parked tail first. I hoisted out the engine with a block and tackle and then wheeled the car out from underneath. There was the matter of clearance moving the engine over the boot - cleared it by less than an inch!
> 
> So I take it you're going with the usual manual tranny, clutch, Series wound DC motor, 144VDC, etc?
> 
> Sam.


Mine is on the unmade drive way at the side of my house so no overhead 6x2s, yet!

How did you keep it on it's wheels? There's no space to separate the engine and gearbox so it has to come out all as one unit. That means the wheels and hubs are pulled out.

Yes, I am doing the standard motor, flywheel, clutch, manual box route. I am thinking 160v with 50 x 180Ah LiFePO4 cells but that is variable depending on which motor I get and how much controller I can afford and what the cells cost when I get that far.

I have a motor thread just started with some motor options I have found.


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Mine is on the unmade drive way at the side of my house so no overhead 6x2s, yet!
> 
> How did you keep it on it's wheels? There's no space to separate the engine and gearbox so it has to come out all as one unit. That means the wheels and hubs are pulled out.
> 
> ...


I just took off the trailing arms, etc. and knocked the half shafts out of the diff with a wooden drift. The shafts will lie on the ground - best to wrap up the ends and tie them to the crossmember for the mean time. Put the arms back on the hubs and the wheels back on.

I've got a PDF of the full workshop manual if you want. Its about 1200 pages I think. I'll PM you the link and you can download it from my server.

Sam.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Sam, I think I will have a go at keeping the wheels on the car as much as possible, I feel safer with it that way if it is going to be left for a while.

I have finally got a lathe. It's only a little one but it will be fine for making the flywheel adaptor and other small parts.
I doubt I could get a motor armature on it and no chance with the flywheel.
Anyway, at least it is small enough to get in to the basement workshop and I won't need to leave it outside and build a shed around it.


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## fritzgutten (Jul 4, 2009)

congrats Woody!, interesting design on that lathe, never seen a base/bed of that design. very cool.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Looks like a myford ml4. Pity it has no leadscrew. If I were you i'd ditch that belt setup in favor of a motor inverter setup for speed control. Nice lathe.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> Looks like a myford ml4. Pity it has no leadscrew. If I were you i'd ditch that belt setup in favor of a motor inverter setup for speed control. Nice lathe.


It is quite dinky in size!

Yes, the drive is a bit rubbish so I will be making a new stand and drive system with a better speed control.

I'm not too fussed about the lead screw for now as it will do what I need for the time being but I will still keep an eye out for another one. It is missing a chuck key so I will make one and it has a nice compliment of new cutters. What will annoy me is that all the other lathes I am still watching will now go really cheaply!

I was going to do a bit of work on the car tonight but as I was going to feed a neighbour's cat I notice a stranger in the garden of my other neighbour's house, the one that got the arson attack last week. So I went to have a nose at what he was up to. He was very shifty and full of excuses before wondering off. I had a check around and it turns out he was stealing the lead from the house! So Police called out again and no work on the car.


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## DaveAK (Jun 28, 2009)

You need to start a new thread, "Tales from Woody's Neighbourhood".


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

DaveAK said:


> You need to start a new thread, "Tales from Woody's Neighbourhood".


Well, it adds real life interest, sets the scene and, I suppose, shows that we are just mostly ordinary people with ordinary lives trying to build an EV in our spare time on a tiny budget battling against all of lifes other events.

I'll stop if it's a problem.


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

Another thing Alfred, I had a hell of a time trying to pull the axles out of the diff. I tried pulling from the hubs to start with but they won't move an inch. You need to place the wood drift on the universal joint close to the diff and give it a few hard whacks with a heavy hammer.

Sam.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Most CV joints have a spring locking ring on the shaft that plugs in the diff. On my Honda I use a pry bar between the CV joint and diff housings. One sharp, quick, but gentle motion pops the axle out easily. I don't know what your manual says, and if you have room for a pry bar, but figured you may be able to use this technique.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks for the tip.
I've worked on a few front wheel drive cars where I had to pop the cv joint out of the transmission. There is definately a knack to it. Pulling and hitting and brute force rarely worked where a swift tap or a little leverage does.

I did, once in my teens, get so frustrated pulling at a stubbon joint that the shaft came out of the cv at the hub end and spilt balls all over the ground. Then the joint came out fairly easily! That wasn't a good day with a friend's car.


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

While on the topic of splined shafts, I need to find/make a toothed belt (timing belt) pulley fit on a splined shaft. Is there an easy way to machine female splines in a pulley wheel?

I'm doing away with the transmission (its an auto anyway) and making a toothed belt reduction on to each shaft. Using a pair of 15kW AC induction motors.

Sam.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

samborambo said:


> While on the topic of splined shafts, I need to find/make a toothed belt (timing belt) pulley fit on a splined shaft. Is there an easy way to machine female splines in a pulley wheel?
> 
> I'm doing away with the transmission (its an auto anyway) and making a toothed belt reduction on to each shaft. Using a pair of 15kW AC induction motors.
> 
> Sam.


Don't bother.

Take the diff bevel gears out that fit on the splined shafts. They should have a bevelled gear and a narrower, round plain bearing section, looks a little like a mushroom. Measure the diameter of the round bering part and then bore a hole in the pulley centre to a tight, interference fit.
Assemble, with heat if needed, and make sure it is running true, then carefully weld the two parts together. Try to keep the heat down to not soften or shrink the splines.
Instant splines in the pulley.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I have had a prompt in the direction of Agni motors and Lynch motors.

Pros: size, weight, efficiency
Cons: cost, anything else?

Argggghhhh, Who said choice was a good thing!


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Don't bother.
> 
> Take the diff bevel gears out that fit on the splined shafts. They should have a bevelled gear and a narrower, round plain bearing section, looks a little like a mushroom. Measure the diameter of the round bering part and then bore a hole in the pulley centre to a tight, interference fit.
> Assemble, with heat if needed, and make sure it is running true, then carefully weld the two parts together. Try to keep the heat down to not soften or shrink the splines.
> Instant splines in the pulley.


Yup, I also think this is a good idea. I had it suggested to me (reusing the pinion wheels from the diff) but wasn't quite sure how it would work. I'll pull the tranny apart tonight.


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> I have had a prompt in the direction of Agni motors and Lynch motors.
> 
> Pros: size, weight, efficiency
> Cons: cost, anything else?
> ...


Want me to start my rant about "what's wrong with using a bog standard industrial AC induction motor?"


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

samborambo said:


> While on the topic of splined shafts, I need to find/make a toothed belt (timing belt) pulley fit on a splined shaft. Is there an easy way to machine female splines in a pulley wheel?


With a file. 

Seriously:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=185452#p185452
It's shown being done on chainrings for a bike, but no reason you can't do the same thing to a pulley if you can make a template to do it from. 
________
How to roll blunts


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I'm not sure that drive shaft splines will be so easy to file out. The motor bike example was a few square splines in a thin sprocket whereas car drive splines will be lots and triangular in a much thicker piece, maybe an inch or more.


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> I'm not sure that drive shaft splines will be so easy to file out. The motor bike example was a few square splines in a thin sprocket whereas car drive splines will be lots and triangular in a much thicker piece, maybe an inch or more.


Yeah, the shaft is 28mm from memory. I can't remember how many splines on the shaft but its fairly fine.

I stick with the diff salvage idea.

Sam.


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

Yeah, I'd vote for that, too (didn't know it was an option till after I'd posted; I'd been browsing looking for that ES post for a while, so the other posts "before" mine didn't exist when I started writing it).
________
Live Sex


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I think the most I've filed that way, and kept reasonable accuracy, is a single keyway in a 1/2" thick aluminium pulley.


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## gte718p (Jul 30, 2009)

EDM or broaching machine. Both of which are kind of specialized but a really good machine shop will have one or the other.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Finally, someone has turned the big tap off and the big light on and I can do some more work on the car!

I decided to get the exhaust manifold off today and pop the drive shafts out the gearbox.

The manifold was a real pita to shift but I won!

















Then I decided to tackle the drive shafts. The 'book' and the MR2 owners club say that the brakes need disconnecting and all the suspension dismatelling and the whole hub and shaft will them pull out.
Well, having been a grease monkey in an earlier life I knew there must be a short cut somewhere, thanks Sam for the tip.
I disconnected the lower suspension arm and the track control rod from the sub frame and then levered off the inner cv joint with a crowbar.
Once the oil drained I was able to push the suspension unit outwards while manipulating the cv joint out of the diff. The left side was a little stubbon but packing and wedging against the diff case was enough to shift it.

























Once the engine oil has finished draining then I will reassemble the suspension and refit the wheels to make the car mobile again. The drive shafts will need tying up somewhere though.

I have already loosened all the engine mounting bolts while I was underneath and prepared the ground for engine lifting.

Oh, as an aside I found out that my car has a Torsen limited slip diff. Woohoo! Electric 11's down the road at the traffic light drag strip!


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Good work. I also found the haynes manual for the bmw to be quite poor. Are you going to remove the engine and box complete?


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Jack.

There's no book as such for the mk2 MR2. It is available as a pdf, Sam was kind enough to let me access his copy. I have also been mostly reading this thread on the MR2 owners club forum. If you have a look at the first post it shows how the club members remove an engine. It's picture heavy! However, I have also mostly ignored it except for locating all the engine management connections.

The engine and box will have to come out complete as there is only about 3" clearance in total end to end on the engine and box. It's not an easy engine to access for most jobs. I had to remove the oil filter to get the exhaust manifold out but I could only get at the filter once the manifold was loose and able to be pushed to one side!

Well, I now have the front and back engine mountings completely removed so the unit is swinging freely on the two side mountings. They seem to be the ones taking weight anyway as the front and back ones weren't loaded in any way. I guess they were only there to manage the torque reactions on the engine. The front one seems to have failed as the rubber wasn't attached to anything but I shall have a better look at the manual to check.

The next stage is to build a small scaffold gantry to lift the engine out, then roll the car forward and then drop, no, lower the engine to the ground.

At some point I need to work out how much of the engine management wiring and boxes I can get rid of without affecting the rest of the car electrics.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Wayhay! The engine is out and on the ground!

I was going to set up a tall tripod with scaffolding poles but my Dad, who was supposed to be helping, had this strange concept in his mind that tripods were top heavy and would fall over easily even without a load on it. we had a bit of a heated debate about this and Dad went off in a strop. In the end I resorted to a bit of scaffold tower and an A frame linked by a long pole over the back of the car. It wasn't very stable as it kept trying to lean one way or the other. I would have prefered the tripod, 5000 years of human engineering can't be wrong!

The engine does come out top ways but not if you have a lovely paint job in the engine bay. 
The trick is to lift and lower a couple of times to get the mountings to seperate.
Then lower the engine onto a block of wood or a trolley jack so that the lift position can be moved towards the cam belt end of the engine.
Then lift again but push the gearbox forwards so that the mounting and the end of the gearbox clears the mounting on the chassis.
Then lift the engine upwards at a slight angle.
Watch for the front of the engine catching the rain gutter and the back of the engine catching the engine lid latch. A sheet of 6mm ply front and back would help slip the lump past these catch points.
Once the engine is out the car can be pushed out from underneath, Dad did come back to help at this point.
As the scaffold frame wasn't as tall as the tripod I wanted to build I had to remove the boot lid to allow for clearance.
With the engine on the ground it could be dragged out of the way and the car pushed back.
I am leaving the scaffold in place for putting the motor and gearbox back.










































































As you can see it was getting dark as I was finishing up. Most of the day was spent in and out as the rain came and went.
I also managed to get a load of my furniture into an exhibition today and print out a load of leaflets for it. It has been pretty nonstop.
Here's a link to some of my work. Clicky


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> Wayhay! The engine is out and on the ground!


It somehow always feels nice when I see another one of those things out on the ground like that. It's like seeing a tumor removed! Scary and gross but it can't help but make things better. 




> I also managed to get a load of my furniture into an exhibition today and print out a load of leaflets for it. It has been pretty nonstop.
> Here's a link to some of my work. Clicky


I like that stuff. I know this *sounds* awkward, but seeing your wood, I want to touch it and fondle it. 
________
Eva_Gold live


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Amberwolf said:


> I like that stuff. I know this *sounds* awkward, but seeing your wood, I want to touch it and fondle it.


Ooh err Missus!


Thank you, I make all my furniture to be tactile and not always where it is most obvious and visible. I tend not to use detailed drawings, just enough to get the proportions right and then do the rest by feel and with hand tools.

When my website is up and running (soon) I will put a link in my sig. The images will be better then one from an old exhibition.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Just a quick question.

Are my images too big for your screen?

I just had a chap on another forum tell me that they stretch the screen on his pc so I replaced them all with thumbnail images.

If they are too big I will change them here too.

Cheers.


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

They're fine for me, but I'm on a 19" 1600x1200 monitor. People browsing on their Iphones might have a bit of trouble, though. 
________
The Sanctuary of Truth


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

This morning I went off to the furniture exhibition at the gallery and fond that I was the only furniture representative there. No other college staff and no students or ex students. So I had the place to myself promoting the college course, my work and the students work to my heart's content. Just at the time I ran out of free parking time the local Mayor and other officials arrived to formally open the exhibition. Oh well, if I get a ticket through the post then I'll put it through as expenses.

So this afternoon I managed to get the engine and gearbox apart and remove the clutch and flywheel.
I remembered to measure the magic number, the distance from the engine back face to the face of the flywheel - 34mm. Don't let me forget or loose that. *34mm!*

The gearbox is now in my basement workshop where I will give it a clean and start measuring for the adaptor plate. It looks like the holes are all on the same PCD centred on the primary shaft but I will check.

It is interesting that the primary shaft doesn't have a bush into the engine crank shaft. That makes it a simpler task of making the motor coupling to the flywheel but also means that the motor really does have to be accurately mounted. I cannot just rely on centering the clutch plate and then spinning the motor until it is smooth running as the clutch plate won't centre accurately enough with a location tool or by best guesstimate.


























I can't wait until all the ICE bits are removed, I really can't stand the smell of petrol/gasoline or carbonised engine oil. Gear oil isn't so bad though.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Any luck with a motor?


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## Jordysport (Mar 22, 2009)

if i was you i would remove the crankshaft also, could come in handy when lining up the shaft and for the female part of the splines.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> Any luck with a motor?


Not been looking while I have been researching the Agni motor option. I am going to go back to the motor rewinders to see what else they have that might be better. Jordysport has also agreed to look out for a motor at the breakers while he is looking for his. I will do likewise while I am looking.

I may just have to bite the bullet and wonder over to Chesterfield and have a look at the fork truck breaker over there. It is just a long way to go without knowing if thay have anything worth driving over for.

Jordysport, the crank only centres the flywheel on a small lip and doesn't locate with the primary shaft at all. The shaft seems to be completely rigid and doesn't have the bushed bearing on the end. There is nothing at all that locates the primary shaft to the crank shaft, with the clutch disengaged the two shafts are completely isolated.

I have been plotting the coordinates of the bell housing bolts this evening. I think I have it right but I will make a plywood template to check and then maybe make one in aluminium sheet.

I will post the plotting if I find it accurate.


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## San_Carlos_Jeff (Nov 7, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Just a quick question.
> 
> Are my images too big for your screen?
> 
> ...


Pics work perfectly for me on my laptop and desktop. I'm enjoying your project and all the asides from life in your neighborhood.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I have very carefully measured the bell housing bolts again and adjusted for some errors.
I then made a template from hardboard to check that the bolt holes all lined up properly. The most important ones were the dowel holes at 10mm. They had to be accurate relative to the primary shaft. I figured all the rest of the holes are 1mm oversize for clearance so I had some leaway.

I drilled a 5mm hole in the centre in the board so I could drop a drill onto the centre hole of the primary shaft and found that the vertical y axis was -2mm off. With that sorted I adjusted all the X axis figures by -2mm and it was done.

Here are the final coordinates and hole sizes:









The other useful figures are:
*34mm* - The disatance from the bell housing face to the flywheel face.
*25mm* - The distance from the flywheel mounting boss to the flywheel face.

Maybe this could be preserved somewhere as useful technical data?


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I have just purchased a piece of 484mm x 19mm thick disc of aluminium from Ebay to make the adaptor plate from.

When I have the motor I will purchase another plate to fit it depending on what thickness I need.

I must stop spending round about now and wait for my first salary cheque for teaching this academic year. It's now a month with all work and no money!


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## fritzgutten (Jul 4, 2009)

Hey Woody, Just wanted to say, what i've seen so far impresses my a lot. It's looking really looking great and progressing quickly, keep up the good work and dont starve yourself 
guess i dont have any tech input, just wanted to say it was looking great.
fred


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks, things will start to slow a little as college will start again soon and I will need to sort out my teaching. Also the theatre show is due on at the end of October so rehersals will intensify a lot more and I am running out of money for the time being. It's not cheap this electric car lark!

Today I stripped a few more bits off the engine and then posted a load of sale items on Ebay, if it all sells I will get almost the full cost of the car back. It might take a while though.

I was also wondering what to do with the aluminium plate disc when it arrives.

I didn't know if I should have it centred on a lathe and bore a big clearance hole in it or just plot and drill the mounting holes and pilot drill the centre by measurement alone.
If I need to centre another plate with the motor attached then I could do with a location lip on the plate that is lathe centred on the primary shaft position. But if I put it on lathe then any boring in the centre will make it harder for me to plot the X-Y axis accurately through the centre if it has been machined away.


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

Since the mounting plate isn't going to be spinning, it doens't have to be lathed. It just has to have perfectly accurate mounting holes, with alignment pins/holes to guarantee as perfect an alignment from motor to transmission as possible.
________
Cheap Bongs


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I was only thinking about using a lathe to get a concentric hole in the centre rather then a random rough hole for clearance. I thought it might be useful to locate a round plate on the motor face.

Maybe it will end up as a random hole after all and I'll fit by feel and alignment of the X-Y axis lines instead. The thickness of a scribe line should be close enough tollorence.


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

Ah, that makes sense. 

While we're on the subject of lathing plates, since you are experienced with them, does this sound like a good way to do this?

I have an adapter plate for my bike that I'm making to put a large 40tooth chainring on a small 18tooth freewheel, out of 1/8" aluminum plate. I need to do *that* on the lathe, but first I have to cut the basic circle out of the plate, since it's too big to put on the lathe. 

I have already cut out the basic center hole using a hole saw, but need to finish it on the lathe based upon the rest of the outer part, so that it's perfectly centered relative to that. I also already drilled the holes to bolt the chainring to it, relative to the center hole, and verified they'll fit perfectly by bolting them together. But I know the center hole is not *perfect*, simply because the hole saw drifted just a tad (maybe half a millimeter, not exactly sure) as it went in. I allowed for that in that I used a smaller hole saw than the final diameter of my center hole, so I could fix it later in small increments till it was perfect.

I don't want to waste any of the plate material (since I have so little of it) so I am going to take a bolt and nuts, some fender washers, a couple of skate wheel bearings, a broken tool handle with a hole drilled in it the same size as the bolt, and make a center-swivelling "compass" to hold a lathe bit to cut out my big circle by hand. Just using a c-clamp to hold the tool onto the handle, most likely, at the already-scribed circle diameter, adjusting depth as needed. 

Then I'll take the circle, bolt something to it that lets me chuck it into the lathe, then finish the center circle cutout to exactly the same size as my freewheel. 

Does this sound like a good way to go about it?
________
Easy vape 2


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I'm not that experienced in lathes, it was over 25 years ago since I last used an engineering lathe. I am also reading engineering books from the 1920's at the moment, more suited to the age of my newly acquired lathe.

I should think that if your bolt holes are correct then you should be able to bolt a piece of metal to 3 of the holes to bridge the rough centre hole and that would then give you a centre to work from.
Take a bit of off cut and scribe a centre line and from there scribe the pcd of the bolt holes. Locate and drill three of them and then bolt that to the disc you are working on. That gives you back the centre mark from which to use a compass to scribe a larger circle from.

You can also scribe all the other circles you need for the centre hole and the chain teeth pcd, outer and inner diameters.

Given it is only 1/8" aluminium I would rough cut and file to the scribe line as it will be easy to do for both inside and outside edges. Or file near enough to fit on the lathe for a final truing up.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

I can very much recommend this book.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/THE-AMATEURS-...s_SM?hash=item53dc9c2c5c&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

I bought a set of transfer punches on ebay. Best thing ever for lining up bell housing and motor bolt holes.


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> I'm not that experienced in lathes, it was over 25 years ago since I last used an engineering lathe. I am also reading engineering books from the 1920's at the moment, more suited to the age of my newly acquired lathe.
> That's about the age of mine (late 1941, I think).
> 
> 
> ...


That's sort of what I intend, except that I will use the lathe tool itself on the bolted/centered rotating arm to cut the main outer separation to get it off the plate with as little wastage as possible (I may need to make at least one chainring from this, too!). Then I'll lathe off the very edges of the outer rim, and then lathe out the center hole to perfect roundness/trueness to the outside, so everything should, in theory, be perfect. 

Then I can mount it on my crappy unaligned thrown-together crank-to-freewheel adapter made from a bottom-bracket bearing cup, and watch it wobble anyway. 
________
How To Roll A Blunt


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Amberwolf said:


> Then I can mount it on my crappy unaligned thrown-together crank-to-freewheel adapter made from a bottom-bracket bearing cup, and watch it wobble anyway.


LOL, love the priorities there.

No work on the car today.

I spent this morning in the workshop working on a hand crafted and carved wooden sword for a young woman's belated 18th birthday present. It will be about 20 hours of hand work when it is done. Ash for the blade, maple for the guard, cherry for the grip and paduk for the pommel. She is a bit 'Xena, Warrior Princess' so it has to look fit for purpose!

I spent the afternoon with a musician friend removing the scaffolding from my house roof and ripping out the old ceilings on the top floor. By 7pm we looked like coal miners at the end of a shift. 140 years of soot, pigeon guano and slate waste! My friend will be replastering it all for me, now that the roof is weatherproof, in return for me building his recording studio.

I'll give him a shameless plug here. If you like his music do let him know, I'm sure he will appreciate hearing from a wider audience across the pond.

I will have to be in college tomorrow, induction to the new college building. Seems I do still have a job after all!


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> LOL, love the priorities there.


Well, I couldn't find a way to turn the crank itself on the lathe, in order to properly round it so the rest of the thing would fit right, and had to just carefully file and grind as best I could by hand. So I know it is out of round but I can't actually fix it any better than it is now, unless I could find someone local that would let me use their lathe with a bed gap of at least 9 or 10 inches to the center of the chuck. 

(I worked out several other methods to do it but the only one that even comes close is to put it on the bike, turn on the motor to let it turn the cranks for me, and hold the file against it, which still doesn't give me much better roundness). 




> I spent this morning in the workshop working on a hand crafted and carved wooden sword for a young woman's belated 18th birthday present. It will be about 20 hours of hand work when it is done. Ash for the blade, maple for the guard, cherry for the grip and paduk for the pommel. She is a bit 'Xena, Warrior Princess' so it has to look fit for purpose!


Make sure you get pics for your woodwork site; I'd love to see that, too!

BTW, have you ever seen this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2YkQA7ogfk
I...never imagined anything like that. I wonder what it would look like if *you* built one, with the physical texturing and shaping you do, especially one that is not symmetrical but rather styled for individual use. 




> I spent the afternoon with a musician friend removing the scaffolding from my house roof and ripping out the old ceilings on the top floor. By 7pm we looked like coal miners at the end of a shift. 140 years of soot, pigeon guano and slate waste! My friend will be replastering it all for me, now that the roof is weatherproof, in return for me building his recording studio.


Given the problems involved in a good studio design, that sounds like a fair trade. 
________
The Legend Condo Pattaya


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Amberwolf said:


> BTW, have you ever seen this:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2YkQA7ogfk
> I...never imagined anything like that. I wonder what it would look like if *you* built one, with the physical texturing and shaping you do, especially one that is not symmetrical but rather styled for individual use.


Something like that would involve a lot of CAD/CNC work to achieve the consistencies required, beyond my workshop I'm afraid.
This is more my sort of fancy tooling!









I did see a furniture maker in London's Brick Lane who was working just in plywood and all his stuff was designed on CAD and then CNC machined. All he did was assemble the pieces like a 3D jigsaw and people were paying good money for it.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

My aluminum plate arrived today so I got on with marking up and drilling holes.

I hadn't figured on the round plate being a problem but it wasn't easy marking it without a straight edge to square from. I also wanted to mark it off centre so that I could cut off the waste all from one side and that made for more frustration ensuring all the bolts holes were on the plate.
Still it was cheaper then getting a square or rectangular plate.
I may adjust some of the measurements on the table I posted earlier as some of the holes were only just within tolerance.

Anyway, it is done now and I only have to decide if I want to tap some the holes or have then as clearance for nuts and bolts.
I will also need to get longer bolts for some of the threaded holes in bell housing. They seem to be M10x1mm pitch and I only have M10x1.5mm pitch.
I will have to spend some time sawing the shape out of it, new blades for the jig saw I think.

I will rough out a centre hole when I know what is going in it.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Possibly m10 x 1.25. thats metric fine. I'd drill them out and tap normal. I tapped holes in my 12mm steel gearbox end plate but i would be worried about doing that in ali.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I was going to go for all plain holes in the plate though at 19mm it should be ok threaded. The threads in the bell housing are all in the aluminium and are blind so I have to keep them or try to bottom them in M12 but there isn't much material there.
I could also helicoil them in M10x1.5 as another option, I still have a few in stock.


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## fritzgutten (Jul 4, 2009)

you're gonna Jogsaw that? gosh, i'm sorry i'm missing out on that fun 
looking good Woody


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

fritzgutten said:


> you're gonna Jogsaw that? gosh, i'm sorry i'm missing out on that fun
> looking good Woody


I'm not going to use my bandsaw as it will leave ali chips all over my wood shop. I think a coarse HSS blade and some cutting fluid will be ok.
And ear defenders and eye protection!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've cut the plate. 

It wasn't too bad in the end. Heavy going and lots of cutting fluid. 
Took about 30 minutes.

























I'll sort ot the bolts and fittings later. I can still feel my arms vibrating from the saw and there are bits of aluminium chips in my hair.


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## fritzgutten (Jul 4, 2009)

Awesome Woody, 
didnt go a rough as i had thought then, good. is that cut optimized or were you drunk when you did it? 
make sure to get those aluminum chips off your clothes and hair, they can irritate a bit...speaking of, ever cut aluminum plate on a table saw? its scary and painful,. but overall works a treat, until you throw a carbide tooth


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

fritzgutten said:


> Awesome Woody,
> didnt go a rough as i had thought then, good. is that cut optimized or were you drunk when you did it?


LOL! Never drunk in charge of a power tool!

It is as close to the outline of the bell housing as I could get with the jigsaw. It also allowed me to keep as much of the remain plate intact as possible so that I could cut bits from it in future.

I've just had to go out and scatter some cat repellent granules around the MR2. One of the local moggies has been using my build space as a toilet!

I do love cats, I still have three remaining of seven, but mine are toilet trained.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

I'm sorry I missed the start of the adapter ring story - I would have said how I do it!

My company manufactures disk transmission brake conversions for a number of vehicles. Obviously we often need to make an adaptor between the back of a gearbox and the caliper mounting - and this is the method we have found most reliable.

Use a sheet of thick paper big enough to cover the mating surfaces - them press your thumb into each of the holes in the surface you want to mate to (a dirty thumb makes the indents clearer).

Scan the sheet of paper (a local printing shop has an A1 size scanner which is useful for big stuff).

Add other features (holes etc) to the picture.

Take two (roughly on X & Y axis) accurate measurements between hole centres - then give the image and measurements to a laser cutting shop. They will digitise the scan and scale the drawing to match your measurements.

It also works pretty well with a high resolution photograph.

Get the laser cutter to cut a sheet to match up.

It has proven surprisingly accurate and cheap. To cut all the mounting plates for my EV out of 6mm mild steel (plate for either end of motor and either side of reduction box) cost £60 ~ $100 including material.

For the actual mating / alignment of different components, I use a pair of plates with spacer tubes inbetween. Long bolts pass through the spacer tubes, locking the two plates rigidly together.

I've used this technique for adapting engines to gearboxes as well as all manor of things to other things. 

Trying to drill / cut / mill lumps of Aluminium to make adaptors like this just seems crazy - and in most cases they even weigh more.

I helped someone else make an adaptor to put a V8 in a VW Camper van. It took 1 hour with bits of paper to have a design. The laser cutter took a week to produce the metal and another half hour to bolt it together. He said his previous conversion took six months worth of evenings with a huge block of Aluminium on a manual mill!

Although it's probably too late for you - it might not be for someone else!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Hi Simon, thanks for that. I hope it does save someone else a lot of time and effort.

I thought about the paper and hole marks method as I used to make paper gaskets in the same way but I wouldn't be able to get the primary shaft centre.

The way I did it was to find the vertical Y axis over the primary shaft and clamp a steel rule to that line on the bell housing with the 200mm mark over the centre of the shaft.
I then squared off X axis measurements to each hole from the steel rule all off the centre line edge of the rule. I measured to both sides of each hole and took the average as the centre. I also took the measurement from my 200mm centre on the Y axis as an origin to get the Y axis mesurements.

Somewhere along the line something went a little wrong with some of the measurements. I reckon that having poor light and working with shiney steel rules I should have used a torch to see the measurements by instead of moving my head about to lose the reflections and glare and adding parallax errors to the equation.

I shall double check the measurements again and create a more accurate table.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've sold the exhaust system off the car and made back half the cost of buying the car! 
Woohoo, money for a motor!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I decided to have another go at getting definative bell housing bolt hole coordinates.

This time I used Simon's paper template method. I located the sheet of paper on the bell housing using the dowel holes and rubbed the outline of all the holes and the casting with a grubby finger.

I then tried to locate the primary shaft centre by measureing from a number of holes.

When I plotted these on the paper they were not particularly centred.








Anyway I placed the template on my drawing board (does anyone else still use these?) and with a bit of trial and error I found the centre of the partial circle that made up the inside of the bell housing.
Then I set the X/Y axis and measured the coordinates.

I have updated my table posted previously.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

If you have a cad program such as solidworks then you can use basically random dimensions to recreate all the hole positions.

If you have two dimensions from different locations then you can use these to create a map of the face. Its the same thing you could do with a pad and paper if you want to go to town, but the computer is much better at maths than me


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Yes, CAD is good. 
I first used AutoCAD back in 1988 transcribing architects' manual drawings so that we could install building services on plan more easily. That was when my brother and I were electrical engineers. Then I left it alone in 1991 after his death and never touched it again, due to a career change, until I did a refresher course in 2004 as part of my furniture studies.
I then found that I much prefered using a drawing board in the manner that I was taught back in 1985 when I did my Mech Eng degree. Like my furniture work a drawing board is much more tactile and connected to the person in my experience.

I will, at some point, transfer the dimensions to AutoCAD as I still have an old version (R14) on my work computer.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Totally off topic!

My website is finally up and running.
There are a few typos, errors and omissions to sort out but it is 12.45am and my website chap is most probably in bed now so won't get my email until morning.

www.eversleyhouse.org.uk

I've never had a website before and even though a friend has done this for me I never realised how much work has to go into it.
It has been three months in the making and most of that was waiting on me to produce the words and pictures .


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Well, following on from breaking the clutch release lever in this thread I have managed to weld it back together again. It isn't pretty now but hopefully stronger. I forgot to take photos as my hands were too grubby to want to use my phone camera but I will get some maybe tomorrow.

Hydraulic clutches alway seem to have less mechanical advantage then cable ones so I will probably have to keep the standard clutch pedal to operate it, or extend the lever if there is room. Job for another day.

Tomorrow will be spent pretty much as today now, under boarding an 11' high ceiling with 15mm thick 2400x1200mm acoustic boards. Back breaking and arm numbing work.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Here is the repaired clutch lever. I only welded on one side so as not to get weld into the push rod dimple so the break still shows on that side:

















I also managed to remove the crank shaft from the engine. No1 big end was well and truely shot.
I have cut the end off the crank to give me a blank to machine an adaptor for the flywheel. It took a bit of time with the 9" disc cutter to cut off the extra metal that isn't needed:


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

I'd say you had fun doing that! Reminds me of going through a 75mm hardened steel pin with a 1mm cutting disc!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

It was fun! I was cutting it on the drive with sparks flying everywhere. Bet the neighbours loved me this afternoon!

I still have a bit of tidying up to do on the rough cuts before I will put it on a lathe.

I'm not even sure what I need from it yet until I have a motor but I may as well get as much done as I can.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Progress is slowing rapidly now.
I mounted the crankshaft stump on the flywheel so that I could whizz off more of the unwanted metal to make it neater for turning yesterday.
Today I have been tidying up as I have relatives visiting this weekend and oily rags, bits of car and tools don't make a nice entry for them.

I did get to pop in the workshop again for a couple of minutes and remove the ring gear from the flywheel.

For those who don't know how to do this the ring gear is heat shrinked on to the flywheel so it is friction only holding it in place. Drill a hole in the ring gear at the base of the gear teeth and then place a cold chisel between the teeth and strike with a hammer. The ring gear will fail at the hole and spring off the flywheel.


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## fritzgutten (Jul 4, 2009)

looking good Woody! keep up the great work


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> For those who don't know how to do this the ring gear is heat shrinked on to the flywheel so it is friction only holding it in place. Drill a hole in the ring gear at the base of the gear teeth and then place a cold chisel between the teeth and strike with a hammer. The ring gear will fail at the hole and spring off the flywheel.



THIS is cool, I didn't know that, and would have tried it if I had known when I had mine apart just to reduce the mass a little without expensive shop time or messing up the balance... i was considering having mine turned down to minimum, but didn't have any luck finding a nearby speedshop with the right equipment to turn and re-balance.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Not been up to much with the car really. Got relatives visiting now and I've also been faffing about with seeing friends and stuff like that! I should be preparing for work but procrastinating about it.

I have bought another lathe though, here, as it is better then the one I bought recently. I should pick it up at the weekend. The old one is now for sale again and judging bu the interest I should get my money back.

I finally pulled the radiator from the car today as I had a spare hour before the relatives arrived. It was fiddly but mainly due to stuck hoses and rusted bolts. I have left the AC radiator for now as I am wondering about keeping it with the compressor driven by the drive motor. However, I don't really need it but was thinking of an excuse not to have to rip out the AC box behind the dash. 

I wanted to work out how difficult that is to do so I have been looking at the workshop manual pdf. Then I got into printing the thing out to make it easier to browse. I have printed the whole of the first section in little 'chapter' booklets at A5 double sided to save paper. Bad move, the whole of the first 650 page section is related to the engine! Doh! 

I will print the 1000 page second section (the useful bit) later on. I should have another ream of paper somewhere!


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

Hey Alfred, I found the electrical schematics section that is missing from the manual (appendix D). Its another 250 pages but worthwhile. I'll send you the link.

Sam.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Sam, that would be useful.

I am currently in the middle of a little print assembly line with manual duplex printing, long reach stapling and folding.

There were two big engine sections that were about 8mm thick so I had to drill and stitch them for lack of long staples! They are in my bench vice being pressed over night. I am keeping them just for completeness.

The other long chapters are being split at sensible points to make sub-chapters.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Right I have a Toyota MR2 workshop manual, less the wiring diagrams printed double sided A4 folded to make a pile of booklets that stack nearly 5" thick. I am compressing them in a vice at the moment to get them to stay tightly folded and may make some sort of binding or case to keep them together.

I got a parcel delivered this morning, a little Ebay purchase of a Saab vacuum pump for £35. I have just tested it and it works. It is a little noisy sitting on the edge of the bench but I figure that it will be quieter mounted in a far away corner of the car with a bit of sound deadening stuff.

Here's a vid of it.


I will make up a proper plug and a hose connection to the brake servo to see if it sucks enough to pull the brake pedal. If it does then I will make up a reserviour. 
I have a small, aluminium fire extinguisher can, do you thing that will be usable or should I go the plastic pipe route?


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Try this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110320260909&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

thats what i'm using.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Jack, I may just do that. It would look neat too and less like an engine bay extinguisher!

My extinguisher is about the same size as those water bottles but most probably a lot heavier. I have four of them though. I only thought of them today as they are knocking about and in the way. 

They may be worth more weighed in as scrap Ali.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Today, before going to work, I decided to have a play with a fire extinguisher.
I went outside and carefully released the pressure by unscrewing the top inside a black bin bag listening for the hiss. I eventually managed to get the top off and start tipping out the powder. There is a lot of it once it is out of the bottle. 

Then a gust of wind blew!

What is that yellow power that they put in a 1988 fire extinguisher? It sure tastes funny! And the taste lingers. Just back from work and I can still taste it, not on my tongue but in the breath at the back of my throat.


Anyway, the important thing is that the empty extinguisher is very light weight, about the same as an aluminium 1 litre water bottle. I cut up the nozzle part and I should be able to attach a bit of pipe to it to use as a vacuum reserviour.

I'll post photos in a moment.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> I got a parcel delivered this morning, a little Ebay purchase of a Saab vacuum pump for £35. I have just tested it and it works. It is a little noisy sitting on the edge of the bench but I figure that it will be quieter mounted in a far away corner of the car with a bit of sound deadening stuff.


you'll need about -15 or -20 inHg for most power brakes to work right. PVC capped pipe works great for accumulation... be sure you have a check valve, and limit switch. 

for vibration damping you can make little rubber feet and be sure NOT to mount to firewall, fender, or other drum-like place! I put mine on an engine mount, which has a nice rubber bushing insulating from car. can barely hear it from inside.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Could you give the ebay link?


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

dtbaker said:


> you'll need about -15 or -20 inHg for most power brakes to work right. PVC capped pipe works great for accumulation... be sure you have a check valve, and limit switch.
> 
> for vibration damping you can make little rubber feet and be sure NOT to mount to firewall, fender, or other drum-like place! I put mine on an engine mount, which has a nice rubber bushing insulating from car. can barely hear it from inside.


Thanks, I have bought a small vacuum guage from Ebay to check the vacuum level, I am just hoping that it will have the volume of air movement to get a good vacuum in a reasonable time. That will be trial and error I think.

I have found out that the yellow dry powder is:


> [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_phosphate"]Ammonium phosphate[/url], also known as "tri-class", "multipurpose" or "ABC" dry chemical, used on class A, B, and C fires. It receives its class A rating from the agent's ability to melt and flow at 177 °C (350 °F) to smother the fire. More corrosive than other dry chemical agents. Pale yellow in color.


This is the extinguisher I opened next to a standard one and a close up of the cut off nozzle end.
















It is 3" diameter and 14" long. I may need two but I do have a few of them spare.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> Could you give the ebay link?


For the pump?
 Saab Vacuum pump.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Thanks. Was looking for something like that.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

You can find some odd things when searching for vacuum pumps!

It does seem that mine was fairly cheap, This one is $220.
the one here is $721.68!

They were apparently used on Saab 9000 and 9-3 automatics up to about 1998/99.

I need to find a suitable pressure switch for it next.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I have been thinking about my commute to college. The college has moved to a new building and I have been messing about with different routes to get there these last couple of weeks.

It seems to have settled at 32 miles each way. It is broken down as 1/4 mile on urban roads at 25mph, 31 miles on motorway at 70mph and then 3/4 mile urban roads at 30mph.

That means I will have to achieve 62 miles at 60-70mph per day plus a tiny 2 miles bit of urban driving. I may need to think of more batteries.
I reckon I could really only afford half the pack of LiFePO4s and I will need to ensure that college allows me to recharge.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

That's a pretty tall order 62 mile range at 70mph. I guess if you limited yourself to 55 it would be a bit easier.

I'd persuade the collage to let you charge there - or just run an extension lead out the window!

I stayed in a Holiday Inn last year and there was a chap who had run an extension lead from his room to the charge his car! Cool idea I thought. Might be as well just to do it and not tell them?

Best of luck either way!

Si


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

I have 2 vacuum switches that go to 22in hg. You can have one if you like.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Simon, I can probably run at 60mph but as most of the traffic on the road at that time is doing 80-90mph I don't want to be going too slow for my own safety.

Can't cheat a charge as the college building is a 'hermetically sealed Faraday's cage' and the car park is a couple hundred yards away from the building structure unless I drove into the workshop loading bay. That would then put the car at the mercy of the brick laying students I think! I have forewarned the college that I should be up and running by next year and would expect a charge point. Don't know if they will take any notice though.

Jack, I would be very happy to have your pressure switch, let me know how much you want for it by PM and we can sort out the delivery details. Thank you very much.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Here's a pic. Came out of an industrial water heater.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

That's great Jack, thank you, I will have it and will sort you out with details on PM. I have also bought the lathe book you recommended too.

I have just got back from work via picking up some dial gauges bought from Ebay. The sale was for 6 assorted, 3 perfect and 3 slightly sticking. I got them for £9.99. When I picked up the chap added a box of mount clamps and ball joints and two more gauges. While chatting to him he gave me two more and also a magnetic base. He didn't want anymore money and was just happy to see them go to a good home. Fantastic!

I just need to pick up the lathe on Sunday morning.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Got another two deliveries today.
The first is a book on using the lathe as recommended to me by jack earlier.
The second is a vacuum gauge. It is a bit 'bling' for my tastes but it works.

I decided to plumb it into my vacuum pump to see how much vacuum it could pull. Sadly it could only manage 9" of hg. I managed to suck that myself when I put the pipe in my mouth!
So I now need to find a better pump. I may look at a belt driven pump from a Ford Transit but it needs an engine oil supply to lube the bearings by the look of the gasket that comes with it.

Back to the drawing board! At least the book will make good bed time reading.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

The Gast pump, switch, gauge, and resevoir 'kit' from kta-ev.com works great.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

dtbaker said:


> The Gast pump, switch, gauge, and resevoir 'kit' from kta-ev.com works great.


Yes, it has been recommended in other threads but I am saving money, or rather not spending money I haven't got.

I have everything save the pump itself so I could make something up to work. I have the reserviour, a potential pump motor, a vacuum switch from jack, pipework, guage, I'm sure I have a one way valve tucked away somewhere. I am even tempted to make a pump after I have set up my new lathe.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> Got another two deliveries today.
> I decided to plumb it into my vacuum pump to see how much vacuum it could pull. Sadly it could only manage 9" of hg. I managed to suck that myself when I put the pipe in my mouth!


9" Hg doesn't sound that bad. My vacuum pump only generates -5psi or so which is give or take the same - and the brakes work rather too well!

I would try it as it is and see how you get on.

Si


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Simon, I just did this evening.

I thought I'd just plug the pump into the servo pipe and croc clip it to the battery to see what 9" does.
The pedal didn't feel any different with or without it. I left it pumping for a while and tried again and still not a great deal of effect.
I know the servo worked from when I had the engine running so it should be ok.

I will try it again tomorrow in the light with the guage on as well to see what the vacuum is in case something is leaking.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

I wonder then if it might be down to volume rather than pressure? I'm using a 2 litre reservoir - but only get one press of the pedal out of it. Fortunately, my pump recovers the vacuum in a couple of seconds.

I'm using an old engine driven pump (from a series 2 Land Rover circa 1960) driven by an electric scooter motor. It's noisy - but works pretty well.

My next attempt is going to be a pneumatic cylinder reciprocated by a windscreen wiper motor and four non return valves (2 per end of the cylinder). The cylinder can have a larger volume so can move quite slowly and hopefully generate less noise.

Si


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

SimonRafferty said:


> My next attempt is going to be a pneumatic cylinder reciprocated by a windscreen wiper motor and four non return valves (2 per end of the cylinder). The cylinder can have a larger volume so can move quite slowly and hopefully generate less noise.
> 
> Si


You are reading my mind!
I was looking at the other fire extingishers and thinking 'cylinder pump!'. They would be a bit large but I could still make a simple short stroke 2 cylinder pump with them or a smaller pump using pipe.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I had a thought.

If I use my Aircon compressor as a vacuum pump I could mount so it is driven off the drive motor.

If I have an interlock switch on the clutch and gearbox neutral so that I can only run the motor at low speed when stationary I can pull a vacuum before selecting a gear to move off. It will be the same practice as charging the air brakes on a truck before driving. The interlocks would stop me from over speeding the motor.
The vacuum switch can then cut the electric clutch on the AC compressor in and out to maintain the vacuum as I drive.

I will test the AC compressor for pulling a vacuum later and see if it can do it well. The power demand may not be as high as when it is compressing AC gasses and it will only me a short duration additional load on the drive motor rather then carrying a second motor.

One advantage in this is that the AC plumbing can stay under the car to take the vacuum right up to the bulkhead where I can cut the pipe and plug in the servo pipe. The vacuum reservoir can live in the tunnel where the fuel tank was and just have a 'T' piece to connect it.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I haven't had time to play with the aircon compressor this evening. I felled a tree for my neighbour instead.
This is the tree.








This is where I want it to land. I told my neighbour it would land in line withthe blue tarpaulin.








This is the tree down and exactly where I said it would be and no damage. YAY!








We have been cutting it up for fire wood. The tree has been dead for a year or so, strangled by ivy, so it is nice and dry. He will dig around the stump at some point and I will winch it out with the car.

I sold my lathe tonight too, lost a little money on it but hey ho, that happens. I will be picking my replacement better one in the morning. I got a couple more sales of car parts to fund the conversion so I am a happy chap.

Finally, here's a photo for Sam, it is the printed out manual for the MR2 mk2, all 45 booklets worth. Thanks Sam, it has already proved invaluable reading.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> I had a thought.
> 
> If I use my Aircon compressor as a vacuum pump I could mount so it is driven off the drive motor.
> 
> ...


Some air conditioning compressors (mostly the rotory compressor types) REQUIRE oil circulation through the Freon system, in a loop, to lubricate the pistons and reed valves. A rotory compressor, when used as a vacuum pump might self distruct quickly. If you are going to try this you should look for an older style 2 piston reciprocating compressor.

Be sure of what you are doing with your brakes. Remember not only your life but more importantly someone elses life can depend on the operation of your brakes.

Sorry to be preachy, but home modified brake systems scare me.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Chears Jim, I appreciate your concern and input.
The way I see it is that the brakes are a priority and will be safe and sound. The only part I will play with is the servo assistence which, if it fails, doesn't prevent the brakes from working. It does mean that the brake pedal will be harder to push but no different to an ICE car if the engine fails while driving.

My safegauards will be a reserviour of vacuum that will supply more then 2 applications of the brakes, a high visibility vacuum guage that will show what vacuum the pump has pulled and I would like a low vacuum audiable buzzer that sounds when the vacuum falls below a certain level, say 10" hg. The buzzer will then sound as a warning when I first get in the car to remind me if the pump is still building up a vacuum when I am ready to move off. I figure that will be better then a standard ICE for safety.

The AC compressor oil. Yes, I had a look at the rebuild manual, the compressor body holds a reserviour of oil so I am assuming that the pump is internally lubricated by its own supply for its moving parts. That makes it better then the Ford Transit type vacuum pumps which are pressure lubricated by the engine supply.
The regassing intructions don't mention oil at all but does say 'Do not apply compressor oil to the seats of the pipe connections.'
Does the refrigerant contain oil in the mix for lubricating the valves and pistons?


I have set up my lathe today.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Nice lathe! I posted your vac switch this morning. Tracking details sent in a pm. Not to argue with jim but i have used many auto aircon compressors to make engine driven air compressors for remote work. The trick i used was to fill them to the brim with prolong engine treatment and let it blow it all out then hookup air pipes etc. Never let me down. I sourced a 12v vac pump on the US ebay for $40 + $57 p+p. Ebay changed their search setup last year so you have to actually visit each region to get to see what they have available as it will not show up on a uk search. Ebay Ireland is a ghost town!


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

Likewise, I've used Land Rover AC compressors for on-board air. In one application it was supplying air for dynamic air suspension which used between 3 and 10 cfm most of the time!

I found that if you empty the oil out and replace it with grease - something like PTFE "white" grease, lithium or moly, the pumps lasted much longer and didn't leave oil in the exhaust gas.

20,000 miles was the typical life with the pump running continuously. The duty cycle of my brake compressor is probably 1:10 to 1:100 - so I think the AC pump would last ages.

They generate a very good vacuum too (or about 200psi pressure).

It wouldn't be such a daft idea just to run it from an eleccy motor - perhaps a starter motor?

Interesting Lathe - what make is it? It looks like it shares a lot of features with a Myford. Do you have the screwcutting gears for the lead-screw? Very useful! 

Si


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Jack, I will find some of the treatment stuff.

Simon, I have a couple of motors to test it with but I figured that as the duty cycle would be so low it might as well be powered by the drive motor with the electric clutch doing its job. It may well be quieter then running a second small motor. Besides which I don't have the Toyota Special tools to remove the electric clutch so I might as well use it.

It does mean that I will need to fit the drive pully somewhere, either as part of the flywheel coupler/adpator or if the motor has a tail shaft. I can reuse the crankshaft pulley from the ICE.
tail shaft would be best as I would have to uncouple the motor to change a belt if it is with the flywheel coupler.

The lathe maker's name seems to have been lost in the casting, it starts IB.... or ID.... something and seems about 5 or so letters long.
I don't have screw cutting gears but if it is Myford based then I may be able to source Myford parts.
I will need to work out how to identify the chuck thread so I can get a faceplate nad four jaw chuck to go with it.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've been playing with the lathe. I machined a little adaptor to join the 4mm bore clear hose from my vacuum gauge to the vacuum inlet of the AC compressor.

I assembled it all together using some old cycle inner tube as a seal and turned the compressor pulley by hand.
Five turns of the pulley gave me a peak of 11"hg.








At this point the clear hose began to collapse so there was not really much point coupling a motor to it. I will do that later in the week.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Nice. I see you have a "performance" gauge. Obviously the car will go faster with that part


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> Nice. I see you have a "performance" gauge. Obviously the car will go faster with that part


Go faster?
Nah, it will just let me know how much my car sucks!

I only got this guage because it was new and had pipe, T peice and illumination (and boy does it illuminate!). I really wanted a plain white on black Smiths type gauge but they seemed to be snapped up by restorers. The other type available had colour graduations to show how well the ICE was performing and as a matter of principle I wasn't going to get one of those.

However, mine is a bit of a 'go faster', 'boy racer', 'hot hatch', 'bling' gadget and should really go with a set of hi chrome wheel spinners and megawatt stereo.

I'll turn my cap round the right way now and re-tie my laces.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Did you see that episode of mythbusters with the diesel powered speaker? "We'll have 3 notes. 1st gear , 2nd gear , 3rd gear!"


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I saw that episode, silly but fun!

I'm wishing for progress on the MR2 at the moment as my ICE car is in the garage for repair. 
The clutch has finally given up and it may be one of those dual mass 'lets rip off the car owner for more then the car is worth' jobs! The garage will let me know but it will have to be fixed regardless. At least it is a trust worthy garage.

I have been excused house moving duties tomorrow as I don't have suitable transport so I will spend the day doing EV stuff.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

It's been mostly a wasted day. All day with a rotten, pulsing headache so apart from printing out the book on electric motors, from this thread, and binding it I haven't done much at all. I still need to cut out a card cover for the book and print it though it isn't urgent. It has been fairly easy work that I have been able to do in between bouts of nausia.

However, I have come alive this evening and, I know it is bad but it's Saturday night and the noise wouldn't be noticed (so much), I have been doing a bit of work on the lathe.

I've found out that I can't machine the lumps of crank shaft very well, it is a bit too hard and difficult to hold in the chuck. I may have to find a different way to do this, maybe get some TCT tools. I have also started to make a clutch alignment tool for the MR2 clutch. There's no nose bearing on the gearbox shaft so the clutch needs to be aligned exactly before assembly.
I don't have any solid bar at the moment so I have used a couple of bits of thick wall pipe to make the two different diameters needed with one pipe turned and pressed into the other.
It is roughed out and in the chuck, I will finish it tomorrow.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

TCT tips are a must! Chronos in the UK sell some fairly good value kits. Buy the 'Glanze' branded ones - the cheaper ones flex too much and chatter like hell. I use these on my CNC and have been pretty impressed for the cost.

One trick with hardened or heat treated material is to wind the RPM up as high as it will go then use reasonably deep cuts with high feed rates - but no coolant. The tip heats up the material to the point it looses it's hardness. It's a fine balance but you can get it where all the really hot metal is coming off as swarf and the hardness is largely unaffected in the core material.

If all else fails - spark errosion will cut it!

For metal - go and make friends with a local CNC shop. They will have loads of bar ends that usually just go in the recycling skip. Likewise with metal suppliers who cut to ortder. They will generally sell it for the scrap value. If you get stuck - give me a shout and I'll keep my eyes peeled while I'm looking in the skips!

Si


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Simon, I'll see if I can get a set of those. Trying not to spend at the moment as my Skoda needs a new clutch and it is potentially very, very expensive. Not going to go shopping for a motor this week for the same reasons.

Note to self: When turning a pipe for an interferance fit in a bore remember that the pipe has heated in the lathe and will shrink to a loose fit. Opps! 

I spent 4 hours under the car this afternoon and managed to pull out the fuel tank, all the fuel lines, filler pipe and all the coolant pipes. I even managed to drain a gallon of petrol out for my chainsaw. I also removed the air con radiator and condenser while the car was on stands but left the pipes in place for now so I can use one of them to connect the AC compressor to the brake servo when I look up which is the vacuum line.

I was also going to remove the two heater pipes in the tunnel too but for reasons best known to the Japanese the pipes are fixed with bolts underneath on all but one pair of clips which are held by nuts inside the cabin under the centre console. I couldn't be bothered with emptying all the loose parts from the cabin and removing the console so the pipes stay for now.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Are you keeping the aircon? I find as I remove parts that are not designed to be removed during the life of the car (ie fuel filler) that the fun starts. I'd chop those brackets from underneath. Get yourself one of the little 3" air cut off saws. Very useful.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> Are you keeping the aircon? I find as I remove parts that are not designed to be removed during the life of the car (ie fuel filler) that the fun starts. I'd chop those brackets from underneath. Get yourself one of the little 3" air cut off saws. Very useful.


I'm keeping one of the air con pipes as I want to use the air con compressor mounted on the drive motor to supply the vacuum for the brake servo. The other pipe will go. Those pipes are pretty much loose anyway as they had to be moved to get the fuel tank out.

The problem pipes are the heater pipes that take the hot water from the engine to the heater matrix. There is no space to move in the underside of the tunnel so I will just pull the interior at some point. I will browse the manual to see what else I can do at the same time.

Here is the fuel tank, it fills the tunnel from the front bulkhead to the rear bulkhead.









It would be interesting to see what I can put in the tunnel to take its place. I thought about the batteries but it would be difficult to check them.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Well it has been a productive day.

I have built a cat walk for the theatre, got loads of bargains from the local 
DIY Shed and set up a motor to power the AC compressor to see what it does when running.

I set up a simple mount for the compressor and screwed it to a bench top. I then took an electric motor with a V pulley and clamped it down with the belt tightish on the polyvee pulley on the AC compressor.
The motor is 240v 550w 1400rpm.
I fitted the vacuum guage to the compressor with a length of tube and used a battery charger to energize the electric clutch. At forst the motor was running the wrong way and the guage read 10"hg and took a 2-3 seconds to get there. Once the motor was reversed 11"hg happened within a second.
http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y179/Eversley/MR2 EV/?action=view&current=MR2Vid004.flv

The pun about 11" at the end of the video was unintentional, however, I will need to check if the old girl will work with that or if she needs more.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

I've mine set to 15" and the brake pedal drops like a stone.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I'll set up the rig outside and test it on the car to see what the pedal is like. 9" didn't do anything last time with the Saab pump but I also don't know if the servo works anyway.

I'll also try it on my own car to see if it is sufficient, that will prove the pump one way or the other.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've just tried the AC with a reserviour. It only takes a few seconds to charge the reserviour and that is allowing for a leak in the plumbing as well.

Here's the video.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've just tested the AC compressor on the car. Using some of the pipework I removed earlier I brought the vacuum connection outside the front wing. To save setting up the compressor again I took the section of bench top up with the motor and compressor attached and stood it on edge. Plugged in and with a battery to energise the clutch I gave it a go. I disconnected the leaky reserviour for the test as I wanted to know how it would perform without leaks.
At 11"hg the pedal is really easy to press, each press only drops the gauge by 2-3"hg. The compressor easily keeps up with one press per second.
I figure that the fire extingisher can should be fine and quick to charge, however, I also have a steel 9 litre water extinguisher can that can be easily fitted in the tunnel. That will keep a lot of vacuum but will take longer to evacuate as well as being heavy.

Now I know it works I can make up the connections properly.









While I was at it I took the time to remove a lot of the interior just to get at the two remaining nuts holding the heater pipes in place.
I had to remove the rear cubby box, centre console, dash centre section and radio housing!
So now the two pipes are out, finally.

I think, now, everything that needs to come out has come out leaving the main aircon pipes for the time being.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Thats not a half bad solution especially as it avoids having to import a dedicated vac pump. Those pumps will go to 150psi on the output no problem. Just wondering could it be dual purpose. Brake vac and onboard compressed air?

p.s. any luck on the motor hunt?


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I did think about onboard air for the ponderings about an automatic clutch but if nothing goes in nothing comes out. The compressor output is great but once it has bottomed out the vacuum the outlet is pretty much dead.

The nice thing is the AC compressor draws a vacuum really quickly so even being drive motor powered I reckon I would have full vacuum once I have gone far or fast enough to need it. The end of my cobbled street in first gear should do it.

I have been figuring the plumbing. If I locate the reserviour in the spare wheel well at the front it can sit underneath the battery bank. I can then use copper plumbing pipe to run 15mm pipe to near the AC pipe where it reappears in the frunk (front trunk). It will then tee off to the top of the bulkhead where I can tee off in 10mm pipe to run the gauge and the servo. I can also tee off to join on to the original servo pipe back to the engine bay where the vacuum switch can be located to power the compressor's electric clutch. It means I reuse two of the existing pipes under the tunnel.









I haven't found a motor yet, a potentially costly clutch job on my daily drive means I can't risk spending until it is done and paid for. It may be a dual mass clutch and that could be £1k or so to sort out. I also have to pay the chap who built my website for me too and college won't be paying me until next month's payroll asI have only just got my contract to sign.

I am hoping the motor has a usable tailshaft within the maximum length I can accommodate in the engine bay otherwise my plan will be scuppered.
I could put a pulley between the motor and gearbox but it would mean parting the two to change a broken or worn belt.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've been digging around in my plumbing box and sorted out a neat way of connecting the reserviour to the rest of the vacuum plumbing.

Quick recap. 
I am using a dry powder fire extinguisher bottle as my reserviour. 
I removed the top and emptied the powder and then gave it a clean.
The handle and nozzle was then cut up leaving a roughly tubular stump.
The stump was placed in the lathe and turned to 22.3mm OD. The radiused area was also turned to get as much straight shaft as possible.
A flexible plumbing connector was then used with a compression joint and olive to connect to the turned section of the extinguisher nozzle.

Here is a before and after comparison of the modification.









This is the flexible pipe connected to the reserviour.









I managed to find a flexible pipe that was 22mm compression at one end and 15mm compression at the other end. This will allow me to plumb in a section of 15mm copper water pipe that will match the aircon pipe, I am planning on using the aircon compressor driven by the drive motor. 
The use of 15mm plumbing pipe will also allow me to reduce to 10mm so that I can connect to the brake servo and also the existing original servo vacuum pipe to take a vacuum back to the switch in the rear of the car where the aircon compressor will be sited. The switch will operate the the electric clutch on the aircon pulley to maintain the vacuum at preset levels.
I will use a vacuum gauge in the cockpit of the car to monitor the vacuum level so that I will be aware of any variation or loss of vacuum during driving.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

So, having done a load of ironing this evening (just why is my dryer producing really bady knotted and creased clothes these days!) I decided to pop back into the workshop to get my hands dirty again.

I had a play with the throttle body from the dead engine. It has a throttle position sensor on the end of it so I removed it and checked it with a multimeter. It is a 90deg turn pot giving 0-6kohm and 6kohm-0. I'm not sure what the forth terminal does, it seems to measure in mohms down to kohms.









I am hoping that with it attached to a stripped down throttle body I will be able to have a very usable throttle pot for the controller. If I mount it somewhere convenient near the motor the existing throttle cable should reconnect and work satisfactorily.

I also started dismantling a spare dash panel to see what I can do with replacing instruments. I will use it as a learning and experimental process before I risk damaging the one on the car.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> I had a play with the throttle body from the dead engine. It has a throttle position sensor on the end of it so I removed it and checked it with a multimeter. It is a 90deg turn pot giving 0-6kohm and 6kohm-0.


Interesting.... good news is if you can use it, the travel should give you 'full range'. I am remembering that my Curtis controller/pb use 0-5kohm for full though. You could probably set the limit under the accelerator pedal if need be.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

So should the throttle pot go from 0-6K or from 6k-0 when going from no throttle to full trottle?
The throttle body set up holds the pot slightly off the stops at one end of the travel when at rest.

Today I tackled the new copper plumbing for the vacuum circuit in the frunk. I was in out out of the rain this early afternoon trying to get it sorted out so no photos yet, too many hours overall for only a couple of feet of pipe that took half an hour of actual work. Then the phone rang.

My daily driver has been fixed and is back on the road. The garage wanted me to pick it up as they wanted the courtesy car back for another customer. It's a good garage hence really busy. The clutch cost me £573.55. Not bad given it was a dual mass clutch. The garage used their initiative and replaced it with a standard clutch kit thus saving me about £500 now and a significant saving for the future. That's what I call a good garage. It's a shame they are best part of 30 miles away.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Here's the photo of the plumbing installation. It isn't connected in the photo but I wanted to get the photo before it got dark this evening. I have now connected it up and linked to the existing pipework and the servo. I have also reduced the 10mm pipe down to 5mm to join onto the hose for the vacuum gauge. The reserviour will be bolted down in the bottom of the spare wheel well. I am using two plastic fire extinguisher wall brackets to hold it. One is modified to fit the profile at the bottom of the reserviour.









Following on from a forum trend I thought I'd show a photo of my mock up battery. I made it at college today during my lunch break.









Stacked in the conventional way I can get 12 in the car where the radiators used to be and then 10 where the spare wheel used to be above the vacuum reserviour. If I stack the batteries on their flat side I can get four across and three high giving another 12 batteries in a 4x3 configuration.
Lying flat on their sides I can also get another 10 in a 5x2 configuration at the back where the exhaust silencer used to be.
The rest will live above the motor and gearbox or, as my Mum suggested, remove the passenger seat and put them there!

Is there any reason why I can't or shouldn't install the batteries lying on their sides or edges rather then upright?


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Your fake battery is way better than my piece of junk! I think they can be mounted in any orientation.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> Your fake battery is way better than my piece of junk!


Yebut you have a motor!

I will be able to find space for so many more batteries if they can lie down, I may be able to keep the passenger seat then.
I suppose the main problem will be access to the teminals and seeing the BMS thingies on them.

The other thing I am hoping to avoid is cutting out the boot and frunk floor to make space as that could land me in IVA inspection territory.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

First bit of fiddly work. I have managed to fit the vacuum gauge into the instrument panel. It wasn't easy as the original fuel gauge is fitted on a slant to fit the curve of the panel face and the back of the panel is full of moulded shapes and lighting channels.

I took the vacuum gauge apart to figure out how best to fit it thinking that without its case it would be easier. Not good. I managed to bend the bourdon tube as there was nothing else to hold. I bent it back though and then spent ages trying to zero the gauge again.

In the end I cut the back off the original gauge housing and refitted it to that before trying to fit it to the instrument panel. It was difficult to line it up with the round opening in the panel front due to it being on a slant What looked right didn't end up right once the panel was snapped shut so it needed to be popped open a few times.

The flexible circuit board also clashed with the vacuum connector and I had to cut the circuit board and reconnect the cut circuits with soldered wires.

It eventually was as right as I could be bothered with and I refitted it to the car.

This is what it looks like fitted with and without lights on. I was getting too frustrated to remember to take photos of the process.

















It may yet come out again depending on how it works. I may have damaged the bourdon tube and destroyed its accuracy, or even its ability to work at all but replacing will be straight forward.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Nice work. I know how frustrating something like this can be. Cars are not exactly "user friendly" when you start making changes.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

The EL lighting on the gauge is a bit bright too. I may have to either get matching dial faces for the rest of the dials or spray the vacuum gauge black leaving just a clear band where the scale is.

I've not tried adjusting the brighness of the back lighting either, not sure how the EL controller will like it.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've just had a measure of the motor compartment on the car and I should be able to get 28 cells in there in 4 packs of 7. I could also tuck in another 2 or 3 cells in the sides but it wouldn't be worth worrying about. 

Using 200ah cells 28 cells would weigh 168kg just ahead of the axle centre line.
If I get another 12 in the radiator space and 10 in the spare wheel well then that gives me 22 cells, 132kg, ahead of the front axle.
That would be a total of 50cells at 300kg.
However, I couldn't really afford that at around £10k for the pack.
But it does give me 79 miles at 80%DoD at 70mph.

If I go to 160ah then the cell size is the same but the weight comes down and I would have 156.8kg at the rear and 123.2kg at the front totalling 280kg.
The cost would be in the region of £8k giving me 65 miles at 80%DoD at 70mph.

Options are 50 x 160ah cells is equivelent to 40 x 200ah cells in both cost and range at 70mph but the 200ah cells would give me back a spare wheel space.

Slowing down to 60mph would give me the same range using 40 x 160ah cells but at only £6400 and only 224kg pack weight.

Decisions, decisions.....

Also worked out that if I use a 240v 9kw water heater to run the heating at pack voltage giving around 3.5kw I would need another 6-8 cells to make up the range.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I'm sure someone with authority has it in for me sometimes.

I've just decided to tackle the big fiddly job of taking out the whole dash panel to remove the heating system. Everything that was stored inside the car has to be taken out and left on the ground along with the bits of dash that are comming out. As I've got started it begins to chuck it down with rain even though the forecast says 'no rain' and it is actually sunny! Now I've pack up and come back in it has stopped raining!

It has been doing this to me for the last couple of weeks now, a small area of local rain that only seems to fall when I uncover the car to do work on it and then stop when I stop!

Who ever you are, will you please pack it in, it's not funny!


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

I wouldn't mess about replacing the heater core. I'm looking at making up a nice cheap fluid heater and pump that you just plumb into the normal heater.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Too late!

After three hours of messing about in the rain I managed to get the aircon core and the heater core out.

Here's the offending item:









And here is what my car looks like now









I figured that a wet system will need to have a heating element, a heating vessel, a header tank, an antifreeze added, a pump to circulate it and using what I have I would be losing 10 miles of range or adding 6-7 extra batteries to power the heater.

I also looked at a diesel heater from Eberspacher for both warm air and for hot water but it would mean replacing a small fuel tank, filler, exhaust, etc. as well as costing a lot of money.

I figured that ripping out the dash is just labour and I can afford that at the moment whereas I can't afford a good fluid heater.
Also while I was stripping the engine, the heater pipes were solid with brown gunge that needed a screw driver to dig out. I couldn't be sure that the heater core was any better or leak free as someone on the MR2 forum suggested that the gunge may be a leak stop additive.

The aircon core was worth getting rid of, though that didn't need the whole dash out, as it was completely blocked with black, oily gunge, rotting vegetation and flies. Not a lot of air was going to get past that!


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## Jordysport (Mar 22, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> Too late!
> 
> After three hours of messing about in the rain I managed to get the aircon core and the heater core out.
> 
> ...


Sounds like HGF it will take you months to get the pipes clean, trust me i own a rover!!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Jordysport said:


> Sounds like HGF it will take you months to get the pipes clean, trust me i own a rover!!


Yeah, most of the pipes were full of brown water and a brown paste. The car is now water free (except what keeps falling on the roof).


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Here is a photo of the vacuum system in the frunk now that the last of the redundent heating and aircon pipes have been removed. I will need to fit another couple of P clips on the pipe but I need to get some more M6 clinchnuts.









And here is a little video tour of the layout.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> I wouldn't mess about replacing the heater core. I'm looking at making up a nice cheap fluid heater and pump that you just plumb into the normal heater.


Jack, have you thought about using a dish washer heater? It looks like they just plumb in line and heat the water.
Wish I had seen this earlier.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Jack, have you thought about using a dish washer heater? It looks like they just plumb in line and heat the water.
> Wish I had seen this earlier.



Your a genius! that is an absolute perfect solution. Couple it to a 12v coolant pump from an opel omega and its a job done. Less than £100.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/12-VOLT-IN-LI...s_SM?hash=item518c392fa8&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

What we'd need here would be a system to use mains power to get it warmed up before setting of on a journey.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> Your a genius! that is an absolute perfect solution. Couple it to a 12v coolant pump from an opel omega and its a job done. Less than £100.
> http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/12-VOLT-IN-LI...s_SM?hash=item518c392fa8&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
> 
> What we'd need here would be a system to use mains power to get it warmed up before setting of on a journey.


That's easy.
Have a change over relay to control the heater and pump supply so that when the ignition is on the relay switches to allow pack voltage to supply the heater. When the ignition is off the relay switches over, disconnects the heater from the pack and connects the heater to the charger connection via a clock switch. Set the clock to power up 15-30 minutes before you are due out in the mornings and before you finish work and it will heat up via mains charging voltage. that will probably happen when the charge cycle has ended so the additonal load won't be a problem.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

So, Jack, given the disnwasher heater is 2kw at 240v what do you work out the power to be at 'pack voltage'?

My calculations using V=IR and P=VI I worked out current draw at 240v as 8.33 amps and then got the resistance of the heating element as 28.8 ohms. From there I worked out the current draw at 144v as 5 amps and then the power as being 720W.

It's been a while since I've done this so does that look right?
Will 720w be enough?


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

I think it would be fine. Lets face it most people use a 1kw ceramic heater at low voltage. Also it would be getting a 240v boost from the mains to get it up to temp. Beats hell out of tearing half the car apart! Ideal answer for a tank is an old fire extinguisher with a car radiator type pressure cap in case of any shorts or problem it won't explode.


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

Alfred, I'm looking at the heating system now. I want to do a nichrome wire heater core to replace the water core. I saw the comments on using a dishwasher heater but it's just added complexity really.

How did you get the dash out? I managed to pull out the A/C gear but couldn't find all the bolts for the dash itself.

Sam.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2009)

samborambo said:


> Alfred, I'm looking at the heating system now. I want to do a nichrome wire heater core to replace the water core. I saw the comments on using a dishwasher heater but it's just added complexity really.
> 
> How did you get the dash out? I managed to pull out the A/C gear but couldn't find all the bolts for the dash itself.
> 
> Sam.


Why not just use a hair dryer?


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Here is the start of my dry air heater.








I just happen to have an old tumble dryer that I am going to strip for parts and scrap metal so I took the heater out of the back of it. It is 2kw and looks very similar to the elements from 3kw fan heaters. I just so happen to have a load of old, and new, fan heaters from my electrical days so I am going to strip a couple of them to get elements that I can modify to fit in the space.

I also have a plan to save stripping out the dash board. More on that when I have done it.




samborambo said:


> How did you get the dash out? I managed to pull out the A/C gear but couldn't find all the bolts for the dash itself.
> 
> Sam.


Hi Sam,

The dash bolts are well hidden.

Taking out the glove box and the steering column surrounds is fairly easy. as is removing the centre console and all the stereo and heater controls.

There are two bolts, one at each side of the dash at the bottom corners near the door check straps.
Then there is one bolt behind the centre of the instrument pod which also has to come out.
From the instrument pod hole there is another bolt tucked well inside the dash towards the corner of the wind screen.
It's twin can be accessed by popping off the corner heater vent on top of the dash on the passenger side.

Remove the heater vent pipe that goes under the steering column.

The dash would be loose now except that you also have to remove the door surround trim. You can carefuly pop it off on the driver's side and unhook it from the rear quarter trim to save removing the seat belt and the rear window surround. Yes, to remove the dash the rear window trim should come off!

The passenger side door surround needs the grap handle removing. Be careful with the bolts from that as there is a spring plate, a square washer, the end of the handle and the back part of the end cover and they have a habit of just pinging off across the car. The spring plate has a squigilly tab at one end, that bit points towards the middle of the handle.

The door surrounds are very long. They start at the top back corner of the door opening at the B pillar and go all the way down the side of the wind screen where they hook into the dash, preventing the dash from coming out, and then a long thin strip continues down the A pillar to the bottom.

Now the dash is ready to be pulled away from the base of the wind screen.
However, you may not be able to remove it without removing the steering wheel and the top half of the steering column and the stalks.

I managed because I have a really small steering wheel and I managed to lower and extend the column while wiggling the various bits of the dash over the stalks, steering column, hand brake lever (needs to be up and down at various points), and the gear stick. The gear stick on mine is not attached to the gearbox and so has a wider range of movement to make this easier. If the steering column is removed then this may not matter.

The dash is heavy and unbalanced so careful of the seat fabric as it comes out.

To get the heater out there are a couple of 10mm AF nuts at the top to the bulk head.
Then remove the funnel to the windscreen demister.
Then remove the steel support that joins the passenger side of the tunnel to the round rusty tube across the bulkhead (Why do they never paint or galvanise this part? Every car I've seen with one it is unprotected and rusty!).
Disconnect the cabling.
Disconnect the hoses in the frunk and also the short cable to the heater valve.
Pull the heater from the passenger side and also push the pipes through the bulkhead sort of at the same time and wiggle it. It won't fit under the rusty tube but does flex enough to pop under it.
Then mop up the rusty water that is now pouring into the passenger foot well!

To remove the heater core DO NOT dismantle the heater box as I did.
On one of the heater core pipes there is a metal bracket screwed to the plastic heater case. Undo the screw and the core pulls out.

Simple.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Drew said:


> Why not just use a hair dryer?


A hair dryer would be ok I suppose. Wrong shape though if the rest of the heating system is kept.

Modern hair dryers get really hot but need a strong fan to prevent overheating the case.

A fan heater is pretty much the same thing in an easier package for me.


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

Thanks for the detailed reponse mate. I should've mentioned that I already have the interior gutted at the moment. The dash is the only thing I've been having trouble with.

Hairdryers and other industrial fan heaters are out of the question for me. My pack voltage is 700V. I've got a large spool of nichrome wire so I'll figure out how to make a replacement core using that.

Sam.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

You're welcome, Sam.

700V!

You could use 3 sets of 240v heating elements in series. I was thinking of using the elements out of a storage heater as I have quite a few of them too.

Winding your own would be fun. Fairly simple task to work out how many metres needed and then organise it in a frame either in coils or in zigags.

If you can get some ceramic strips or rods then they can be set in a metal frame and the wire wrapped around them.


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> You're welcome, Sam.
> 
> 700V!
> 
> ...


I suppose asbestos is off the table these days 

Yeah, I was thinking of making a steel frame of the same dimensions as the water core so it'll just be a drop in replacement. I've got a few ideas on making the PWM controller for it too.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

This is what I want to do in the next day or so when I have time.








I want to measure and cut out the section of the bulkhead where the heater core is. 
I will then panel beat an oversize plate to cover the hole. 
It will be secured with a neoprene seal and M6 bolts into clinchnuts set in the bulkhead.
The panel will then be painted to look professional and 'stock' to prevent the overzealous officials from thinking I have done anything.

The reason for this is so I can replace all the heater and dash components and worry about making the heater core later. It will also allow me to change the core easily should it fail later on.

It is the sort of thing that should have been designed in by the Japanese were they not so preoccupied with overcomplicating a little sports car.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've dug out a couple of fan heaters and ripped them apart.








One is 2.8kwand the other is 2.4kw.

This is how they compare to the original heater core.









The 2.8kw element is a little too long so I may trim it down a bit or continue looking for another one the same as the 2.4kw. The 2.4kw element is better anyway as all the terminals are on the same end.

Measuring the resistances I get 48 ohms per element in the 2.4kw and 39 ohms per element in the 2.8kw. Each has two elements.

If I had a 144v pack that would work out at 2x 432W and 2x 532W. With some switching sorted out I could then have four heat settings.
I will have to wire it so that the heating elements only come on when the fan is running and maybe set it so that the higher settings only work with a faster fan.


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## samborambo (Aug 27, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> I've dug out a couple of fan heaters and ripped them apart.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


You can do a 3 heat switch with just two elements if that's preferable - as used on electric blankets, etc.

eg: With the 2.8kW heater you'd have 3 heat settings of 266W series, 532W single and 1064W parallel.

Sam.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've managed to spend a dry day outside working on the car.
First I tackled the hole in the bulkhead to insert the heater core. I carefully drew around the old core on the inside and outside and they didn't line up. So I took a guess and drilled a hole in each corner to get an approximation. then I started cutting. I chain drilled some holes in the corners to get a hacksaw blade through and I also used my battery Dremel to cut most of it. Eventually I had a hole that I could fine tune to line up with clearance.

I refitted the heater to check and 'posted' the old heater core through the hole.

























I will now need to make up a cover plate to go over the hole and also make an electric heater core to fit in properly. If it goes wrong at least I know I will not need to rip out the dash again.

Refitting the heater box was a PITA as I couldn't remember what order the parts went back I had to remove it three times to fit something that needed to be attached first!
Eventually it came together and I was ready to refit the aircon box.

Then I remembered the amount of gunk that was blocking the aircon core. The thought of a dry leaf landing on a hot electric heating element wasn't good.
I decided to pop out to a local motor spares shop and bought a square of aluminium mesh used for body repairs. That was fitted to the aircon box as a debris filter on the basis that the aircon box is removable with just the glove box out.

















The mesh was stuck on with double sided tape. I will see if it stays. If not then I will add some mechanical fixings.

So the dash went back in after that and it is now all back together.









What I should have done was to check the heater system functions before I put the dash in.
I have no heater fan or flaps. Not sure what is wrong yet as I don't have time to check it today. Maybe a fuse or a missing connection or a pulled wire. 

That will have to wait until the weekend now. I hope it isn't a dash out repair!


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Not sure what is wrong yet as I don't have time to check it today. Maybe a fuse or a missing connection or a pulled wire.


Nice Pictures! The only thing I see wrong - is the steering wheel is on the wrong side!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Dave Koller said:


> Nice Pictures! The only thing I see wrong - is the steering wheel is on the wrong side!


That is a bit of a pain really but given nearly, but not quite, everyone here drives on the wrong side it sorta helps a little to see what's going on ahead.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Following on from a wasted day being wasted from an on/off migraine yesterday I got a brief chance to play with a heating idea today.

Dad and I went off to a car boot sale this morning looking for another suitable heater to rip a matching element from. We couldn't find one but got wet from the heavy showers.
We then wasted a couple of hours trying to get into Manchester to buy 40kg of rice as we had run out. Two hours driving 20 miles to do what should have been a 7 mile round trip! We timed it wrong and caught the traffic from a major road closure. The diversion routes were also full of road works and closures. We got the rice eventually but I had time to think.

When I got home I set to work for an hour or so before I had to go out for the evening. I decided to find another source for dry heating elements and came up with cooker top rings. We have dozens of them, new and packaged for sale from the left over stock from my Dad's shop.

Each element is 1.5kw at 250vac. Measuring the resistance of one gave 43ohms. At 144v that gives 482 Watts.
I decided to put three together. The fun part was trying to 'weave' three elements together to make one compact unit with a good air gap between the elements.
It was like one of those annoying puzzles made up of some bent nails that need to be linked together or separated.

Anyway, I came up with this.
















I had to cut the support clip at the terminal ends and then reweld the parts back to gether again into one unit. The welds are a mess due to the difficulty just holding six springy bits together.

I will make a frame for them to fit in the heater core space. They are just about the biggest size that will go in there and as compact as the elements could be.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

That looks surprisingly good! 

Have you decided how you are going to switch them on and off? The reason I ask is that a switch/relay will arc much more on DC than AC - probably to the point of the contacts welding or the relay melting! I found this with a 180A AC relay switching 10A DC at 180v.

My fix was a solid state switch - but you could use a vacuum relay (Tyco Kilovac for example).

Si


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Yes, switching may be a problem.

I was thinking of switching each element independently to get a variable heating load using the biggest relays I could find like starter motor relays. The Kilovac could be the answer.

Also Samborambo is also advising me on solid state control using PWM. This is the route he is taking and using the current draw to determine thermostatic control (if I understood correctly).
If PWM is a good way of controlling the DC loads then I may also look at small motor speed controllers on Ebay that are supposedly for a few tens of amps or make one with Sam's advice.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I just had the chance for a quick play with the car again this afternoon and as usual as soon as the cover came off it began to drizzle!

Anyway, I had a look at the heater and the only things that work on it are the control panel lighting and indicators and the fresh air recirculating air flaps servo. 

All the connectors, the ones I can see, are in place, fuses are good, sensors are still connected except the aircon core sensor. Nothing happens at all except for lights and air flaps. Not even the fan working.

I might have to pull the dash out again.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

SimonRafferty said:


> That looks surprisingly good!
> 
> Have you decided how you are going to switch them on and off? The reason I ask is that a switch/relay will arc much more on DC than AC - probably to the point of the contacts welding or the relay melting! I found this with a 180A AC relay switching 10A DC at 180v.
> 
> ...


This one (or two of them) work? Omron DC solid state relay - have used the in Robotics....


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Oooh that looks interesting.
Where are they available from? Are they cheap?


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Oooh that looks interesting.
> Where are they available from? Are they cheap?


About 18 to 27 dollars - google for them... not sure but must 
have them in EU...

Digi-key, Allied, Newark - maybe someone on Ebay....


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks for that. I've never come across anything like that before. I will have a nose around to see what I can find.


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

They look very much like the SSRs they just installed in the store I work at to remotely control all the lighting, signs, etc., from the corporate head offices.
________
VAPORIZER REVIEW


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Seems like Omron have a selection of DC power relays.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

From looking at your other posts I see your having a problem with the range issue vs cost of a li ion pack. Ideally this is where nimh would come in. For the past few months i've been chasing down a supplier in china via a local company. Boats not in yet but its WAY more difficult than it ought to be. As a sugestion you could proceed with a lead acid option just to get the thing on the road and then see whats available vs funds. Thats my approcah anyway.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Jack, that has been crossing my mind. It would mean that the car will not be used for my commute on LA but maybe for much shorter local trips.

It is the basis of my thoughts on getting the best controller first, possibly the Solton 1 or Zilla. It would then mean that I can get a better motor and better batteries later on as a consumable upgrade as funds and need allow.
If the basic vehicle is sound and the foundations of the EV conversion is good then everything else can be resolved.

No time to work on it for a while though. Too busy getting ready for the stage. I will be performing Monday to Saturday this week.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Have you tried foster forklift trucks in northern Ireland?
http://www.fosterforklifttrucks.co.uk/
Guy there was very helpfull when I called and seemed familliar with ev applications.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Not going as far as Ireland yet, Jack, but if I do I'll pop in to see how you are doing.

I am looking at a local, less then a mile away, fork truck today just to see if it is worth breaking to recover the cost if the motor is big enough. It is only a 48v stand on truck though.
After that I will make time to go over to Chesterfield to visit a fork truck breaker. http://www.forktruckbreakers.com/


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

If its so close you cant go wrong. Gotta be a few tons of scrap metal in it anyway. If it has a few contactors i'll buy one from you


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've posted some images of the motors in the forktruck motors sticky.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Due to a lack of funds I am doing a lot of thinking about cheap alternatives to things I can't make.

I am planning on running the ac compressor to produce vacuum for the brakes so the motor must have a tail shaft to take a pulley.

However, I could use an alternator with a vacuum pump built in, as used by a number of cars and vans over here. That would give me the vacuum and the charging current for the 12v accessories battery.
I know it will not be as efficient as a dc/dc converter but it will be a lot cheaper in the short term. I shouldn't have sold the alternator that came with the car as I could have used that but ho hum.

Later on I could then replace it with a dc/dc converter and refit the ac compressor, or something more efficient, as funds allow.

Any good as an idea?


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

having dependable vacuum for brakes is something you may not want to skimp on.... problem with running off the tailshaft is that effectivity will vary with rpm, and not recover at all when you are at a stop.

I would recommend sticking with a stand-alone vac pump that can recover when you are at a stop... despite the cost. I suppose you could run it direct off a separate 12v battery if you don't have a dc-dc convertor yet. Same for all you other 12v stuff like lights, horn, etc.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I don't think the vacuum supply itself will be a problem. Having a reserviour should give me several pumps of the pedal if the pump isn't running during a drive. Also even when not powering the drive motor the transmission will be spinning the motor and hence the vacuum pump whenever the car is moving.

I have found that the ac compressor will produce sufficient vacuum with only a few revolutions.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

That particular transit alternator / pump has an oil feed as far as i remember. You could probably just fill it and loop the feed and return lines. I was going to use an alternator as a cheap dc-dc but decided to use a larger than intended 12v battery. What you really need is to have the alternator field controlled by something like the brake light switch so its only using "waste" energy.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> What you really need is to have the alternator field controlled by something like the brake light switch so its only using "waste" energy.


Or a 'high pedal' switch so it is only active on the over run powered by gravity.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

I think the alternator and brake pump on the tail shaft is reasonable so long as you have a big enough vacuum reservoir - but you know that!

I shouldn't worry about switching off the alternator. When the alternator is not generating there is almost no drag. The Alternator controls itself such that there is only a mechanical load when your battery needs charging - so you save nothing by trying to switch it on and off yourself.

I have experimented a lot with electrical vacuum pumps. I'm currently using a vac pump originally driven by the fan belt, driven by a 12v scooter motor - which works rather well but is noisy! It uses a reservoir and a pressure switch to engage it.

In the quest for something quieter, I have a windscreen wiper motor and gearbox which reciprocates a pneumatic cylinder (40mm bore, 100mm stroke). The cylinder uses four pneumatic non return valves (two on each end) to turn it in to a pump.

Even with the motor running slowly it generates a good vacuum and makes a noise rather like a steam train! I've not tried it on the road yet - but it has promise!

Si


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

SimonRafferty said:


> Even with the motor running slowly it generates a good vacuum and makes a noise rather like a steam train! I've not tried it on the road yet - but it has promise!
> 
> Si


I like the idea of an EV that sounds like a steam engine (imagines Ivor The Engine)


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> I like the idea of an EV that sounds like a steam engine (imagines Ivor The Engine)


It was exactly Ivor the Engine I was thinking of! I didn't think it would mean much to anyone outside the UK though.

With a silencer on the exhaust it's pretty quiet.

Si


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

I might just disagree a little on the alternator switching simon. I would not want it drawing mechanical power from the motor when its driving the vehicle only when its coasting. I do accept that the load is dependent on power drawn but if you driving with the lights on , mabey heated rear window etc it can be significant. Valeo and other alternators have an "ign" input that will switch on the alternator with 12v applied and off with 0v. Just my thoughts.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Switching the alternator is such a small thing to do that it might as well be done. I think nothing to lose in doing it.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Following from the heater threads in tech I dug out this:








It is a 9.5kW 240v instantaneous water heater.
That equates to 3.42kW at 144v.

It will need replacement relays for the DC switching but the controls on it should work with a 12v control voltage. It even has a pressure switch on it so that, if it will do it, only power the heating element if the water is flowing.

All it needs is a pump off Ebay.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

I got one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/12V-WATER-CIR...dZViewItemQQptZUK_Gadgets?hash=item4ceb7ad6c4
still looking for a heating element.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I'm watching this.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Looks like the same type.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

You could use an electric shower heating unit. It is a copper can with an element in it and a water in and water out pipe.

Freecycle could be your friend as they are often thrown out if the thermostat fails or the case looks tatty.
Go for 8kW upwards, 9.5kW is good.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

jackbauer said:


> I might just disagree a little on the alternator switching simon. I would not want it drawing mechanical power from the motor when its driving the vehicle only when its coasting.


That's fair enough. However, while you are driving you are probably drawing 20 - 30kw from the batteries? An average alternator is say 70A so 1kw absolute max - but probably closer to 200w most of the time - so 1% of the power you are putting in to the wheels.

You could gain 1% range by many other things - driving slower, a few more PSI in tyres, even turning the radio down.

In my past I've had a habit of complicating things - when ever I've built something mechanical, my friends jokingly ask how many computers it's got in it!

For my EV build I decided to keep it as simple as I possibly could and thus from removing the ICE to driving electrically took 2 weeks worth of evenings - which surprised even me.

Although this is just one thing that barely takes any time to rig - all the little things stack up and turn the build in to a 2 year epic! I know!

*Electric Showers*
I originally tried an electric shower heater - and there are a couple of things to watch out for!
First, the built in thermostat must be used to switch whatever solid state relay you are using as a master switch for the heater - otherwise the contacts in the stat will arc and melt with the DC.

Second, there is usually an over-heat thermostat (to stop it catching fire) but the temperature regulation works by changing the flow of water through it. On mine, the overheat stat cut out after the water had boiled!

Lastly, showers and the like are intended to have water pushed through at mains water pressure (20 to 40 Psi) which is much more than an automotive circulating pump generates. This means the water moves through too slowly and has a habit of boiling.

My friend solved this by cutting the fittings off the copper can, drilling out the holes and soldering on 1/2" fittings - and it works pretty well.

I used a Kenlowe hot start (£30 on eBay). It has a circulating pump that must be disconnected as it uses an AC motor. It also has a thermostat that cuts out around 80 degrees C (which needs to be connected via the solid state relay). All in, it works rather well.

I'm going to use the AC circulating pump and the heater connected via a relay on a timer to the mains so if the vehicle is being charged, the heater will get up to temperature on the mains by 8am ready for me to drive to work. Then on the way to work, the heater can run from the vehicle batteries.

Si


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

The Webasto pumps linked to above are really good! I bought two on ebay - one for my motor cooling and the other for the heater.

Si


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I have my eye on the Webasto ones too, if the Audi one gets close in price then I will bid on the Webasto instead.

The water heater I have I have run at home for quite a few years and with quite a low flow rate to raise the temperature. It is amazing how many kWh it takes to run a bath this way before I got Gas CH installed.
It was quite happy to run constantly to around 70-80degC

A shower, as you say, will cycle or boil, but it should also be running at a lower power so won't get as hot as quickly. I suppose cycling is only a problem to the relay as it will switch as often. My thoughts would be to just use the can and element and make up the rest to suit.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

That hot start would be perfect if not for the silly ac motor. I wonder if its a universal....


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

jackbauer said:


> That hot start would be perfect if not for the silly ac motor. I wonder if its a universal....


Sadly, it's an induction AC motor. They are not much use as a pump anyway - they only cycle the water in an engine once every 15 mins - and that has a lot less resistance to flow than a heater matrix.

Now is not the time to buy hotstarts on eBay. Wait until the summer and they go for peanuts. In the winter they go for £100 or so unless you are really lucky.

Si


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Last night I picked up a replacement bumper/nose cone for the MR2. I got it on Ebay for £9.90 finished in primer.

I am going to use it to work out how to remodel the radiator grill to remove the openings and make it look nice. It will probably be PU foam and glass fibre mat but I haven't used glass before.
I will have to make up some plugs to leave holes for the fog lights but I am not that keen on the standard MR2 type so I may have to fine some nicer ones first. I have a pair like these mounted on the back of my work car for 'off road' reversing with a trailer. I am tempted to use them in a hole set in the foam.










I will also have to make a frame to mount the bumper onto while I work it as it is really floppy and there is no point making it with a twist in it.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> That hot start would be perfect if not for the silly ac motor. I wonder if its a universal....


Jack 
would a small 12 volt to 110 inverter run that ac motor?
Even a modified sine wave type...


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

That brings us back to using an standard dc/ac inverter to run all these accessories made from domestic powered equipment and saving on high power dc relays and switching.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> That brings us back to using an standard dc/ac inverter to run all these accessories made from domestic powered equipment and saving on high power dc relays and switching.


Err Yep is it like the "clutch or no clutch"? So what do you guys say without hijacking this thread...


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Hey! This thread is long enough with a good hijacking!


I do still think a dc/ac inverter that takes pack voltage to domestic voltage would be useful though, especially for electric heating loads.


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

I wonder what a CFL bulb behind that lamp lens would work like...you can (generally) run a 115VAC CFL off anything above 48VDC. I'd guess a 220VAC CFL might need twice that; they only take around 250mA (or less) for the 60W-equivalent variety (13W actual). 

I'm using one like this on my ebike now, experimenting with some configurations for it as a new headlight. Still looking for the lenses I have around here someplace, but they look kinda like that foglamp, except they came out of a regular headlight assembly off some (I think) Asian hatchback (as did my LED brake light).

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14193
________
VAPAR GENIE


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Not sure about the legality of a CFL lamp on the road over here. Everything needs to be 'E' marked and type approved. I will look at LED options though but LED lamps tend to be too large to fit standard car lighting units and so a lot of cutting and shutting needs to be done on every light.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

seen this ?:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/None-Working-..._Lifting_Moving_Equipment?hash=item2a028d1de2


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Cheap but I reckon it will cost a fortune to get it delivered.
I am watching this one though.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170405752278&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

That one looks like it might be a 72v. You could even use the charger for homebase. Nice find.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I'm just trying to find out what the transport cost would be for a truck.
I am also watching this one but it is a bit further away.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140359333584&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT


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## bluemoon (Nov 17, 2009)

I've just started reading your build tonight, and if its any use to you the old XJS Jags used electric coolant pumps, just incase you can get your hand on one, I got one a while ago for 20quid, and they are a good pump.

bluenoon


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Bluemoon an welcome to the forum.



jackbauer said:


> That one looks like it might be a 72v. You could even use the charger for homebase. Nice find.


I got a reply from the seller. Good news is that it is 72v. Bad news is that it is a 13" motor so too big for me.
I still haven't had a reply from a transport company about the cost of delivering a FLT to me anyway.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Whats the max size you can fit? I dare say you'll have a problem finding a 72v traction motor less than 11". The compound motor i fitted to the bmw is 11.5". One of the main reasons i went with a rear wheel drive setup.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I can get 11" in with a whisker clearance to the CV joint. The joint has a 10mm flange that appears to have no structural purpose and so I am reserving that for machining off if the 11" motor turns out to be 11" and a bit.

When I find a motor, or go to the fork truck breakers I will take calipers with me to be sure of the diameter.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

OK, this isn't technically going to make my car an EV any time soon but I was bored this weekend and wanted to get back in my workshop doing something woody.

Having disliked the key to my MR2 I decided to set to work and pretty it up a bit.









It seemed too long and ugly and I had thought of getting it recut shorter but I figured I could use my woody skills to do something about it.









So I cut a piece of Yew. I chose Yew as it is a very hard wood and also has spritual connections symbolising immortality due to the great age the trees grow to. It also has good colour with the sap wood being very pale and the heart wood varying from deep reddish browns to purple. the immortality thing ties in with the Unicorn of my company logo that will also be the badging on my car.









I resawed the Yew to 1/3 and 2/3 thickness, planed smooth and drew the outline of the key onto the thicker half.









I then carved out the shape of the key...









...until the key fitted flush in the Yew.
I then glued it together with an epoxy resin adhesive and cramped it in the bence vice overnight.









This is the result.

I cut the outline of the key that I wanted using a coping saw...








...and began to shape it using a chair maker's file and a 6mm chisel.









This is the shape I wanted and it shows the figure of the Yew well.

















I then applied a sanding sealer and bees wax and polished to a soft sheen.

A vast improvement I think.
However, I should have had the key recut first as the patchy chrome detracts from the look. Maybe I will de-chrome it and leave it in brass.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

wow.... better not get you started on the dashboard!


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

That I like!

Have not seen Yew like that since my dad made all his own bows (longbows ala Howard Hill - dads friend and shooting partner in the 30's) I love the grain!

Nice job Woody!!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Cheers guys. The MR2 forum wasn't so impressed with it and deleted the thread!* I prefer it here anyway.

To finish off today I made a new handle for my axe, the old one was fibreglass and I broke it. The new one is oak and a bit more substantial so it looks a lot better. I decided it deserved a good sharpening so now I can shave with it. I will have to cut some firewood this week.

I am still playing with the bumper I got from Ebay trying to work out how to best block the grille. I think I bought a pup. No matter how I mount the bumper on the bench it always looks twisted and one side looks a different shape to the other.
I'm going to have to take one off the car.

*ETA: Ahh, the MR2 Mods moved the thread to a paid members only forum for DIY mods that I don't use as I won't pay!


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## Walter_Lars (Jan 12, 2009)

Howdy Woody from a fellow wood worker 
earliy on yuo were talking about building your EV's body out of wood 
I don't know how tough your legal regs are over there but have considered a wooden body bolted on a good legal rolling chassis ? 
to avoid the Apache helicopter look 
look in to boat building ideas 
vacum bagging or constant camber design 
or lamanateing thiner sheets of plywood to build the curved or sloping parts you need for a woodie body 
lots of people have built some very large and strong boats and airplanes out of plywood Britian's WW 2 mosquito fighter bomber comes to mind right away 
I would think a wooden car or truck would be the best adverizement for a wood worker I could think of 
new cleint : "can I see a example of your work ?"
You say "Yes I have one parked out front of your House "


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Hi Walter, welcome to the forum.
This thread is a bit long to read through really but well done for doing so.

The Apache look is a 'keep it simple' method that makes glazing easier. I could make a more curved body with a vacuum bag and thin ply lamination but getting road legal glass to match the curves would make the cost and complexity more prohibative. It would be easier with a velomobile as that would be classed as a cycle and could have plastic glazing but it would have a speed and power limit.

The regulations here are tight and getting tighter but making a wooden car isn't any more regulated then any other method of construction.

I am sticking with the MR2 conversion as it is there and would not have to jump through hoops to be legal on the road but making a wooden car is always on the back of my mind.


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## _GonZo_ (Mar 23, 2009)

A couple of link to keep your dreem up:
http://thepirata.com/fully-functional-wooden-cars/
http://www.joeharmondesign.com/


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## grayballs (Aug 27, 2008)

OK,,,,, Now I'm interested! Wooden tadpole,, looks like Howard Hughes has been reborn. Next project


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Good links, GonZo, thanks.

That wooden tadpole is made by a chap called Friend Wood.

A lot harder to make then an Apache.


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## Jozzer (Mar 29, 2009)

You could convert my trike to wood and it could look just like that Already electric and UK registered


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Hi Jozzer,

If you are giving it to me I will make a wooden body for it.

I must come down as see your trike, it looks good.
I am in London and Surrey this Sunday but time is a bit tight.

Actually, I just realised, I am coming down to get a motor from you, aren't I?


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## Walter_Lars (Jan 12, 2009)

I have done some bent wood laminations for stair making with plywood so I have had the idea of a wooden body on a metal frame in the back of My head 
I saw a cabinet maker who had a flat bed truck that had wooden cabinets built in the bed and thought it was great sales aid for His busness


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> Hi Jozzer,
> I must come down as see your trike, it looks good.
> I am in London and Surrey this Sunday but time is a bit tight.
> 
> Actually, I just realised, I am coming down to get a motor from you, aren't I?


Shame time is tight really - I'd like to meet you both too and Horsham is pretty much en-route from London to Brighton.

Si


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## Jozzer (Mar 29, 2009)

Well, I'll be working in the workshop all day if either of you can make it down..

Steve


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I'll give you a call when I am in London to let you know how I am getting on time wise and then I will come down.

It will be good to see you too, Simon, shall we sort out a quick Brighton run on Sunday?


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## mjcrow (Jan 5, 2008)

> I can get 11" in with a whisker clearance to the CV joint. The joint has a 10mm flange that appears to have no structural purpose and so I am reserving that for machining off if the 11" motor turns out to be 11" and a bit.


Hi Woodsmith, going on what you posted earlier, does that mean a warp 11 which is 11.45" diameter wouldn't quite fit? Also the length is Overall length = 21.044", case length = 17.027" so would it fit that way either. I've noticed most of the SW20 conversions seem to use 9" motors (warp 9 is 15.922" long) is the warp 11 just too tight?

Thanks
Michael


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## paker (Jun 20, 2008)

mjcrow said:


> Hi Woodsmith, going on what you posted earlier, does that mean a warp 11 which is 11.45" diameter wouldn't quite fit? Also the length is Overall length = 21.044", case length = 17.027" so would it fit that way either. I've noticed most of the SW20 conversions seem to use 9" motors (warp 9 is 15.922" long) is the warp 11 just too tight?
> 
> Thanks
> Michael


That would be interesting to know because the Kostov 11" motor is 10.75" diameter.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

The absolute maximum diameter is just a smidge over 11". Removing the flange from the CV may add 3/8"-1/2" extra on the diameter but that really depends on how close the machining gets. I wouldn't want to push it that close in case something else gets in the way or the CV joint starts to rub.

The overall length of the motor from my 19mm adaptor plate seems to be 19" to the body work. That will have to accomodate tailshaft pulleys and mounting bracketry as well. I reckon frame length would be 17" with 1 1/2" for tail shaft and 1/2" clearance.

I've not fitted any of this so it is all based on several re measurments to be sure. There will also be the issue of installation as the engine side mounting on the body gets in the way so it may need to be fitted from below if it is too close a fit.

Kostov 11" would be the one at that size I think.


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## mjcrow (Jan 5, 2008)

Thanks Woodsmith, that's very helpful.

Michael


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

Get some cardboard out and make some mockups of the motor and mounting brackets, and you'll know as "for sure" if it'll fit without actually having one to hand. 
________
Problems From Zoloft


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Amberwolf said:


> Get some cardboard out and make some mockups of the motor and mounting brackets, and you'll know as "for sure" if it'll fit without actually having one to hand.


That's a good idea and I did consider it and would recommend it.

If I was getting a known quantity, say a Kostov or WarP, then I would mock it up first and check before laying out on my credit card.

As it is I will get what ever is available and so I am working on a maximum safe size and looking for something that will be within that.
Once I have it I will then make a lightweight mock up to test fit and establish mountings and general clearances.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Now that the snow has completely gone and the temperature is above 0C I decided to get back on the MR2.

First job was to try and sort out what was wrong with the heating system.
Last time I had left it rebuilt back into the car but the only thing that worked on it was the recirculating air flaps and the lighting on the control panel.

I took out all the dash board again and found a plug that I had forgotten to plug in. Great!
I plugged it in and tryed the heating system.
Nothing worked at all, no lights on the control panel, no flaps, nothing.

I took out all the heating system again and went over it looking for lost or faulty connections. Refitted it all and still nothing. I put a voltmeter to the heater connctor plugs and found no voltage anywhere.

I refitted the instrument panel and I had instrument lights, head lights, washers and wipers but no reading on the volt meter gauge, no indicators and still no heating.

I went through the overly confusing manual and eventually found a fusable link for the heater. That was still ok. All the other fuses seemed ok.

I have given up and posted for help on an MR2 forum.


I knew I should have bought an MGB GT!


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

It's a shame you are so far away - i'm pretty good at diagnosing things like this.

In general follow the power, connector by connector from the battery +ve through the load to battery -ve. If you do it methodically you will find the problem.

Have you sourced a vacuum relay to switch the heater itself? If not, I imported 5 from the US - so could probably spare one!

Si


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Is it the diagram for the heater or for the dash - probably a nightmare to post what you have done (electrically - I mean!) Perhaps as Simon says (no pun Simon) tracing it in a logical fashion from power to heater should turn up an OH OH as the plug you missed... I do this all the time and I have missed the simple things too...


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

well there ha sto be 12vdc at the heater switch with the key on,, do you have voltage there???? If not grab a 12 volt test light ( non LED type) and clip the ground to a good known + 12vdc source , stick the probe into the wire or wires you suspect to need to have 12 vdc + see if this energizes any of the system, note the test light will not pass much current so after you locate the proper wire replace the test light with a fused wire for further tests. The advantage of doing this is you shouldn't blow up anything, because if you hit a ground all that will happen is the light will light up. After you determine the right wire just run a new fused line to the fuse box,, or carefully try to find why the existing wire is dead. 

Sounds to me like something is just unplugged somewhere.

Brian


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Brian I was just typing the test light idea lol - Yep you do live up to the "fastest - in - the West" beat me to it!


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## rctous (Jun 18, 2008)

Dave Koller said:


> Brian I was just typing the test light idea lol - Yep you do live up to the "fastest - in - the West" beat me to it!


thats funny What are the ODDDS???????????

Brian


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

Using a light bulb is the best way to test.

Last week, one of my friends was trying to diagnose a fault with his fuel system on a Fiat Van. Everything checked out using a digital multimeter. After spending two days stripping the whole system - it turned out to be a corroded fuse which presented a high enough resistance to stop the fuel shut-off solenoid operating. However, the multi-meter (which draws very little current) showed 12v on both sides of the fuse.

A test light identified the fault immediately. He felt a bit dumb for wasting 2 days!

Si


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

I had a similar problem with wiring on the CrazyBike2 on the traction pack. Finding it involved luck and very few connections, with only three SLAs and a circuit breaker and a controller and an ammeter. If I had used a light to test with it would've taken about 30 seconds, but instead it took me a couple of hours physically examining the entire wiring harness very closely.
________
Art On The Hill


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Simon, I have a vacuum switch that jackbauer kindly sent to me. I have yet to test it but it is the same as he is using so it should be ok. I'll let you know if not.

I have been using a DMM to probe for 12v on the heater connectors.

The struggle with tracing the wiring is that there is so much of it with 'amplifiers' and black boxes all over the place.

The manual doesn't even identify them clearly or in plain English.

The heater section of the manual spends more time describing the service and overhaul of the air con compressor then anything else.
The wiring diagram is mostly schematics that bear little relation to the car layout and descriptions of the dozens of different connector outlines.
I haven't even figured out the colour coding yet.

For all I know, the system may be inopperative due to a sensor from the aircon being disconnected when I pulled all the aircon parts out. The fuse I found may not even be the right one but it was the only one of the same rating as stated the manual!

I need to study it in more detail, in the warm, without so many cuts on my fingers from reacing into the unseen innards of the dash.


How difficult can it be to just rewire the car in the old way with cables that go from switches to equipment, via a relay if needed? Old style wiring is easy.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

These guys are breaking a forklift may be some help:
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/weldmech1/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Jack. Bit of a drive but if the price is right it would be worth following up.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

SimonRafferty said:


> TCT tips are a must! Chronos in the UK sell some fairly good value kits. Buy the 'Glanze' branded ones - the cheaper ones flex too much and chatter like hell. I use these on my CNC and have been pretty impressed for the cost.
> 
> One trick with hardened or heat treated material is to wind the RPM up as high as it will go then use reasonably deep cuts with high feed rates - but no coolant. The tip heats up the material to the point it looses it's hardness. It's a fine balance but you can get it where all the really hot metal is coming off as swarf and the hardness is largely unaffected in the core material.
> 
> Si


I've finally got around to ordering a set of those lathe tools.

Not sure it was a good financial move though as my car has developed a knock in the engine when idling. If it is a big end then it will be costly.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Well, as I still haven't got around to getting a motor I have been playing around with the little golf buggy motor I have.

I thought I would experiment with making a coupler and couple the buggy motor to the MR2 box and see what happens (All other projects are still ongoing). I thought that if the car moves on 48V I might be able to get it road legal and then make it more useable afterwards.

I picked up a bit of 50mm round bar 100mm long and a bit of 70mmx10mm plate.
I turned, squared and centred the ends of the round bar and cut a hole in the plate and cut off the corners so I could turn it to make a flange.
I also removed the centre from the clutch plate.









I bored out the 10mm plate to 44.8mm diameter and rounded it off to make a giant washer!









The round bar was then turned to 45.2mm with a shoulder.









The big washer was then heated and shrink fitted to the round bar.


















The flange was then welded inside and out to the round bar and then turned true and tidy.









The flange end was the bored out to a slip fit for the clutch centre with some clearance for the end of the gearbox primary shaft.


















The other end of the round bar will be turned down to make a mate splined shaft to fit the buggy motor like the one I made before visible in the above photos.



All this may be in vain though.
Yesterday I went to the scrap metal yard to pick up the bits for this coupler and a skip lorry came in with a load to drop off. Being in to big hydraulic machines I decided to wait and watch the lorry tip the skip (sad I know and I also watch diggers and refuse trucks as well ).
It was worth the wait as in the skip amongst all the scrap metal was a fork lift truck!

I couldn't investigate further as the pile of metal was a bit precarious and the yard owner wouldn't let me risk injury to get a closer look. However, he said he would set it aside for me and I could then strip it to see if the motor is worth having. It isn't a big truck so maybe only 48v. There were also two chargers. 

I got a look at one of them to see what the voltage was but it only said:
"Charging amps = 40A. To charge 20 batteries." 
But it doesn't say what voltage.

So tomorrow I will see if I can find a useful motor and some contactors from this scrap yard truck.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Nice work especially the flange. One bit of advice. If you want the coupler to run 100% true from drive input end to clutch center end its vital to chuck it internally on the drive end using the outside faces of the internal jaws on the 3 jaw chuck then bore the opposite end. Not sure i'f i've explained that very well i'm knackered tired! Oh yeh and do not weld the clutch center. Bolt it. The heat will soften the metal and cause it to spin on the hardened gearbox input shaft? Is you input shaft single or dual bearing? If dual bearing dont use a ridgid coupler.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Cheers Jack. 

The motor has a female shaft so the coupler is clutch centre female at one end and splined male on the other end. Now that the bore is right for the clutch centre I can grip it internally from there and centre the male end on the tail stock.

The clutch centre will be bolted. The gearbox shaft is double bearing so I am going to leave the coupler floating on the splines at both ends.

I should only need to have a 22mm clearance hole in the adaptor plate so that won't affect the centring for the proper motor. Also the buggy motor end cap should bolt straight down to the adaptor plate when it is properly centred.

Originally I found a nice bit of scrap to make this from. It was a pin from a machine 200mm long with a 60mm shaft and an 80mm flange at one end, ideal really. I set it up in the lathe and tried to machine it. My new Glanze tools barely scratched it. I only managed to take 0.5mm off the diameter before the tip burnt up! That bit is going back to the scrap yard.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

yeh thats vital. i messed up plenty of times. had it running great on the lathe then onto the motor and wobble wobble.Was on the verge of giving up. Funny thing is when its chucked on the internal bore the outside surface looks like its running out. Just ignore it.

I think the area of couplers needs some serious attention in this scene. Its a vital part of a conversion yet very little sound advice is available as to what approach suits what application. Take single bearing rwd gearboxes like the bmw. This must have a solid coupler. I looked at an 03 diesel mondeo today with a blown engine. Its been offered to me almost for free. that car has a 2 bearing gearbox and no spigot bearing so a solid coupler on that would be a real bad idea.


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## grayballs (Aug 27, 2008)

Something I tried and seemed to work: I pressed a length of brass stock ( +.002" ) through the splined piece, then chucked it into the grinder. 5 minutes or less and it was true to bore. Then silver soldered it in the bore of the rest of my hub blank,,, machined the hub from the checked brass (2nd piece) and no run-out. Lots of ways to accomplish the same thing.


And, I agree,,,, there should be more accurate information on couplings, hubs, etc.....It just doesn't seem like a place that one would want to cut corners and try to save a few bucks


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

All good advice on couplers. 
Yes, I agree that there needs to be some proper discussion and information on couplers and how to make them safely and correctly. This is one reason why I figured it would be worth this effort in making one even for the wrong motor. Better to make mistakes now then later.
Maybe someone should start a sticky in Tech.

I packed up a box of tools and went off to the scrap metal yard for the fork lift. Unfortunately someone else beat me to it and made an offer for the whole thing and took it away.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

After work today I decided to carry on machining the coupler.
Two passes into it and the motor bunt out!

I have spent most of this evening changing first one motor and then another as the first one wasn't running well and didn't fit on the motor mount. The original motor was 1/3hp, the first replacement was an old 250w motor and I think the bearings were dry and a bit worn. I then went for a new 550w motor I had lying about that also had a smaller pulley on it. That one is working well and is considerably smaller so fitted better on the mounting plate.

Note to self, don't use magnetic screwdrivers near the lathe as steel splinters under finger nails hurt!


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

_Is it a single phase motor? are you on a long extension cable? most failures of single phase motors occur due to voltage starvation at startup._


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Yeah, single phase but plugged in on a 5' lead to a socket only 12' of cable from the main intake.

We've had it apart to look at and it has been previously rewired but it is old. I don't think it was up to the job running the lathe and, as I found out, a collapsed bearing in the jack shaft that was binding as it got hot. That is now fixed and the lathe is running very smoothly with the new motor.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Well, a quick visit to the scrap metal yard looking for bit for the tractor project turned up something that I wasn't going to let slip.


























I've not measured it but there seems to be a lot of it. 50kg weighed in.
150mm2 and 70mm2 fine stranded copper with crimps on.

I hope it will be kind to the volts and amps when I get a motor and batteries.


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## mrbigh (Dec 31, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Well, a quick visit to the scrap metal yard looking for bit for the tractor project turned up something that I wasn't going to let slip.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Nice find; if the price is right, I would taking these home on the spot.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

mrbigh said:


> Nice find; if the price is right, I would taking these home on the spot.


The price was good I think but that depends on how usable it is. We settled on £140 which could be cheap cable or expensive scrap. Copper prices are high at the moment I think but I would need to get cable at some time.

I may be buying a 16-300mm hydraulic crimper sometime soon I think.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've finally finished the coupler for the buggy motor.
The clutch centre isn't bolted on yet, I want to get some M8 cap screws first.

















It is too long to bolt the motor straight onto the adaptor plate but any shorter and I wouldn't have been able to grind the splines in it. The grinder disc was already down to just over 2" to do this.
I will see what the gap is when I make an aluminium end cap for the motor and then make up a short spacer.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> I've finally finished the coupler for the buggy motor.


Looks nice you can make my couplers for me. Mine work but they look like crap.

Maybe you'll get lucky in your motor search and find a nice internal spline 8 or 9 inch motor that nobody wants because of internal spline and this coupler spline will match and just fit fine.

Jim


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thank you.

This is what I was thinking.

There are many pump motors that are ignored due to internal splines but if I can make the coupler this way then I can use those motors. It would mean going clutchless as I don't think it would be so good with a flywheel on it.

This little coupler is only for the buggy motor as it is too small for anything else really. Major diameter is 19mm and minor is 16.5. Anything hard and strong enough for a big motor would be beyond my machining caperbilities here so I will then get someone else to make it.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Jack Rikard hung a flywheel of a mes dea ac motor with an internal spline. Apples and oranges mabey........

Nice work on the adaptor but please don't fit the golf motor to the mr2. If you do you will force me to book myself and the "warp13" on the next flight over to the uk!!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> Jack Rikard hung a flywheel of a mes dea ac motor with an internal spline. Apples and oranges mabey........
> 
> Nice work on the adaptor but please don't fit the golf motor to the mr2. If you do you will force me to book myself and the "warp13" on the next flight over to the uk!!


You're on jack!
I reckon if I can get an internal ring gear on the back of the flywheel and a large gear on the motor I can off set the centre line enough to fit a 13" motor clear of the drive shaft!

I am only going to fit it to get it running by transferring all the tractor stuff over. Once it is running I can see if it runs enough to get it road legal. It can all be replaced with better stuff later.

Of course, if a nice 11" motor turns up then I will be making another adaptor.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> You're on jack!
> Of course, if a nice 11" motor turns up then I will be making another adaptor.


I stil have that 10" (or so) fork truck motor if you are interested? Free if you take it away!

When the time comes, my fork truck has a nice looking motor in it! 13" diameter and about 15" long - 24v. Sadly, the truck still has a few years in it - not withstanding 'unfortunate' accidents .

Si


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

SimonRafferty said:


> I stil have that 10" (or so) fork truck motor if you are interested? Free if you take it away!
> Si


Thank you Simon, that would be wonderful.  I can arrange to come down for it soon ish.

I want to pick up some batteries from the South East so can do both at the same time.

I'll pm you with/for details.

Cheers.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Well, I have picked up the motor from Simon with many thanks.

This is the connection point. The cables exit grommeted holes in the frame and then into a connector block. The insulation has perished and the colour tags have faded and lost their markings.









The drive end looks like this. It has a gear on a six spline shaft that may be tractor PTO splines. Notice the two flanges on the DE cap. One is elongated and bolted to the end cap proper while the circular one is on a large ring bearing and rotates. It operates a bit like the slew ring on a crane. It could be a motor, gearbox and wheel unit that swivels on the round flange for steering a three wheel fork truck.









This is a close up of the gear. It is held on by a circlip.









This is the tail shaft end of the motor. The large round disc is a brake that contains friction material and rotates with the armature. It appears to be able to clamp down onto the outer face of the CE cap to brake the motor. Not sure about the roll pin sticking out of a loose cap in the centre of the brake.









This is the com. I didn't get a chance to measure it but is isn't long, maybe about 1" -1 1/4" long bars.









This is the data plate. Much is missing so I have contacted the fork truck maker to see if they have any information. No reply yet.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I have started to dismantle the motor.

I managed to pull off the gear, it was very tight on the shaft. The motor end of the gear has an extension to locate on the bearing.









This is the bearing. It is unsealed on this side and there is a strong smell of gear oil. It would be clear that this bearing, the gear and the elongated flange are part of a gearbox.









Removing the lock tabs and bolts reveals the six threaded holes to the DE cap.









The two flanges removed with a bit of light tapping with a soft mallet. This exposed the DE cap. The motor measures 9" diameter.









This is the motor side of the flange ring. They seem to be joined and sealed together and smooth running as a slew ring. I think it is most likely to be a steerable drive wheel with the motor mounted on a vertical axis and rotated with the steerign mechanism.









Removing the DE cap reveals the armature and field coils. The bearing is sealed on the armature side to prevent ingress of gear oil.









A close up of the coils.









So, any information, and advice on progressing the strip down, would be appreciated.

Thank you.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

My original plan for taking a drive off the motor was to machine the teeth off the gear and turn it in to a bolt-together drive-flange using tapped holes in one face. 

Si


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## Jan (Oct 5, 2009)

Woodsmith, 

If you want the metal parts clean and shiny, I'm quite pleased with the electrolitic method. Cheap, easy and a perfect result. Just be a little patient. And I find electric somehow the way to go in restoring parts for a future EV.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

SimonRafferty said:


> My original plan for taking a drive off the motor was to machine the teeth off the gear and turn it in to a bolt-together drive-flange using tapped holes in one face.
> 
> Si


Yep, that would simplify things. It is too small a diameter to fit the flywheel bolt holes though.

Maor has offered his opinion of the motor in the forklift motor thread in motors. He thinks it may be 24v, 110A, 900rpm and 1.8kw, and a bit too small to pull a car due to small brushes and short com bars. It may be a tractor up grade though but it may not be much of an upgrade.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Motor + jump leads + battery =


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Spur of the moment thing but I have bought a big motor for £100. 

It is a 12" diameter, 18" long one that supposed to run at 72v.
OK, I know that I only have space for a 10 1/2" or 11" if I shave the CV joint a little but I have a plan.

Some MR2s have a two piece shaft under the ICE and I was thinking that I could use one of those to get the clearance from the motor.
Or if that doesn't work I could mount the motor above the transmission and use a toothed belt drive. The weight could be balanced with a stack of batteries where the ICE was.

Failing all that I could just build a bigger tractor!


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> ...I could mount the motor above the transmission and use a toothed belt drive...


That's what I was thinking when you posted about it in the forklift motor thread. You have the fab skills, so... Easy. 

Actually I like this idea:


Woodsmith said:


> ...I figured that I could either mount it in the MR2 tunnel and shaft drive it to a diff or a small transaxle in place of the MR2's transverse unit...


 



Woodsmith said:


> ...Failing all that I could just build a bigger tractor!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

We do think alike.

The motor on top will require finding a good local and cheap supplier for a toothed belt and sprockets and then setting it up to cope with the tension without losing alignment. Not too complicated but will need a bit of machining to get the clutch and flywheel set up right on a stub shaft. The foot mounting lends itself well to this I think.

The motor in the tunnel will need a bit of bodywork. That could give me some problems with any inspections to get it road legal. However, it could be the least technical option as the foot mount motor would be easy to install and the drive flange is already there to adapt to a propshaft.
I may need to sort out the tailshaft of a transmission to get the speedo drive and in this case geting a tailshaft with an overdrive would be useful as I could use a lower ratio diff and have two speeds, if the over drive can cope with the torque.
The diff will need a frame to mount on but that shouldn't be difficult. Driveshafts will also need to be made.

Another tractor is the most tempting idea....


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

I like the motor in the tunnel idea most, but if I were in your shoes I would probably go with the belt-drive offset motor. That places everything pretty much in your control, and eliminates the possibility of getting caught up in red tape. Either would be fun to watch you do! 

I am having so much fun on the forum this week! It has been the perfect way to relax and unwind from the bad job. I just wish I was contributing more than my mouthfuls.  Maybe this weekend...


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I brought the motor home.
WOW! What a big motor!

The seller also does EVs, great big ones that run on rails!
he said he has put in new brushes so there is a little 'ticking' when the shaft is spun by hand.
It spins really fast just on 12v and two of the field coils and seems happy spining both ways.

I am helping someone with their Citroen Berlingo project tomorrow so I will try and get some photos and details when I can.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> I brought the motor home.
> WOW! What a big motor!
> 
> The seller also does EVs, great big ones that run on rails!
> ...


When I first read that I saw "I bought the motorhome."

I was thinking, oh no he's gonna start a new project - an EV motorhome! 

I can just imagine how big it is. When my 11" motor was finally in the garage, I would just go out and stare at it because it was so massive for an electric motor. I was used to furnace blower sized AC motors.

It's 12" diameter right? Hurry up with those pics!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I should be so lucky! I haven't space for a motor home though I have been tempted with a mobile workshop.

It is 12" diameter and the frame is 18" long. The flex coupling that is on it is about 5" diameter and with 5/8" bolt holes.









Only have this photo at the moment but I will try and get some close ups of the com and drive end details.
It is foot mounted but there are enough mounting holes in the DE cap to mount to an adaptor if required.

I also got a CD with the repair and spares manual for the milk float it came from. That could be useful, maybe.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Dude, I read your post in the EV Value thread before coming back here. I hate to say this but if I felt like that I would be seriously tempted to bail. There's nothing worse than trying to forge ahead through trials and tribulations towards a destination you don't really want to be at. I had a Camaro that was the love of my life in high school. I bought another in 2005 to re-live the dream, but it was empty. After investing countless hours in it I finally ended up selling it (minus the parts that are now going on Scratch) for what I paid for it. I was happy to give away the labor just to get away from it.

Did you purchase the MR2 because you coudln't find a suitable MG? Ideally, you need someone who would buy it and pay you to install the motor of their choice. That might give you enough to buy an MG to put that big 12 in! 

Alternatively, if you decide to keep going with the MR2, maybe the challenge of making the big motor work will be enough to get and keep you going. It could be based on the fabrication, not the car itself.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I hear what you are saying Todd.

I got the MR2, way back in this thread, because it was a nice looking sports car that had been converted by many people so I knew it could be done. It was also dirt cheap as a really tidy, rust free car that ran well despite having thrown a big end.
The only connection I have to it is that it was the car my late brother wanted just before he died but we were still playing, and racing, MGBs then.

I finally sold his MGB only about 4 years ago for a (relative) pittance to a collector and if I could find one in as good condition for similar money I would go for it. 

As I really want it for a long commute I don't think a Land Rover will be energy efficient enough to make it without costing too much in batteries.

Maybe if the MR2 didn't have such annoying electrics I might enjoy the conversion more, I seem to be spending too much time on it trying to figure the black boxes and miriad of connectors and miles of wiring.
I miss the sort of car that just had four 35amp fuses that covered everything.
I don't find the owners club very helpful either, they can't see the point of the EV conversion and I don't share their enthusiasm for filming themselves speeding and discussing who has the biggest wing, widest body kit, lowest profile tyres or noisest waste gate.

Maybe you are right.
maybe having a big 'kick ass' motor will light a fire under my butt and enthuse me to get something more worthy of my efforts.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Sorry if I'm complicating things. I'd just like to see you enjoy a car as much as we're enjoying the tractor.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

All in good time Wood - all in good time....


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Following a conversation today whilst helping out a fellow EVer the MR2 project may still be safe.

I was helping to design the front battery box for a Citroen Berlingo and while the front end was apart we decided to remove the motor/transmission unit so that the leaking oil seals could be replaced.
The unit is about the same size and a little lighter then the 12" motor. 
It is a combined unit of SepEx motor, gearbox and diff with just big cables in and left and right side drive shafts sticking out. The controller is a neat little unit that fit on top of the motor.
























Controller








(Random web images)

He knows of a chap who is contractually obliged to scrap a load of electric Berlingos and is willing to sell a front half complete for about £700.
A direct transplant of the drive unit and controller would be a simple job with just driveshafts as mismatched specials.

So it is a thought.....


In the meantime I have managed to get the 12" motor out of my car and into my hallway. It is too heavy to get in my basement workshop so it will just sit in the corner for a while.

Overview:









Drive end:









Com end:









Fan and armature:









Com:









Video:


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Are you saying you would be getting a complete new setup for the back of the MR2 - motor, controller, and diff - and you woul djust have to match the driveshafts to the MR2's?

If that's the case, what are you going to do with this motor - or dare I ask?!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

toddshotrods said:


> Are you saying you would be getting a complete new setup for the back of the MR2 - motor, controller, and diff - and you woul djust have to match the driveshafts to the MR2's?


Yep. If I can get the money together and get hold of this chap and get the front half of a Berlingo then it would replace everything between the wheels of the MR2 and all it would need would be batteries and some linking up to dash board instruments.


toddshotrods said:


> If that's the case, what are you going to do with this motor - or dare I ask?!


I hear they have fields in England that need ploughing.....


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woody,

I have a question about your new motor (It looks like a good one).

Do you have the cleareance, width wise, in the engine compartment to move the motor far enough apart from the transmission to clear the CV joint. In oher words make an extra long adapter shaft and extra thick adapter housing. 

I would hate to see you go to a belt drive, belts break (always at the worst time).

Take a real good lookat maybe reshapeing one side of the engine compartment for that extra little bit of clearance.

Jim


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Hey Jim,

If I go clutchless I might just be able to squeeze the motor in if I have nothing on the tail end of it. The adaptor plate needs to be thin so no room for the 'move two plates about until it is smooth running and then bolt up' method.

I was thinking of the two piece drive shaft that turbo MR2s have, that would allow me to push the body of the CV further out but it would have to clear the whole length of the motor frame.
I have asked the MR2 forum for advice on the shaft fitting, length and swappability but they seem to be either ignoring me or they don't understand the question. I may just try and buy a cheap Ebay shaft to try for myself.
I think even with this I would have to extend it further out to clear.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> Hey Jim,
> 
> If I go clutchless I might just be able to squeeze the motor in if I have nothing on the tail end of it. The adaptor plate needs to be thin so no room for the 'move two plates about until it is smooth running and then bolt up' method.
> 
> ...


That sounds reasonable. Coming up with a shaft long enough to clear the motor might be possible. Clutchless seems like it would work because you'll have a 12" motor and modern transmission. You shouldn't have to shift a lot, and when you do it should sync and drop in.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I am hoping that being such a tight fit that it would even be possible to install it assembled. About 1/2" gap at the comm end to fit the motor mount!

The problem could be that to have a fixed shaft long enough to clear the entire 18" length of the motor the remaining distance between the motor an the wheel hub may be too short to get a reasonable shaft and two CV joints.

I will have to have a proper measure tomorrow if I get the chance.


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TOYOTA-MR2-MK...arts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM?hash=item563bbbec7b
This is the shaft I will need as a starting point. Not cheap enough for me to buy just to test or to cut and shut as a pattern for a shaft maker.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I had a look at the drive shaft on the motor today.
It is a tapered shaft with keyway so the best way of using it would probably be to use the existing drive yoke and adapt it.
I could remove the armature and have it turned to a suitable parallel shaft but it will depend on cost and need. Having a nut on the end to tighten the yoke to the taper uses space so I may have to consider machining it.









This is the comm end with the brush connections.
It should have a plate over it to cover the terminals and in the centre there is a small cap that used to house a speed sensor. 
I took off the speed sensor cap but there was nothing inside it.










I also measured the MR2 bay and the motor transmission assembly length.

I have 33 1/4" from the tranmission mount to the opposite paintwork in the bay and the assembly with the motor shaft touching the transmission primary shaft needs 34 1/2".

I could machine the motor shaft and shorten it a little at the same time but due to the taper it could end up too small a diameter.

I need to think on this and measure more accurately to be sure. Time for a mock up of the motor I think.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Woody , most hydraulic pumps and motors use that kind of shaft. Have a look at the couplings section at: http://www.flowfitonline.com/

They are uk based and have a brain.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Jack, I'll have a chat with them.

If there is a way I can use the taper but still remove an inch or so from the end of the shaft that would be good.

I could also cut a bit off the end of the gearbox shaft too I guess.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I made a wooden skeletal mock up of the motor and tried it on the transmission.
This is the scale of the issue of fit.









The motor frame is only 1 1/2" from the centre of the diff CV so I suppose if there was a slim line CV 3" diameter or less I could use that.









The shaft is still a problem.
From the face of the motor DE cap the shaft is 3 1/2" long but about 1 1/4" of that is in a bearing housing.

From the outside face of the adaptor plate to the end of the transmission shaft is 30mm, just less then 1 1/4" so if I was to cut the whole shaft off it would fit.
I could cut 25mm off the end of the transmission shaft that would give me something to work with but not much.

I could squeeze another 1/2" of space but the motor CE cap would be rubbing on paintwork.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I have opened up the motor and posted photos in the Motors sticky.

I was thinking to save space for the coupler I may be able to change the DE bearing for a sealed unit and replace the retaining cap for a fabricated one that is thinner. That would give a bit more shaft length if I needed to machine and shorten it to fit.
So I stripped the bearing cap to see.

The strip down progressed further then I was planning to go but it was a fairly easy, though weighty, job.

























































Then I thought I might as well clean up the frame so the flap sander came out.









The I decided to take it down to my workshop for a coat of red oxide paint. Boy was it heavy!









I need to decide on a colour for it.
The end caps are also in the workshop and I want to give them a good clean and polish.
Any tips on how best to do that without abrading the aluminium away? It is a little white and fluffy in places and covered in thick black paint elsewhere.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woody,

A question, I couldn't find in your posts just how much interfeance there is between the motor and CV joint. The motor barrell looks to be at least 1/2 inch thick. Others have ground a clearance notch into the barrel with out any reported problems, would this solve the clearance problem?

A suggestion. If internal coupler end clearance is a problem look into a different size ID for the DE bearing and move the coupler and keyway into the bearing. In other words the motorshaft would be inside the coupler which would ride in the bearing. 

Jim

PS To smooth out the sand cast end bells you will first need to sand them using progressivily finer paper down to at least 600 grit then change over to rubbing coumpound theg go to polishing compound and finally to aluminium polish. I started to do that on the big 13 and in the end we decided to sand it smooth and powder coat it with near chrome paint. we removed every thing from all of the casings and frame and smoothed it and will powder coat it when all of the banging around is finished.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Hi Jim,

If I use a 10 1/2" motor it will just rub on a flange on the CV joint.
If I use an 11" motor I would have to remove the flange altogether, the flange isn't critical.

The 12" would mean I would need to loose 1/2" on the CV radius or 1/2" of the DE casting and the motor frame.

I don't fancy all the sanding.

I have started cleaning the DE an CE caps.








I think it looks very 'Art Deco'. I can imagine an aeroplane prop being driven from that end.
It is also domes 1/2" so the motor bearing is even more forward then I first thought. That would be my 1/2" clearence to the paintwork gone. 
I see what you mean about having the coupler within the bearing but I am begining to feel it is just too long. Even doing that I think the bearing will end up ontop of the clutch plate centre. This is one time where a female shaft would have helped if it was the same spline as the clutch.

The CE cap has a lot of crevices in it.








Even the space where the brush teminals are can't be removed as the bearing protrudes that far anyway.

There is also a couple of cracks in the casting through these two bolt holes.









These are the brush boxes.
One of them has a broken stud and is only just long enough to make a connection to the crimp eye.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woody,

It really is a well made motor that would be really nice, especially for the price. But it looks like making it fit would take more than it is worth. I believe you cannot modify the basic vehicle structure to get the needed length clearance at the back end without a lot of greif. The only things left are are:
Belt or chain drive, which you know will break eventually (always at the worst possible moment). 
The only other reasonable way I can see is a right angle drive and mount the motor verticaly. The end result should be good if you can find a 1 to 1 drive or even a 1 to 2 drive that doesn't weigh a ton. 

Take a look through these for some ideas,

https://www.surpluscenter.com/sort.asp?catname=powerTrans&keyword=PGRA

I'm sure that ther are similar items available in the UK from surplus dealers and in the recyclers. Maybe aircraft salvage.

At this point I would clean the milk float motor up, fix what is necessary, paint it pretty and put it up for sale.

You really need an 10.5 or 11 inch motor to make the car work without a huge amount of work. So wait unti you find the right motor. Sometimes it happens right away sometime it happens later. In the mean time get the controller, and anything else you need. Work on the electrics and all of the little stuff.

Hope something I suggest helps,
Jim

PS You can have those end bells sand or walnut blasted and they will look very nice.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Jimdear2 said:


> ...It really is a well made motor that would be really nice, especially for the price. But it looks like making it fit would take more than it is worth...At this point I would clean the milk float motor up, fix what is necessary, paint it pretty and put it up for sale...


I agree, but I would sell the car and work on the motor until I found something to put it in!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Jimdear2 said:


> Woody,
> The only other reasonable way I can see is a right angle drive and mount the motor verticaly. The end result should be good if you can find a 1 to 1 drive or even a 1 to 2 drive that doesn't weigh a ton.


That's a good idea. 
Something like these?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120560894800&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200464534094&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Funny, I was just looking on Ebay for a short bodied diff to mount it upright as direct drive on the basis it won;t quite fit in the tunnel either.

I will need to measure the height of the engine bay to see if it would fit upright sometime in the next day or so.



toddshotrods said:


> I agree, but I would sell the car and work on the motor until I found something to put it in!


That is something I was considering as I worked on the motor.

I think the motor would look really good hotrod style, like yours, with a shaft drive dissapearing into the tunnel either to a gearbox or to the rear axle. I just want to show off that nice Deco style DE cap, looks so much nicer then the usual motors.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> ...That is something I was considering as I worked on the motor.
> 
> I think the motor would look really good hotrod style, like yours, with a shaft drive dissapearing into the tunnel either to a gearbox or to the rear axle. I just want to show off that nice Deco style DE cap, looks so much nicer then the usual motors.


With that awesome-looking old motor, its heritage, your fabricaton skills, and geographic location, a Locost just seems like the right thing to do!  Could even do the body in _wood_...

I know I am a troublemaker, an instigator; but my flights of fantasy are also firmly rooted in logic. I wouldn't do all that work on a car that I didn't love. A few custom pieces in a relatively standard conversion is one thing, but designing and fabricating something unique should be done in and for something unique. That motor really is special. It has history, it has charisma. I would preserve it and display it.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Yes, I love the motor. What ever it turns out to be performance wise I will love it and work and live within its limits. That is one reason why I didn't want to cut away the shaft and make it useless for another project. I am sure it will outlast my interest in the MR2.

However! I will say that louder. *HOWEVER!*

I have a solution.

If I can get a firm connection of a coupler to 17mm of shaft length....
If I can can get a 3 1/2" OD sealed bearing with a larger ID of about 2"...

I have found myself a 17mm gap that I can use to add the flywheel by making an adaptor to match the cranshaft end.

If I can get a firm connection of a coupler to 17mm of shaft length then I can get the local college engineering shop to make up the coupler for me to match the crank end.
If I need more then 17mm to get the coupler to fix on then I will need to find a larger bore bearing and do as Jimdear suggested and include the coupler into the bearing length as well.

It will not make my motor useless as the very short bit of crank end can be used to bolt on a different shafts or CV/'U' joint requirement later on or match up to a different crank pattern just by using 'bolt on's'.

The MR2 crank end has 8 bolts so that makes it sort of useful in that sense.

I will need to machine the back of the flywheel as it has a wide rim that will foul the adaptor plate.

This is how it will look, I just need to add the thickness of a flat plate bearing retainer between the DE cap and the coupling, 2 or 3 mm and that can come off the back of the coupler flange.

The new style motor shaft.









With bolts.









With flywheel.









This is the clearance. If I remove the thich rim on the flywheel then it will allow the thickness of the adaptor plate easily.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

The guys at the college said that they couldn't machine a keyway into the motor shaft as it is too close to the fan and their mill head wouldn be able to access it. 
So, our solution is to press fit the coupler onto the shaft in the round and then drill and tap set screws into the joint axially.
I was thinking of maybe three screws fully threaded to hold and drive the coupler and then three more only threaded on the coupler side to jack the coupler off when I need to.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

This is a quick sketch, in cross section, of how I want to make the coupler.









The replacement sealed bearing will require the bearing carrier being machined out from 3 1/2" to 90mm. The bearing will be a 6210-2RS 90mm OD, 50mm ID, 20mm thick replacing the 3 1/2" OD, 1 3/8" ID 7/8" thick open bearing.

The bearing bore is 50mm but the shoulder on the shaft is 2" so I want to add a sleeve over the shouder to increase the diameter. It will be press fit up against the fan. The internal bearing retainer cap will also need to be bored out to clear as a grease seal is no longer needed.

I will reduce the thickness of the bearing carrier by 4mm to match the bearing and a new 4mm thick external bearing retainer will be made and countersunk bolts used instead of the original hexagon head bolts. This will leave the DE cap centre flush behind the coupler.

The shaft will be turned down to 31mm and cut off at 40mm from the bearing shoulder. An 8mm pilot hole will be bored in the end to assist clutch alignment with a fabricated tool.

The coupler will be made to match the MR2 crank end. It will have a 31mm bore and a bearing land of 50mm. There will be a 1mm clearance between the back of the flywheel bolt flange and the bearing retainer. The flywheel bolts will need to be 3mm shorter.

The coupler will be secured using two, not three, M8 set screws on a 31mm PCD acting as retainers and keys. Two more holes will be added as 'jacking out' threads. It says three on the sketch but in hind sight there will not be much shaft left between six holes.

That will get me as close as possible.

Something I will need to do is to machine the DE cap bolt holes to ensure that they are all square to the axis of the motor and all at the same height.









I will replace the six DE cap bolts with studding. Nuts will secure the DE cap and the studding extending outwards will be used to secure the adaptor plate to the motor. I will counter bore the adaptor plate to clear the nut thickness.

So, I have packaged the armature and collected all the components together to take to the engineers at the local college to see what they can do for me.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Nice job preserving your Deco motor, just in case.  Should be clean and neat, and better with a sealed bearing.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Todd, it matters that it looks right and remains useful.

I am still holding back as I need to sort out the CV joint clearance issue before I know I can use the motor in the MR2. If I can't sort that one I won't go ahead with it just yet.

I have been measuring up the CE cap and it is a pain. The four cover bolt holes are not quite accuratly placed and the shaft sticks out of the middle a little way. If I have to put a small bump in the engine bay to clear it I will.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I spoke to the engineering chap at the college (Hi Mark ) and he is sure that he can help me out with most of the work, except the balancing. That is great. The armature only just fits on the lathe with the tail stock overhanging the end of the bed.

I will just need to confirm an affordable drive shaft solution and I will set the machine (machining) in motion.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

What machining are you having done?

What sort of drive shaft do you need and what speed does it need to spin at?

So far as balancing is concerned, if you can spin whatever it is in a lathe between centres, sleeve the shaft you grip in the chuck with a bit of silicone hose then spin up such that it oscillates. Attach a piece of chalk to the tool post and wind it in until it just touches the spinning thing. The silicone hose allows a little movement and the chalk will mark the heavy side. Add weight diametrically opposite the mark (or use a tool to skim a bit off the heavy side).

The tailstock will hold the other end stationary, so you need to reverse it in the lathe and repeat for the other end.

I did this for my drive adaptor which spins up to 12,500rpm - and only had to take about a thou off the heavy side to make it balance perfectly. My lathe only runs up to 7000 rpm - but it seems to be good enough. 

My friend Paul, made a cool prop-shaft balancing thing where the shaft is suspended between a pair of flanges in bearings. The bearings are suspended from a frame by four hack-saw blades. You spin one of the flanges via a small prop shaft with a couple of UJ's (actually a Toyota steering shaft) and drive it with an electric drill. Do the chalk thing and add weights as above.

If you need anything machining - mail me a drawing and If I've got a suitable lump of metal - I'll do it for free.

Si


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> I spoke to the engineering chap at college (Hi Mark ) and he is sure that he can help me out with most of the work, except the balancing. That is great. The armature only just fits on the lathe with the tail stock overhanging the end of the bed.
> 
> I will just need to confirm an affordable drive shaft solution and I will set the machine (machining) in motion.


Sounds great Woody! Now to solve that pesky driveshaft issue, and you'll be on your way.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

SimonRafferty said:


> What machining are you having done?
> 
> What sort of drive shaft do you need and what speed does it need to spin at?
> 
> ...


Hi Simon,
Thanks for the offer.
I am giving the engineering department at the local college a chance to look at the work mainly because it will be cost effective(I hope) and because they are local.

I am shortening the motor shaft and making it parallel. Then making a coupler to fit the flywheel. But due to needing it really short the coupler needs to be inside the bearing. So I have bought a bearing and will have the bearing carrier machined to take it.
The carrier is being reduced from 1" thick to 20mm and bored from 3 1/2" to 90mm.
They are going to find a lump a steel to make the coupler and then heat treat it afterwards. It will be keyed to the shaft with set screws.

I have a drawing a few posts higher up.

The drive shaft will need to mimic an MR2 off side drive shaft but the inner tripot CV join needs to be no more then 75mm diameter.

I will let you know if there is anything I get stuck on.

I will see what we can do with the balancing, it is mainly the flywheel I am concerned about when the rim around the edge is machined off. Thanks for the pointers on how to do it.

If you want the 9" motor back I can clean it up and bring it back down to you now thatI have a 12" motor for £100.

Many thanks, Simon, for your help and your offers.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Jimdear2 said:


> Woody,
> To smooth out the sand cast end bells you will first need to sand them using progressivily finer paper down to at least 600 grit then change over to rubbing coumpound theg go to polishing compound and finally to aluminium polish. I started to do that on the big 13 and in the end we decided to sand it smooth and powder coat it with near chrome paint. we removed every thing from all of the casings and frame and smoothed it and will powder coat it when all of the banging around is finished.


I started sanding today.
Going from this:









To this so far:









It is hard work and I am not sure I should have started. There are so many knocks and dents in it and a lot of casting blemishes that it looked better in the rough then smooth with blemishes.

I will carry on but there are some areas of damage that are too bad to hide.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> I started sanding today...It is hard work and I am not sure I should have started. There are so many knocks and dents in it and a lot of casting blemishes that it looked better in the rough then smooth with blemishes.
> 
> I will carry on but there are some areas of damage that are too bad to hide.


Just get an old piece of chain and beat the crap out of it - blend it all back in! 

Ever use aluminum brazing rods? They're not worth the time it takes to mention them for welding, but for filling little nicks I like them. If you do, try a test spot first to make sure it blends in with the original material, if you're going to polish it.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I suppose the other way would be to spray it as Jim did with his. I could then use metal filler to repair the blemishes.

I would need to spray it anyway to prevent oxidation so maybe there is not a lot of difference in reality.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woody,

If you don't want to do all of that work and end up with an inperfect finish You can sandblast it for a nice mat finish and then clear coat it or just let it oxidize to a natural finish. Powder coat after smoothig and filling is a nice option and not too expensive, but if you go that route, make sure the filler you use can withstand 400 degree temperatures.

I should mention that it took me days of work to get the 13 inch end bells smooth and that was with power tools and after a lot of metal had been removed with machime tools. Even after I had the end bells smooth enough to polish we decided to go with powder coat since they would need to pe painted any way.

You should look into powder coat. There is a paint called near chrome that we are going to use on the 13 inch end bells. Plus powder coat is tough.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Cheers Jim.
I was doing all hand sanding and my fingers ache from it. I think I will keep the matt finish for now. In the MR2 it will be invisible anyway.

Maybe I will polish it for the next project.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I did a bit of trail fitting today.
I figured that unless I was absolutlely certain I could get it all in the engine bay without body mods I wouldn't want to go ahead with the adaptor.

So I dropped the gearbox back in with the three mounts and then placed the wooden mock up in place. It looks like this.









The clearance to the edge of the engine mount bracket is 1/2" but there is a bit more clearance around the comm end of the motor.









I may even be able to fit a pulley in that gap to drive the AC compressor and alternator.

The engine mount just clears if I trim the two studs on the bottom of it. I can then use it to make a motor mount if I mount the motor upside down with the foot mount upper most. The foot can then be bracketed to the original engine mount.

It leaves lots of space for batteries above it all.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> I did a bit of trail fitting today...It leaves lots of space for batteries above it all.


Looks really good Woody. Too bad you have to cover it with batteries.  How much voltage can that wooden motor handle?


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Whatever about the ac compressor i wouldnt use an alternator as a dc dc. Even a cheap $99 dc dc from china would be better.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

toddshotrods said:


> Looks really good Woody. Too bad you have to cover it with batteries.  How much voltage can that wooden motor handle?


I reckon about 100MV of static electricity will blow a tree apart so a little less I think.



jackbauer said:


> Whatever about the ac compressor i wouldnt use an alternator as a dc dc. Even a cheap $99 dc dc from china would be better.


Yep, I will take that advice. I just need to find two now, one for the tractor as well.

The agrevation it will cause trying to fit a pulley on the end isn't worth the short term 'get me working' shortcuts.
I am going to skip the AC compressor too on the same basis and find a better/smaller/tidier vacuum pump.
If it takes a little longer at least it will be done once and done right.


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

Do you put the motor and gearbox in as a unit, or gearbox first, then bolt motor on?

If the latter, do you have a simulated shaft and adapter on that simulated motor? If not, you might want to put one on it so you can ensure you can actually get it in at an angle that allows the shaft/adapter to insert into the gearbox. 

I've made a few mistakes like that already. 
________


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Amberwolf said:


> Do you put the motor and gearbox in as a unit, or gearbox first, then bolt motor on?
> 
> If the latter, do you have a simulated shaft and adapter on that simulated motor? If not, you might want to put one on it so you can ensure you can actually get it in at an angle that allows the shaft/adapter to insert into the gearbox.
> 
> I've made a few mistakes like that already.


It will have to go in as a unit I think. Unless I remove the right side suspension and insert the motor from under the wheel arch.

Given the weight of the motor I think it would be really difficult fitting it that way so if it was assembled it could all be craned in either from the top or from underneath.
It should be easier to fit then the ICE as it is no where near as big or as wide and doesn't have manifolds and stuff poking out. It still seems to weigh as much though.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

The driveshaft is going to be my undoing.

I have phoned around and been told that I will not be able to find an inner tripot type CV joint that is smaller then the one I have and that would fit in my gearbox.

I think the other option would be to take a suggestion I got from Simon Rafferty and use a small UJ. I will have to then have a sliding spline in the shaft itself.

An alternative would be to get a two piece shaft from a turbo model and weld a UJ in just outboard of the diff splines so that the CV joint can be moved a little away from the motor.

Now I just need to find the strongest UJ that is less then 3" diameter and weld it in line.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> The driveshaft is going to be my undoing.
> 
> I have phoned around and been told that I will not be able to find an inner tripot type CV joint that is smaller then the one I have and that would fit in my gearbox...


What if you fabricate one from two. Find a tripot CV that is small enough, cut the female splined section off, machine and weld the splined section from your MR2's CV to it.

It would take some careful machine work, and good welding, but it seems like that would be stronger than a really small u-joint.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

The difficulty is working with hardened parts that need to be accurate without being too fiddly.

I was thinking may this would work.









If I get a two piece shaft and then add a UJ in line just outside of the diff it would make the machining a lot easier and a lot more accurate.

I could find the biggest UJ that would fit and that would allow the shaft to 'bend' away from the motor just a little to clear the first CV joint.

If it breaks or wears, the UJ centre is an easy part to replace. I would need a sleeve around it to stop it whipping if it breaks though.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

toddshotrods said:


> What if you fabricate one from two. Find a tripot CV that is small enough, cut the female splined section off, machine and weld the splined section from your MR2's CV to it.
> 
> It would take some careful machine work, and good welding, but it seems like that would be stronger than a really small u-joint.


Also the MR2 tripot has male spline that also has a bearing surface on it right at the point I would have to cut it so the repair would have to be a bearing surface.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I finally had a chat with another driveshaft company and spoke to a chap who actually thinks beyond the job, so to speak.

He suggested that I take in the standard shaft and he will measure the splines and see if he can find one to match for me.
So long as the diff end matches up I can get the shaft cut and different splines welded on from another shaft.

So I took the shaft off the car.


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

Woody , just going to play devil's advocate here but are you sure you want to use that motor? I'm no expert but i somehow suspect you may be disappointed with its performance.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> Woody , just going to play devil's advocate here but are you sure you want to use that motor? I'm no expert but i somehow suspect you may be disappointed with its performance.


'Don't know' is the answer.

I think I am enjoying the problem solving of using it and it still leaves me the option of changing it to something else if it isn't right for the job.

What do you see as the issues with it? I posted some stuff about it in the Motors sticky but it seems to have been passed by so I don't know what it would do, or not do.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

A chap on the MR2 forum has pointed me in the direction of a driveshaft from a mk3 MR2. He says that he uses them on he many engine conversions and the shaft fits the transaxle and wheel hub on my mk2 and has a smaller diameter CV joint on an extended shaft.

So I have bought one.

I am going to work on using that to clear the motor with a remote CV bearing mounting.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Finally, finally, finally I have managed to get the electrical gremlins out of the heating system and have the dashboard back together.









It was only one fuse, marked 'Gauges' that had blown. What got me was that things stopped working, one by one, over all these months.
First the ventillation flaps stopped.
Then weeks later the control panel lights died.
The weeks later the fan motor stopped blowing.
Then the recirculating air flaps stopped.
Then, today, I had no dash lights and the electric windows gave up.
One 7.5A fuse and the whole lot came back to life!

Still, at least it is working and I can get on with keeping the car and working with it.

I also installed my Speedhut electroluminecent instruments complete with my company logo.








The Unicorn logo will be repeated in embossed leather on the steering wheel centre pad and I would like to get some bonnet and boot badges made up of the same. Maybe in machined and polished aluminium.
But that will be for later.


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> One 7.5A fuse and the whole lot came back to life!


well, based on the progression, the fuse should not have blown and *then* caused progressive failures, so my guess is something else is wrong in there that progressively failed and *then* the fuse finally blew. That doesn't make a lot of sense either, since they all simultaneously came back to life, so I don't know what's really wrong.

If the stuff that failed is all electronically controlled, perhaps there is a master set of controller chips that each got into a fault state, and could not reset until the last thing failed in a state that blew the fuse. Once that happened, power was disconnected from all of them, then after replacing the fuse they were reset and now work.

That theory can be tested--if any of them fails again, either disconnect that fuse or the whole battery power, wait a while, then reconnect and see if they reset. You still won't know what is causing it, but you will have A) a "fix" and B) a possible path to pursue for troubleshooting.
________
Laguna Heights Condominium Pattaya


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## TigerNut (Dec 18, 2009)

Look for a bad ground. You end up running accessories in series rather than in parallel and different things don't work depending on what combination of devices is switched on.

The other possibility is that you could have a short in the wiring harness somewhere, and it just took a while to get bad enough that it would blow the fuse... if that's the case then you'll notice segments of melted wire insulation along the current path(s), eventually leading to the location of the short circuit.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woody,

I was also thinking along the lines of amberwolf's comments. I don't know if there is a separate body control module or just a dedicated section of the main controller that is also powered by that fuse. 

TigerNut's idea of a bad (or possibly just a ground disconnected during the ICE removal) has some merit.

I have some access to many manufacturers OEM US version repair manuals and wiring diagrams for vehicles less then 20 years old. I don't remember seeing what year yours is and of course there may (will) be differences between US and UK versions. Let me know if I can help out here.

Keep on keeping on,
Jim


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I would have reckoned on the IC controlled circuits in a fault state except that the battery was disconnected and brought inside between times that I worked on the car. There are lots of the things though, all over the car.

I can't work out why there would be four fuses for the heating system in three fuse boxes in the front, middle and back of the car. Daft design, I think, to allow 'little black boxes' to be hidden all over the place.

A bad ground is also possible but I have now tightened everything I could find before putting the dash back so I may have already found it.

I didn't see any burned out wirings in the loom either.

The only other thing I did this time was to remove the redundent engine immobiliser. That was connected to the wiring behind the ignition key and all that was still live and fine though badly patched into by the auto electrician or DIYer who fitted the immobiliser.

I will leave it as it is for the moment but if anything else starts to fail then I will start looking in even more depth.

I also found out that my 12V tester screw driver has an intermittant fault. That didn't help much either!


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> I also found out that my 12V tester screw driver has an intermittant fault. That didn't help much either!


Woody,

Don't use a 12 volt bulb type circuit tester on a vehicle that has computer components.

There are special continuity testers that won't damage computerized circuits and logics. They are reasonably priced and generally found at local auto parts stores.

Jim


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Hey Jim,

Mine is a 1991 Mk2 Rev1 Japanese import.
There isn't a publically available manual for mk2s and everyone relies on the same PDF of a poor photocopy of a Toyota dealership manual being passed around.

Samborambo sent me a link to down load his PDF manual when I got the MR2. It took a couple of hours to download and then I spend a day printing it all so I could refer to it properly. 

I have yet to determine what the on board diagnostics make of the missing engine and what systems it will try to shut down yet. So far everything else seems to be working but I have no means of testing the warning lights or tacho yet.

I will refit the engine loom at some point to see what is needed.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Jimdear2 said:


> Woody,
> 
> Don't use a 12 volt bulb type circuit tester on a vehicle that has computer components.
> 
> ...


Ahhh, I hadn't considered that. I am using a multimeter to look for voltage.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Ahhh, I hadn't considered that. I am using a multimeter to look for voltage.


Woody,

As long as it is digital you'll be ok then.

Jim


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Jimdear2 said:


> Woody,
> 
> As long as it is digital you'll be ok then.
> 
> Jim


Yep, it is older then the car, nearly 25 years now, but it is one of those pen type things like this.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Yep, it is older then the car, nearly 25 years now, but it is one of those pen type things like this.


Woody,

That should be fine. 

If you put an alligator clip adaptor on the test lead end, that should work as well as the test light when checking circuits.

I can't remember how many meg ohms per volt resistance the meters are supposed to be to be safe for computrized circuits.

Jim


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I came home to a big package.

The mk3 driveshaft has arrived.

I tried it in the gearbox and it seems to fit. So I put the motor frame and CE cap on the adaptor plate to see how it fitted.

















The frame will be another 2 1/2" higher with the DE cap in place but you can see how close a fit it is.

I will need to shave a bit off the bearing mount to clear the motor frame. The CV boot rubs on the frame but it will land in one of the large spaces in the edge of the CE cap. If I put a dent in the steel grille band (when I get one) then that should clear.

It looks like it will be OK, just.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woody,

Looks like you have a winner for sure. Soooooooo glad. Would have hated to see all that prep work go to waste.

It will be nice to see this thing humming silently down the road. Always liked the looks of that model.

Is it not wonderful when things go right and all falls into place? It should happen to all of us more often. Of course find a way to make things work is fun too.

Jim


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I am happy with it fit wise.

My only concern, and I have asked on the MR2 forum, the shaft seems a little sloppy in the diff. The splines fit but the bearing surface feels slack and allows the cv to waggle about 8mm. That means that I could move it completely clear of the motor but it would then not run concentric and damage the oil seal and possibly the diff too.

I can locate it centrally but it feels just a bit too slack.


I delivered the motor and flywheel parts to the engineering chap today. I will spend Thursday morning with him measuring and setting the exact parameters for the machining and fits.
I have raided the scrap yard for a lump of steel to make the coupler and came out with a 6" diameter, 6" long bit of bright steel for £5. Too big really but just in case.

My local steel stock holder dircted me to a local engineering works where I bought a 6" length of 4" bright round and also a 4" length of 2 1/2" round for £25. 

They, in turn, directed me to another local balancing shop who estmated £100 to balance all the spinning parts.
They wanted to know what speed I wanted it balanced at.

So now I need to find out a maximum safe speed that they can spin my armature without it exploding in their shop.
Any guesses?

I will also ask in Motors.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woody, 

As I remember when working on that type of axle (on Mazdas) when I was still active in repair, that shaft will wobble a bit until it is anchored down with the support bearing. Mazdas and Chryslers used a small ring on the splined portion of the shaft that popped into an internal grove. That tended to pull the axle in tight. Does yours have this? Measure the diameter of the surface that rides in the bearing on both axles, maybe the bearing is different, probably not, but just to be sure.
You for sure want to get that support bearing as close to centered as possible when you make up the mount.

As I read it, you are planning on retaining the clutch. Is that right. With that big motor, will you really need it. If it was able to move a fully loaded milk truck it should have enought torque to move that little MR2, and since you will be overvolting it you should have enough rpm range to run it in say second for city and 4th for highway. 

As far as spin up RPM you best ask Major or Jim Husted. 

Maybe we will see wheels move with the car on jackstands and jumper batteries before before the end of the month, I hope, I hope, I hope.

Be well,
Jim


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Jim.

I will have a careful measure of the bearing to check how much slack it is. There is no spring on the end of this shaft, it just drops in loose. I have asked on the MR2 forum if that is right. The bearing will probably stop it from moving anyway.

I have wobbled it around to see if it scribes a nice neat circle and it seems to to I will aim for as close to centre on that as I can. I will make up some sort of jig to do that when the motor is fitted.
I can't do anything with it until the motor is centralised and running smoothly.

I am keeping the clutch, for lots of reasons, despite the clutch slave cylinder being a really pain to bleed. I think the benefits will outweight the difficulties.

I doubt the end of the month will be good.

I am frantically finishing the stage set and props for our production of Calamity Jane. Not many days left to get it right and I have only just found out that I need an American accent!

I mean I knew that I am supposed to sound like an American from Deadwood, Dakota but one of my Autistic traits is that I don't hear accents. Asking me to reproduce an American accent is like asking a colour blind person to mix green from a colour chart!

I need to figure this one out somehow.

I also have a load of college assessments to do now that it is near the end of term.

Maybe end of June?


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woody,

Just a thought on that support bearing. 

You know you are not limited to the bearing they use. Since you most likely won't be using the OEM mounting for that bearing that bolts to the engine block look around maybe you can find a bearing with the same ID and a smaller OD. Since it looks like the CV joint and boot will clear, since they are positioned in a gap of the BE bell, it looks like the support bearing will be the only problem.

I don't think I need to say be creative to you.

Jim

PS For the accent, put a tape player in your pocket with a pre recorded drawl and Lip Sync it.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

To save cost and effort I think I can just take about 4-5mm off the edge of the bearing mount. It is really chunky anyway.

However, I will measure it and see if I can find something I already have that will fit or get a cheap pillow block bearing that offers better mounting points. The existing mount is just two 'ears' with M10 threaded holes so it would be an easy mount anyway.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

The shaft bearing is quite big, I think it needs to be to slide over the splined ends of the shaft. It isn't a problem to grind a bit away though as the carrier diameter is fine for clearance but the shoulder is huge so losing a bit should be fine.

Most of the parts have been machined and Mark seems to have been able to machine the crank end into an adaptor at the cost of a few broken tool tips.

The only casualty so far has been that the cast iron bearing carrier cracked open in the lathe. It has been brazed back together again but, depending on how it performs we may make an aluminium one.

We are going to start machining the armature DE shaft on Wednesday, it should just fit in the lathe so all being well....

Now, why didn't anyone tell me that MR2 three part clutch packs are expensive? That is going to delay balancing and assembly.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> ...we may make an aluminium one...


If it fits in your budget, I would for peace of mind. Wouldn't you have to pull it all back apart again to replace it?

Otherwise - sounds great!  I'm happy for you, to finally be making progress on the MR2. It looks like the tractor project gave you enough of a break to find the parts and solutions you needed to get this one back on track.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

We are going to see if the repaired casing will hold the bearing and go back in the DC cap without breaking again, also if it goes in true, centred and square where it should be. If not then it won't survive beyond that point and a new one will be made.

Mark has already done a drawing of the part for the Mazak just in case.

The tractor has been a good catalyst I think, I am still working on it but mainly in parts sourcing.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

A slight 'Opps!' moment.

Paul Woods has found out that the driveshaft he advised me to get won't fit the MR2 mk2 hub. Toyota, in ther infinate wisdom, used a different spline on the mk3!

However, a Celica shaft is otherwise identical and will fit, so I need to get one of them instead. Paul has offered to buy the mk3 shaft I bought on his recommendation so I should be ok there.


On another note.

The motor is foot mounted. I will be bolting it to the adaptor plate as is the convention but I was planning on using the foot to form a bracket to the engine mounting.
The easiest way would be mount the motor upside down so the foot is on top and then weld a plate that can bolt to the foot and to the engine mount rubber.

Now, the question is would it be sufficiently secure suspended from its foot or should I mount it the correct way up and have the bracket come up from underneath?
The foot is just two lumps of solid steel welded to the frame, machined to give two flat surfaces and it has two threaded holes in each. The bolts are about 5/8" or 3/4" fine threaded.

Not a good picture, I may get a better on later.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

This is what the foot of the motor looks like:









I have cleaned the bolts and the holes to have a good look at them. Unfortunatly the threads are mostly stripped on both the bolts and the holes.
They are 5/8" UNF.

I am thinking of installing M16x1.5x1.5D Helicoils to rethread them.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Another quick visit to the scrap yard today produced this stuff.
















Only £2 for a lot of holes!

I figured it would be just the right stuff to make some bands around the brush and fan vents on the motor. The wider piece may be usable as foot boards on the tractor too.

I popped in to see Mark. We may be feeding aluminium into the Mazak tomorrow to make a new bearing carrier. I will try and take some video or photos of the process.
Wednesday we'll be turning the armature.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> ...We may be feeding aluminium into the Mazak tomorrow to make a new bearing carrier. I will try and take some video or photos of the process.
> Wednesday we'll be turning the armature.


Cool, glad to hear you're making a new one. Popcorn and Pepsi ready.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I went in to see the bearing carrier being machined but it was already done. We even got the motor on the lathe and turned that as well.









The fan became very good at flinging coolent all over the shop.









That is the parallel shaft left with a 'cut line'. We couldn't part it off completely as there wasn't a way we could support the armature at the same time.









So I managed to bring everything back home to my workshop.

The crank end machined.








With a plug in the end to assist drilling later.









The bearing carrier. Broken cast iron one and new aluminium one. Note it has a machined retainer on the outer side to save space and to add strength.

















Bearing carrier drilled and tapped M8 and fitted to the DE cap.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Bearing carrier drilled and tapped with blind M6 holes to take inner bearing retainer.

























The bearing assembly in the DE cap.

















The crank end fitted into the bearing.









Machined flywheel and clutch assembly in the gearbox.









This is how the DE cap and crank end looks fitted to the flywheel.








This is the space left for the adaptor plate. Just on 19mm.









One advantage of having the crank end coupler held in the bearing like this is that I can centralise the motor DE cap on the adaptor plate without the weight of the motor on it.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Machined parallel motor shaft with larger bearing shoulder and the end cut off.









Crank end loose fitted to the motor shaft.









Armature and crank end coupler on the pillar drill.








This is where the little plug in the crank end came in. It allowed me to drill a centre bore tapped M8 and then to drill three M8 holes into the joint to form threaded keyways for 12.9 high tensile set screws.









This is where I am up to tonight. I need to get a M8 bottoming tap to finish off the holes and then I need the set screws to be wound in before I can go any further with assembly.

I will also need to make an extractor to pull the coupler off the motor shaft so that I can dismantle the motor again to get it out of the basement workshop.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woody,

Man you are like a 100 car freight train moving at 100 mph. Once you get up to speed don't stand in your way.

Seriously, That is some outstanding work. Both yours and your machinest. It's nice to have someone to do those machining jobs that just can't be done any other way. 

You know I'll bet this motor is stronger now that when it was first built.

How much did this shorten up the motor assembly, does this leave enough room for a tailshaft and pully so you can mount your vacuum pump?

Now you know I just can't end a post without a Suggestion!!! so here it is.

As I see it, mounting the motor so that the center of the armature and the trans pilot shaft are concentric is still going to be a bit of a problem. Once you get the support plate in place it is going to be a "FUN" time in that small compartment to shim and align to bring them concentric. Of course you probably already have how to do that figured out and I'll stand back amazed again while you do it.

For myself I would have done exactly as you have with the armature, bearings and coupler but I would have made a whole new end cover that was a combination drive end cover and adapter plate and passed on the foot mounts, or used the foot mounts as attachment points for that fourth motor mount.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Whooo! Whoooo! Clickity clack, clickity clack, clickity clack! 

On other forums I use the name Night Train so that is quite apt really.

I did think about making a new DE cap, it would solve a lot of problems like the dome of the cap, but comes down to cost and accuracy of alignment in centering the adaptor plate to the bell housing as a single piece . As it is I cut a hole where I thought the centre was supposed to be and then I machined a little bit of metal to go on the end of the primary shaft. That gave me a centre dot mark that was correct to the shaft and would place itself central on the adaptor plate.









I rubbed out and redrew the 12" diameter line on the plate and found that I was 2mm lower then I thought it would be. So much for accuracy (or lack of) early on. A couple of the bolt holes are a little off too.

I am planning on scribing a circle on the PCD of the DE bolt holes and then using the clearance space in the holes wiggle the DE cap until it is centred. I can also just clamp the DE cap tight to the adaptor plate when it all spins smoothly and just drill through the mounting holes. That way it should be spot on.

I think I will need to connect the adaptor plate to the motor foot mounting and on to the engine mount in the car for strength. The DE cap bolts are only six 5/16" UNC bolts passing through 2 1/4" of DE cap and 3/4" into the motor frame. I doubt they would have the strength to suspend the motor just by the DE.
I can't increase the bolt size as the holes in the frame are too close to the bore of the frame so drilling out to a larger size would open the sides of the threaded holes to fresh air.
My plan so far is to replace the 2 3/4" bolts with 4" bolts and assemble the DE cap sandwiched between the adaptor plate and the motor frame all held by the same six bolts. I am struggling to find affordable 5/16"x4" bolts in high tensile. Ebay only does packs of 2 in stainless steel for too much money, otherwise I can get packs of 100 but only 3" long.

Another option is to use studding and a nylock nut but again, I can't find high tensile studding at reasonable cost for the small amount I need.

I will find something eventually.

I had the DE cap bolt hole lands skimmed to parallel with the frame mounting face. However, only 5 of the lands skimmed, one was a mm lower then the rest. That will need shimming on its own.


The whole shortening of the motor is to just give me the 1/2" clearance in the engine bay at the CE. That is without a cover over the CE cap to protect the brush terminals. There won't be room for a pulley at the CE. What I thought was the end of the shaft was a cylindrical nut used to retain the CE bearing so there just isn't anything sticking out to use and no space to add anything.
I will more then likely have a 12v vacuum pump. I am watching a small Rover 200/400 vacuum pump that I figure I can just add a 12v motor to. I will direct drive it so I don't see it being much different to a costly EV pump.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woody,

5/16-18 bolts, even made from unobtainium will not support that motor for long. I doubt they will even contain the torque reactions. 

All that being said go to this site. This is my secret magic wish book site

http://www.mcmaster.com/

Find the bolts you want, I found packs of 10, grade 8, 5/16 - 18 by 4 inches long for $8.50 USD or so packs of ten. If they won't/can't ship overseas, let me know and I'll order up a 10 pack and mail them to you.

Because of location and their policies I usually get my stuff from them in one or two days by UPS ground.

If you look you can find two types of stainless, special corrosion coatings, drilled heads, torx heads, socket heads, you name it.

I bet if you check around you will find an industrial supply company like them in the UK. Check with your machinest friend, he might know of one.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Jimdear2 said:


> ...All that being said go to this site. This is my secret magic wish book site
> 
> http://www.mcmaster.com/...


I *love* McMaster-Carr!!!  I have a shopping cart with all the bolts, studs, and nuts required to bolt my motor down, ready to checkout now! I keep going back looking for stuff to make sure the cart is still there and ready. Hmmm, I should do that now... Maybe I'll _bump into you there_ sometime Jim.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

They do take care of their customers, their shipping is fantasic and they follow up with posts about where your order is. I do like to deal with them. Plus no china junk so far.

And no charges untill the order is out the door


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## TigerNut (Dec 18, 2009)

First, let me join the others and say you're an inspiration. You're getting stuff done without breaking the bank and without shortcuts.

One thing I'd caution you on is to not inadvertently try to use stainless bolts on the drive end mounting of the motor. Stainless steel is not nearly as strong as the SAE grade 8 or the metric 10.9 standards.

If McMaster can't get bolts in the right size and grade, check out the online catalogs of heavy equipment manufacturers such as Caterpillar. They have a huge variety of fasteners, and with the anticorrosion coatings you want.
http://www.cat.com/cda/files/87031/7/13_OSS_Hardware.pdf?mode

As to aligning the transmission input shaft and the drive end of the motor: I'm mostly familiar with Ford V8's and Toyota Corolla drivelines... they all have a pair of dowel pins that are used to set the alignment of the transmission bellhousing with the engine block, and I would guess that Toyota did the same on the MR-2 driveline. If you can determine the proper radius and angle of the dowel pins from the crankshaft centerline, from measurements of the original engine, and transfer these to your DE adapter plate, then you're set. The bellhousing bolts should not be used as alignment points because their locations are not fixed nearly as accurately in the block and bellhousing. And, were you planning to put a pilot bearing into the end of the motor adapter? Without it, the input shaft won't stay in alignment when you release the clutch.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks Jim, I will have a look at that site. In the UK there is so little available in imperial or American thread sizes, most seems to be pretty little stainless fixings for Harley Davidsons.



TigerNut said:


> First, let me join the others and say you're an inspiration. You're getting stuff done without breaking the bank and without shortcuts.
> 
> One thing I'd caution you on is to not inadvertently try to use stainless bolts on the drive end mounting of the motor. Stainless steel is not nearly as strong as the SAE grade 8 or the metric 10.9 standards.
> 
> ...


Thank you.
It is as much having no money as my desire to spend little of it that makes me do this on such a tight budget.

I know what you mean about the stainless bolts, I've used them before on trailers and I can twist the heads off them without trying. I've had stronger cheese in my sandwiches!

The bell housing does have two dowels Those were easy to plot. 
The primary shaft on the other hand is quite short and doesn't have a pilot bearing so it is difficult to find the centre for it. The shaft is held on two bearing over the length of the gearbox. When I started I didn't have the means to do anything about it. Now I would just extend it with a turned shaft that has a centre mark on it. Sort of what I have done now.

I will need to make a clutch alignment tool too. Again, this is due to not having a pilot bearing.


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## TigerNut (Dec 18, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> The bell housing does have two dowels Those were easy to plot.
> The primary shaft on the other hand is quite short and doesn't have a pilot bearing so it is difficult to find the centre for it. The shaft is held on two bearing over the length of the gearbox. When I started I didn't have the means to do anything about it. Now I would just extend it with a turned shaft that has a centre mark on it. Sort of what I have done now.
> 
> I will need to make a clutch alignment tool too. Again, this is due to not having a pilot bearing.


If you already have the dowel locations correctly located relative to the motor shaft centerline, then doesn't that fix the relationship to the transmission input shaft?

You could make a clutch alignment tool by turning a piece of wood to match the ID of the clutch disc spline and step up to match the ID of the diaphragm spring for the clutch cover (pressure plate), although you'd have to leave some tolerance for the change in diameter of the spring as you tightened the pressure plate bolts.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

TigerNut said:


> If you already have the dowel locations correctly located relative to the motor shaft centerline, then doesn't that fix the relationship to the transmission input shaft?


Ahhh, no.
I have the dowels located to what I thought was the centre. The actual centre is about 2 mm lower down. So the dowels are correct to each other and locates my plate, everything else on the plate is a little off.



TigerNut said:


> You could make a clutch alignment tool by turning a piece of wood to match the ID of the clutch disc spline and step up to match the ID of the diaphragm spring for the clutch cover (pressure plate), although you'd have to leave some tolerance for the change in diameter of the spring as you tightened the pressure plate bolts.


That might be an idea. With the flywheel flat the clutch plate won't move about and even a little pressure on the cover bolts holds it still for tightening up. 
Pity I can't reach through to insert the set screws to the motor shaft, it would be a lot easier with the DE cap on the bench without the motor attached to it.

I have an M8 hole in the centre of the shaft, I was planning on using that to locate an alignment tool. I could turn one with the spline minor diameter and an M8 thread on the end. So long as I cut the thread straight I may be ok with that.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woody,

If you decide to go with McMaster-Carr don't be afraid to order anything you think you might need. 

Figure Mail costs at around fifteen to twenty US dollars for around 10 lbs.. So don't be afraid to fill up the package.

Don't worry about the money right now, you can either send a check or bump my paypal account when you can.

Jim


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Cheers, Jim.

A thought I had on my motor mount thread.

With a flange mounted motor of this size and weight how many and what size bolts might normally be used to fix the DE cap to the frame to make it strong enough to be flange mounted?


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

I often get packages from the states. A medium flat rate box costs $43usd to Ireland so probably the same to the uk. Up to 20lbs in weight. Dont forget brush advance.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Cheers jack. I've always been a little nervous of the potential costs of shipping from the States (or China).


A complete aside.

I got home from a theatre rehearsal this evening. As part of the show, Calamity Jane, three gun shots are fired.
I was expecting a sound effect shot but today the blank firing gun was brought out and fired once so we know what to expect.
My ears are still ringing and they hurt!

I don't really want to have that three time a night for a week. I'll be deaf!
I should warn my folks, they have front row seats.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I had a play with the driveshafts today.

I was told by Paul Woods that the mk3 shaft wouldn't fit the mk2 hub and that I needed an early Celica drive shaft. So I found and bought one from Ebay.

Here are the three shafts. Celica shaft top, mk3 shaft middle and mk2 original shaft bottom.

















The Celica shaft is quite a bit longer then the mk2 and mk3 shafts and the inner CV is far too big to use. So a bit of a waste of money really. It did have a bearing bracket and a hub still attached.

These are the mk2 and mk3 splines that are supposed to be a different fit. I couldn't see or measure any difference in the spline profile so I tried them on the Celica hub. The mk2 splines slide in easily, the mk3 only slides in 10mm.

I tried on the car too and same thing so I reckon the hub splines are the same.









Now the mk3 splines don't fit at all from the outside of the hub so that leads me to suspect a taper to the hub splines?

Anyway, I figured that I could adjust the fit as it was almost there. I carefully filed the splines with a diamond sharpening card. With a bit of work the hub now slides in most of the way. The last 15mm is tight so i will file a little more and then let the nut pull it tight.









While I was at it I also put the bearing bracket on the bearing carrier. I needed to take about 8mm off the rough casting edge so I set too with the angle grinder and the sanding disc.









I might just finish off the sanding to make a nicely smoothed component.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woody,

From the pictures It appears that the spline on the Celica outer CV joint is the same as the Mark 2. Paul may have meant for you to change the outer CV joint from the Celica to the Mark 3 shaft. It appears that the drive shaft for the Mark 2 one piece shaft is bigger in diameter then the Mark 3 where the shaft on the Celica axle appears to be the same.

Changing an outer CV joint is a bit messy. That CV grease is nasty stuff.

Usually you release the clamp band and pop the big end of the boot off the Outer CV and then, with the axle shaft in a vise, hold the splined end parellel to the axel and whack the joint with a dead blow hammer. There is a compression ring on the axle the fits into a groove inside the center race of the CV joint. Once you unseat that ring you can pull the joint off the axle shaft spline.

Do both and if the spline of the two axels are the same all you need to do is switch them and you are golden.


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## justinjay (Apr 9, 2010)

nice.......


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Jimdear2 said:


> Woody,
> 
> From the pictures It appears that the spline on the Celica outer CV joint is the same as the Mark 2. Paul may have meant for you to change the outer CV joint from the Celica to the Mark 3 shaft. It appears that the drive shaft for the Mark 2 one piece shaft is bigger in diameter then the Mark 3 where the shaft on the Celica axle appears to be the same.
> 
> ...


Unfortunately they don't swap, Paul tried that for me. The shaft on the outer CV is a different size, the whole joint is, and so it won't swap.
The Celica outer shaft also won't fit the mk3 inner CV either. I tried that one. The Celica uses a conventional ball bearing type CV while the mk3 uses a tripod.
Toyota just weren't planning ahead for this situation!


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Woody,

Darn it. I'd thought maybe something would go simple. 

The first suggestion that comes to mind, is see if the bearing carriers (knuckles) from the Mark 3 might fit on the Mark 2. I'm a bit worried to see you spend a lot of time fitting the Mark 2 drive flange to the Mark 3 spline and find out it won't fit into the Mark 2 bearing stack in the bearing carrier. 

The Mark 2 has that shiny shoulder the Mark three doesn't have that looks like it was made for a seal lip to ride on. Does the Mark 2 have two separate bearings and two separate seals At assembly you set the axle nut with a torque wrench and then lock the nut with a plate and cotter pin. It looks like the Mark 3 is set up to use the one piece bearing and seal cartridge, like the one you used on the front of the tractor thingy.

Another option comes to mind. The inner race of the CV joint (the one the axle shaft splines into) might be interchangable between the two joints. If you have ever taken one of those CV Joints apart you will know what I mean. If not get a picture of a dis-assembled Joint. So you would end uo with the inner race from the Mark 3 installed into the Celica CV joint.

Have fun, keep solving these pesky problems.
Jim


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Jimdear2 said:


> ...Another option comes to mind. The inner race of the CV joint (the one the axle shaft splines into) might be interchangable between the two joints. If you have ever taken one of those CV Joints apart you will know what I mean. If not get a picture of a dis-assembled Joint. So you would end uo with the inner race from the Mark 3 installed into the Celica CV joint.
> 
> Have fun, keep solving these pesky problems.
> Jim


One of the Fiero transmission swaps requires doing that. The axle required comes from a vehicle with a larger spline pattern. The splined ends of the two different CVs are different, but the internal dimensions and contents are identical, which allows building a hybrid joint that connects the right axle to the hub.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Jimdear2 said:


> Woody,
> 
> Darn it. I'd thought maybe something would go simple.
> 
> ...


Cheers Jimi, I might try swapping the internals, just a messy business trying to keep a hold of the greasy balls while working out which way round it reassembles. I know that one from trying to service them in the street and chasing balls along the gutter as they slip out of hand. 

The grease seal is on the Celica only, both the mk2 and the mk3 have sealed bearings, so that will be ok there. It looks like the machining is the same on the Celica and the mk2 but on the mk2 the grease seal land is left to go rusty.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I have missed working on my projects.

I injured my back last week marking work at college. I lifted up a thin folder, no weight at all, and my back went 'ping' and I went 'Owwwww!'

I can't lift anything and can't twist to the left but have all other movement so long as it is done slowly. At least I can hold my arms out in front of me just long enough to type now.

However, I have had to make myself as well as possible as 'the show must go on!'.
All this week I am performing on stage as Doc Pierce in our local production of Calamity Jane.
So Just back from the first night, a fantastic audience and a great first night show. I am switching from  to  and back to  depending on how my back feels.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> I have missed working on my projects.
> 
> I injured my back last week marking work at college. I lifted up a thin folder, no weight at all, and my back went 'ping' and I went 'Owwwww!'
> 
> ...


I have the same issues from time to time, I feel for you. It took my ex a while to understand that it wasn't about weight. She couldn't understand how I could be fine moving boulders around creating borders for my flowerbeds one day, and then tweak my back picking up a magazine the next.

Here's to a speedy recovery and lots of EV madness!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I know what you mean, so many of my friends thought I was carrying trees or boulders or something like that.
I'm usually found copying this but with a real log:









I am being treated by a friendly 'white witch' with some homeopathic remedies and massage to give me a quick fix so I can perform in the show.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Anyone ever tell you you look like the Terminator?!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

toddshotrods said:


> Anyone ever tell you you look like the Terminator?!


No, but if you give me your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle.....


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## etlaare (Aug 25, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> I am being treated by a friendly 'white witch' with some homeopathic remedies and massage to give me a quick fix so I can perform in the show.


Doc Pierce would not need a white witch would he ?
but poor you...
Good luck with the back, hals und beinbruch with the performances.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

etlaare said:


> Doc Pierce would not need a white witch would he ?
> but poor you...
> Good luck with the back, hals und beinbruch with the performances.


Thank you,
I am a 'cowboy' doctor! Costume has insisted I carry a gun. I reckon that is a conflict of interests myself especially as I am also the town undertaker.


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## SimonRafferty (Apr 13, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> Thank you,
> I reckon that is a conflict of interests myself especially as I am also the town undertaker.


Sounds ideal to me! No problems with uncooperative patients!

Sorry to hear you've damaged yourself - I get this too sometimes. I find that a bit of R&R with my friend Jack Daniels helps a lot!

Si


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

SimonRafferty said:


> Sorry to hear you've damaged yourself - I get this too sometimes. I find that a bit of R&R with my friend Jack Daniels helps a lot!
> 
> Si


Cheers Simon, I don't have an affinity to friends like that anymore. I enjoy driving too much and Jack and his mates don't.
I get through quite a bit of 'stage whiskey' at the moment though, not quite the same effect though.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Cowboy? 6 shooter?

Ok now to add my 2 cents:

For 20 plus years I did 13 gunfights a day 7 days a week for all summer at a Western style town - built a goldmine- an earthquake ride - electronic animations - and shooting galleries ! the picture below was in the actual Marshals office of Eagle Pass Park NOT in some dress-up studio - it was a great time acting out skits - 

I used to shoot holes in souvenir coins (with my blank six -shooter) for kids (LOL i had a pocketful of coins with holes in them from a punch and hammer - palm the "good coin they gave me and threw up the one with the hole - quick draw - fire and you get the rest!!!) 

Sooooo there you are and STOP throwing all those logs around ....


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Dave Koller said:


> Cowboy? 6 shooter?
> 
> Ok now to add my 2 cents:
> 
> ...


That sounds pretty cool.
Fortunately I don't have to shoot my gun, it is made of plastic!


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Nice Wood - You and I could have rounded up all the bad guys as a team!!

Add about 40 years to that picture and you have me lol

That is my real hair and beard in the picture - great times.... still have the beard and now a ponytail - have my hair but it is gray ....

You look the part!!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Cheers Dave, That's my real hair and beard too.

I cannot believe that you are 84 years old!


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Cheers Dave, That's my real hair and beard too.
> 
> I cannot believe that you are 84 years old!


ER 40 + almost 30 = 70


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Dave Koller said:


> ER 40 + almost 30 = 70


Who's almost 30?

I'm 44!


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Who's almost 30?
> 
> I'm 44!



LOL 40 years ago that picture was taken of me - I was only 29 ...

You are a spry 44... 


Oh well, knock em dead - er, break a leg - ( not sure what you say in Merry old England!) Post the reviews


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Sorry about the confusion, Dave, my Asperger's brain doesn't always get the right connections.

This is our website, http://www.slads.co.uk/slads.htm, you should be able to see my previous shows and next week there should be images from the current show.



I put the drive shaft back on the car today, the original shaft, as I needed to move the car back up the drive way so that we can get more of the driveway cobbled.
Then the tree surgeons got started on a local tree so I brought back a bit of fire wood. Every bit carried 'Arnie style'. I will get the trunk of the tree tomorrow.









It's amazing what a bit of hard work and excercise can do to help with mending my back! I feel great again!


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Wood:

Thought you would like to see my hometown friend Carl Gromoll's site as he also has lot of "Wood" talent ! 



http://www.wilkiestudio.com/carl.html

Enjoy!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Cheers Dave, I have place that link on my college Moodle for the students to see.

His work is lovely and, I am sure, great to touch.

I am hoping in my firewood pile there will be some good spalted bits for turning.


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> Sorry about the confusion, Dave, my Asperger's brain doesn't always get the right connections.


You too? That's one of the things I have trouble with is seeing the connections most people make, but I often make many other connections that seem incredibly obvious to me that no one else understands....

That is an interesting-looking trailer behind the logs there. I don't think I've seen one quite like it. Is it a common UK-only type? It looks not very tall; like it's meant to be hauled behind a car rather than a truck?


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Amberwolf said:


> You too? That's one of the things I have trouble with is seeing the connections most people make, but I often make many other connections that seem incredibly obvious to me that no one else understands....


Yes, I only realised following seeing a programme on TV about Temple Grandin many years ago. I couldn't work out why someone would show a documentary about someone describing a normal outlook on life. Then I checked the TV schedules and realised. Friends with Autistic kids then told me they had known for years but never said as they thought I didn't want people to know so kept quiet about it.



Amberwolf said:


> You That is an interesting-looking trailer behind the logs there. I don't think I've seen one quite like it. Is it a common UK-only type? It looks not very tall; like it's meant to be hauled behind a car rather than a truck?


I designed it to be towed behing my car and be low enough to clear most maximum height barriers. It is my furniture delivery trailer so it is carpeted all around the inside.
I designed and built it from the top downwards based on an old Land Rover series long wheel base roof. I also used short roof for the front panel.
It gives me a 10' long box, 56" wide and 44" high inside.
The side panels are aluminium to save weight but the chassis has been built extra strong with 2"x1/8" box sections. Weighs 400kg empty.

Building trailers is fun, so long as it meets road regulations I can do pretty much as I like.
My other home built trailer is telescopic stretching from 8' bed to 15'.

I am designing a folding skeletal trailer for carrying my tractor.


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> Yes, I only realised following seeing a programme on TV about Temple Grandin many years ago. I couldn't work out why someone would show a documentary about someone describing a normal outlook on life. Then I checked the TV schedules and realised. Friends with Autistic kids then told me they had known for years but never said as they thought I didn't want people to know so kept quiet about it.


I have seen that special (I think--"The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow"), but not until after I found out. Also another one I saw after, from Independent Lens, about a man in New York, filmed by his sister. Can't recall the name. 

I had some people that worked with not-nearly-as-functional aspies as me that talked to me about it, and asked me a bunch of wierd questions, then said I almost certainly am one too. Researching it I found many questionaires very like the stuff they asked me, and every one of them I've ever taken puts me up in the 90-98 percentile of respondents for Asperger's. The longer the quiz the higher up I go, usually. 

Having worked in retail for so many years, I have learned a lot about dealing with other people, but it is still very hard because I get so stressed out so easy, and confused when people dont' react like I expect them to based on what I thought I'd learned from previous people. I'm still apparently very good at this, because I consistently get told by customers and bosses/etc that I'm the best at customer service of whatever crew I'm on, but I don't think I am very good at dealing with the stress of it. 

I did not find out until 2-3 years ago; had never heard of it before then. I guess that's common. People in charge of us when we're younger seem to typically just think we're wierd, stupid, arrogant, or whatever, and never try to help. I've since discovered many people I know that are aspies, some of whom know and some who didn't (and still don't think they are, but I'm certain of it). Most that did know only found out later in life, only one as a child. 

It sure does make getting jobs difficult, though.




> I designed it to be towed behing my car and be low enough to clear most maximum height barriers. It is my furniture delivery trailer so it is carpeted all around the inside.
> I designed and built it from the top downwards based on an old Land Rover series long wheel base roof. I also used short roof for the front panel.
> It gives me a 10' long box, 56" wide and 44" high inside.
> The side panels are aluminium to save weight but the chassis has been built extra strong with 2"x1/8" box sections. Weighs 400kg empty.


I should've guessed it was your own custom work.  It's nice; if I had a car and needed a trailer for it it looks like a good one to base a design on.



> Building trailers is fun, so long as it meets road regulations I can do pretty much as I like.
> My other home built trailer is telescopic stretching from 8' bed to 15'.


Hmmm...what does that one look like? I might be interested in borrowing some ideas. 



> I am designing a folding skeletal trailer for carrying my tractor.


I'd like to see that one, too. 

The only trailers I've made were for my bikes, the most recent of which was primarily for my rapidly-growing puppy, Hachi:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18671








The old first trailer is on the first page of this:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15570&start=0


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Amberwolf said:


> I have seen that special (I think--"The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow"), but not until after I found out.


I've seen that one too. The first one I saw was a documentary she made before she was working in animal husbandry. She was then describing how she doesn't recognise people or faces and can't tell people apart except by voice, situation and context.

I find that too and can't spot people I know, including my parents and my girlfriends during past relationships, when I meet them out of the normal context of their existance.

One of the reasons I act very well in stage shows is that I have spent much of my life, as many Aspies do, watching behaviour, body postioning, faces and gestures to try and decipher a set of rules for interaction.
As such, if I am called upon to look sad, mean, upset, joyful, in love, happy, confused, crying and so on, I can just access a set of behavoural rules and actions that I have seen and replicate it. I can do it on a director's demand just as easily as my own when interacting at work or with friends.

I was once asked 'How can you teach when you can't socialise, recognise faces and empathise?'.
It is easy, I don't go to college to socialise, I go to work. I take on and play the role of a good teacher who knows the subject well and I research, not just the subject to be taught but also the behaviour of a good teacher. I place students at the same desks so that I don't need to recognise them, just remember where they sit and what they are working on.
Empathy is more difficult. 'One to one' is just about ok but with 'many to one' and I will treat them all as equal individuals as a group. It is the best I can do.

Must rush now, the smell of the grease paint calls.
You can see my work on this Facebook site for the theatre group.
I built all the sets and special effects and many of the props for Cinderella, Robin Hood, Musicality and now Calamity Jane.

More later.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Gotta love the way you do things Wood - and if you throw in my SUPER Attention Deficient Disorder - We are the best of the best that think out of the box!!


Amberwolf - I really like the dog carrier.. (have a Golden now) My old German Shepard could hardly walk and I built a bike trailer to haul her around - It was a real chore to pedal up hills ... You do not realize that till you first go up one pulling a bike trailer!!

We all function in diverse ways - but, here we are!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Amberwolf said:


> Having worked in retail for so many years, I have learned a lot about dealing with other people, but it is still very hard because I get so stressed out so easy, and confused when people dont' react like I expect them to based on what I thought I'd learned from previous people. I'm still apparently very good at this, because I consistently get told by customers and bosses/etc that I'm the best at customer service of whatever crew I'm on, but I don't think I am very good at dealing with the stress of it.


It is this sort of thing that makes me work on the basis that 'normal people' lie a lot.
They never say what they think and often ask questions they don't want answering and answer question with untruths or a different thing each time. They are also inconsistent and wast too much time talking without there being any information exchange happening!
Bugs the hell out of me.
one annoying 'for instance': If you're not interested in how my bad back and bloated bowels are three times a day then stop asking how I am everytime you see me!




Amberwolf said:


> I did not find out until 2-3 years ago; had never heard of it before then. I guess that's common. People in charge of us when we're younger seem to typically just think we're wierd, stupid, arrogant, or whatever, and never try to help. I've since discovered many people I know that are aspies, some of whom know and some who didn't (and still don't think they are, but I'm certain of it). Most that did know only found out later in life, only one as a child.
> 
> It sure does make getting jobs difficult, though.


My folks still don't know, they just think I am weird and occasionally rude. I try my best to maintain that consistency as it is easier then adpating to them or telling them and then explaining and then having Dad blame an ancestral curse, or my Mum, or something else daft.

I find job hunting near impossible. I can't fill in forms beyond name, address and phone number and so have to rely on others or go to agencies.
College is very good, they help me do the paper work for my students and my manager does all my expenses forms.





Amberwolf said:


> Hmmm...what does that one [_extending trailer]_ look like? I might be interested in borrowing some ideas. [/url]
> These are the only photos of the extending trailer I have up loaded at the moment:
> 
> The box is made from two plastic folding stillage pallets.
> ...


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I decided to start sorting out the adaptor today.

I figured that I was fortunate in having the coupler on a bearing in the DE cap without the rest of the motor attached. So I fitted the flywheel and started centring the clutch.

I had been attempting this a few times ove the last couple of days but as there is no spigot bearing there was nothing to locate a clutch alignment tool to. I tried making an alignment tool to the inner edges of the clutch diaphram spring but that didn't work either.
I was finding that if I placed the assembly on the gearbox shaft and then spun the shaft, the DE cap was moving around a different centre as if the clutch was off centre.

Anyway, I decided to try the more accurate method and placed the DE cap on the bench and centred the clutch with a dial gauge. I got it within 0.1mm and then bolted the pressure plate and tried it on the transmission again.

Same problem.

So I decided to remove the flywheel and assemble the motor, maybe only having a single bearing on the coupler was allowing a bit of unwanted movement and throwing out any accuracy.

With the motor assembled I found the first problem. The shaft wouldn't turn.

I slackend off the DE cap bolts 1 turn each and tapped the cap loose. The shaft was now free. Retighten the bolts half a turn and the shaft gets tight.
OK, that means that the bearing carrier needs moving outboard maybe 3/4 of a thread pitch. Not a problem so I leave it as is for now.

I applied 12v to spin the motor and it vibrated a lot.
As it slowed down I notice that the adaptor, that was machined out of the crankshaft end, was visibly neither square nor centred. 
Actually I think it is out of square but centred on the bearing but the shaft is slightly out of centre in the bore. It can only be the armature that is out of centre as there is not enough out of centre mass in the coupler to give the amount of vibration I was getting.

With the motor upended on the CE cap the motor wanted to dance about the floor as it accelerated through the resonance speeds.

Not at all happy now.

I will make a new coupler but it will be difficult getting the threaded half holes aligned for the set screw keys. I may even need to weld up the threads on the shaft, turn it round and start again.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I have put a dial gauge on the outside of the adaptor.

The flywheel location spigot, bolt holes and face are about 1.2mm off centre to the bearing and with a wobble! 
I've not bothered checking how far out the armature bore is, no point really.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

What do you think caused it? That really sucks, especially when you finally had some momentum going with this project.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I don't know, Todd. I wish I had watched the whole machining process, then I could figure out what the stages were.

One odd thing is that the outside edge of the drive flange for the flywheel has been machined. The part was the cut off end of the crank shaft and so there would have been no need to machine any part of the flywheel flange at all, just the bearing surface to fit the 50mm bearing and then bore it out.

So that is confusing.

It would seem that the bearing is round and concentric, clearly, and so the adaptor has been turned to 50mm to fit the bearing bore off centre. Why? I don't really know.

Maybe the flange OD was wrong from the ICE and it was used to chuck the adaptor to turn the 50mm bearing surface.

Maybe, given the 50mm bearing surface was machined wrong, the adaptor was turned around in the lathe, held on the bearing surface and then the flange turned true to the bearing but out of true to the spigot?

I may put the gauge on the outside of the flange and compare to the spigot and then compare to the armature bore.

At first I thought maybe the motor armature was wrong but even without the armature the adaptor is bearinged into the DE cap and so should turn true.

If you were to put a part made piece into a lathe would you true it with a dial gauge? I do, always. I didn't see that happen though.

Ultimately I will have to make a new part myself at some point.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

Woodsmith said:


> Ultimately I will have to make a new part myself at some point.


And sad as that is - we all end up doing it ourselves - DIY is alive and well. Our standards work much better in the end, it is the time spent learning TWICE we can do without ! ....


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> ...If you were to put a part made piece into a lathe would you true it with a dial gauge? I do, always. I didn't see that happen though.


Absolutely! Another thing is you can't assume a piece will turn true if you pull it off the lathe, and have to chuck it back up again - even if the jaws hit the exact same spots.

That could definitely have caused the issue, if he didn't use a dial indicator to true it.

Sorry to see you have to go through all this, and hope you get it worked out.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I had a spare hour so I set up a lump of EN38 in the lathe to true up. It is about as big as I can spin in that chuck so I decided to give it as much support as I could by centering the free end in the tailstock.









Somewhere inside that lump is a new adaptor, though it may take me several days to find it.

I now need to buy an M12x1.25 tap for the flywheel bolt holes.


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

A little at a time and you should get it - and it WILL be true ....


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## Dave Koller (Nov 15, 2008)

I am SO busy BUT had to see how you were doing! I hope you got something going in that coupler department !


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I work on it every now and again as it is so boring reducing all that mass. I also have to get around to making a 'thing' to hold my parting off tool in the tool post so I can part it off and start drilling it.

I haven't done much as I have been busy with bartered work, setting up the furniture exhibition for my students, attending their graduation and recovering from a fall.

I fell through a floor that I was repairing for a friend after we found dry rot. My own fault as I stepped on the end of a board that I knew was unsupported as I went to pick up the one next to it.

I am now sporting a dinner plate size bruize and graze on the back of my thigh where I landed on the edge of the joist and also a head injury where I bashed my cranium on the corner of the chimney breast on the way down.

I've been to A&E for a check up but fortunately no serious damage though I will have a sore head for at least a couple of weeks.

Hasn't stopped me working though. I continued on the repairs to the floor and have been laying cement bonded chipboard flooring as a sound proofing layer for him. 
Tomorrow I will be helping a friend rebuild the front of his Citroen Berlingo Electric after designing a new battery box for him. We will need to re fit the motor and transaxle, relocate the controller and weld the front panels back on to the engine bay.

I have now also got a little trailer that I will begin modifying for the tractor.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've been really busy doing house building stuff recently so not managed to do any EVing in the workshop at all.
Today, though, I decided to take my bathroom scales down into 'the pit of dispair', the workshop, and weigh the motor.

113.8kg or 251lbs!
No wonder I can only just lift it!

I weighed the tractor too but I will post that in the tractor thread.


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## etlaare (Aug 25, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> 113.8kg or 251lbs!
> No wonder I can only just lift it!


wow, that's a lot, my motor together with the gearbox weights only a little more.

I must admit I did not totally follow your connection issues Woodsmith, but do you still have splines on the axes ? I wanted to test drive it for a while, but I had simplified the connection which I used originally. It seems so simple now that I almost wondered if something would be wrong trying this. I did not take pictures, but if you still have splines and could connect the center part of your clutch plate I could try to make a drawing to explain it.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> ...113.8kg or 251lbs!...


The Inhaler's motor is about the same. It was listed as 250lbs in the Ebay ad, and the same by the trucking company (on the pallet), but I've never actually weighed it. I just assume it's 240-250lbs, because it feels like it.

A cylindrical object is a bit difficult to handle at that weight. I have a piece of 1" water pipe with chains bolted to it that we use as a sling to move it around, or a dolly. We lifted it in and out of the back seat of my Accord with the sling, which was _fun_. I need to get an additional length of pipe and a coupler, so that a person can stand on either side of the car and simply walk it in, rather than trying to lift it from inside the car.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

etlaare said:


> I must admit I did not totally follow your connection issues Woodsmith,


The connection issue is awkward.
Imagine cutting the shaft off the motor so that it doesn't stick out of the DE cap. 
Then change the bearing for one that has a much larger bore.
Then make a hollow adaptor that fits over the motor shaft and inside the bearing bore leaving just a very short flange sticking out.
That flange is then drilled to mount the flywheel.

Now to make the hollow adaptor and shaft turn as one and be locked axially to the bearing to prevent axial movement of the flywheeland motor armature took a bit of thinking. I could have used a key and some set screws but the route I took was to drill from the end of the shaft axially. The drilling was done so that half the hole is in the shaft and half in the adaptor. I drilled three of them, but not equidistant, so that the adaptor only fitted one way. The holes were then tapped out to M8 to take set screws.
It looks like a semi cylinderical groove in each part with a thread in it.

The set acted like cylindrical keys and the threads locked everything tightly together so there is no movement in any direction.

The problem now is that I have drilled and tapped the holes but have to remake the adaptor. That means that the shaft has half holes in it that are already threaded but the new adaptor won't. Matching them up will be next to impossible. It will be hard enough to get the holes in exactly the same place but to then match the threads as well....

I won't bother with that, too difficult and probably won't work. I will have to move the holes inwards slightly and retap the threads in the shaft and the adapor together. That will mean that the M8 'cylindrical key' will not be 4mm in each part but 5mm in the shaft and 3mm in the adaptor. That makes it weaker as the shear forces will no longer be acting perpendicular to the key but at an angle. Torque loading will try to expand the adaptor over the keys.

I could weld the threaded grooves in the shaft but that could cause distortion in the shaft and I have no means of turning the shaft myself so I would have to find, and pay, someone else to do it for me. That is made all the more difficult as there is no centre in the end of the shaft, just a tapped hole that is also slightly off centre!

Can you see how frustrated I am about it?


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> ...The problem now is that I have drilled and tapped the holes but have to remake the adaptor. That means that the shaft has half holes in it that are already threaded but the new adaptor won't. Matching them up will be next to impossible. It will be hard enough to get the holes in exactly the same place but to then match the threads as well...


Wow, that is tough. If I understand correctly, the already tapped holes are in the inside piece?


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Yep.

The shaft looks like this and this is what I need to match up to.









The adaptor looks like this.

















Put together the tapped holes should line up and the set screws locate and transmit drive. I am putting in two sets screws in each hole.









The adaptor sits into the bearing like this. It needs to be pressed in to be tight but the flange finishes about 0.5mm above the bearing mount.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Oh yeah, now I remember that setup. It could be done gut you'll spend as much time, or more, making fixtures as making the parts. You need a fixture that has different plates for drilling and tapping and, once setup would allow you to remove and replace the center shaft. Set it up, remove the shaft, drill the three holes through guide plates. Reinstall the shaft, and tap through a threaded fixture plate that feeds the tap into the new adapter to match the pre-threaded bores in the shaft.

The other option is CMM/CAD/CNC. The locations can be digitized to bore the holes the adapters spot-on. I would still use a fixture plate to manually tap them to match the existing holes in the shaft though.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Super glue on the shaft would be easy or maybe loctite.

I need to think carefully about the processes and the steps to make sure I don't do anything that I need to rejig for after.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> Super glue on the shaft would be easy or maybe loctite.
> 
> I need to think carefully about the processes and the steps to make sure I don't do anything that I need to rejig for after.


Yup.

I meant to also say that you need a tight-fitting dummy shaft for drilling the holes, to keep the bit from walking. End mills in a big enough mill may be able to bore half a hole, on the inside edge of a steel donut, precisely, but I would prefer the dummy insert even then.


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## Amberwolf (May 29, 2009)

Would it be possible to tap the threads the same by carefully aligning the tap with the existing threads on the shaft's half-holes, with the adapter in place with it's unthreaded half-holes? Or will the cutting forces cause extra tapping to occur on the motor shaft vs the uncut adapter holes?


Failing that, would it be feasible to simply bore three new half-holes in the motor shaft 60 degrees from the existing set, and not use the existing set at all? Or will the shaft be weakened too much by that much material loss?


Regarding turning the shaft itself after welding existing threaded half-holes to fix shaft distortion/etc, could you not use the motor itself as the lathe to turn it? Affixing a sliding vice to the motor housing to allow parallel cutting to the shaft?


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

toddshotrods said:


> Yup.
> 
> I meant to also say that you need a tight-fitting dummy shaft for drilling the holes, to keep the bit from walking. End mills in a big enough mill may be able to bore half a hole, on the inside edge of a steel donut, precisely, but I would prefer the dummy insert even then.


What I had in mind was to mark the circumference of the shaft onto the new adaptor and then drill the three holes before I bored it out. That would give me the three half holes.
I can then make a dummy shaft to it the adaptor and use the dummy shaft, between centres, to finish turning the outside of the adaptor to make sure that it is all concentric and true.



Amberwolf said:


> Would it be possible to tap the threads the same by carefully aligning the tap with the existing threads on the shaft's half-holes, with the adapter in place with it's unthreaded half-holes? Or will the cutting forces cause extra tapping to occur on the motor shaft vs the uncut adapter holes?


I am going to try that in the hope that it will only off set the hole by half a thread depth but I will allow for full depth in case I end up with damaged threads.




Amberwolf said:


> Failing that, would it be feasible to simply bore three new half-holes in the motor shaft 60 degrees from the existing set, and not use the existing set at all? Or will the shaft be weakened too much by that much material loss?


I don't want to drill any more holes for just that reason unless I really have to. And if I have to then I would rather weld it up and remachine it all.




Amberwolf said:


> Regarding turning the shaft itself after welding existing threaded half-holes to fix shaft distortion/etc, could you not use the motor itself as the lathe to turn it? Affixing a sliding vice to the motor housing to allow parallel cutting to the shaft?


Can't do that, the armature only has one bearing. The DE bearing runs on the adaptor.
The armature would have to be chucked and then supported on a travelling steady that was able to support all the loads on the bearing shoulder that is in the dish of the fan. Not easy access.

I have really made a difficult beast to repair but would have been such a neat solution had it worked.
Still, I am learning a lot in the process and stretching the limits of my lathe.

At some point I will need to make a parting off tool holder too.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I have finally made the decision to give up on the MR2. It has been overly difficult and I have to accept that I can't afford to make it do what I want unless lithium suddenly dropped to the price of lead pound for pound.

I have put the MR2 rolling shell up for sale on the Battery Vehicle Society forum to see if it will go to a local converter. If not then I will see if it will sell as a 'reshell' project on the MR2 forum. Given they keep crashing their cars or finding them rusting away that may be quite promising.

So here ends any more effort in the MR2 direction.

I will keep the 12" motor and use it for another project. I still have the 9" motor, a 2CV transaxle, a Lada Niva transfer box and a Yamaha Virago shaft drive rear wheel (three wheel drive trike?)

I am convinced that I would be happier to put my efforts into scratch building a reverse trike single seat commuter that will only have 1/3 as much pack and weigh less then the 400kg for motorbike regs.
It will also make the pack affordable and allow me free range to make a vehicle that suits me more then the MR2 would have done.

But, if a rolling MGB GT came along.....


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Yay! Sorry to those who were hoping this would be completed, but I see it as a drag on the Woody. There's nothing worse than being stuck in something that your heart is not completely invested in. This project reminds me of my Camaro I sold after three years, four motors, two transmissions, and more time than I care to remember. I also had a LOT of custom work done on it. I fought through until I finally got it running, took it to some cars shows (in primer), and ultimately realized how big of a waste the whole effort was. It had no "soul" to me, no connection, no warm heart. I had fun at the shows, but not enough to justify the effort it took to get there. Every time I drove it all I could think was, "I wish I was in my Honda."

Onward and upward Woodster!!!  That trike is going to be awesome. It will meet your transportation needs, exercise your creativity, and stretch you smile (instead of your patience and budget)!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

It had to happen in the end.

I am hoping that it will make a great project for someone else to work on as there is nothing wrong with it as a project with 'more conventional' parts and expectations. It just wasn't for me in the end.

It was a bit like finally deciding a relationship wasn't working and it would be better to end it ammicably before I took a gas axe to her...ummm....it!

I will finish the motor drive flange and leave it plain without holes. Then I can decide on what will be connected to it in future.

Jim has suggested that I would regret not having a proper car for the creature comforts in the longer term, and I agree in many ways. So I may still eventually convert a comfortable car but I reckon that I would more likely end up buying one from a mass manufacturer by then.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> ...It was a bit like finally deciding a relationship wasn't working and it would be better to end it ammicably before I took a gas axe to her...ummm....it!...


ROFL!  That's hilarious just as it is, and I don't even know what a gas axe is?!?!?


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## jackbauer (Jan 12, 2008)

gas axe is British for cutting torch! took me a while to figure out first time also!

Sorry to hear it didnt work out. I suspect the motor was the real issue. If you had the motor in and were able to move a few feet on 12v it would have made the thing more attractive. Certainly did for me.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

jackbauer said:


> gas axe is British for cutting torch! took me a while to figure out first time also!...


ROTFLMAO! That takes it to a whoel new dimension - sizzle, ouch!  Crazy British guy! 





jackbauer said:


> ...If you had the motor in and were able to move a few feet on 12v it would have made the thing more attractive. Certainly did for me.


Oddly enough, I was just telling CFreeman54 that I am actually a little concerned that if my project was operational (but not race ready) I would be more tempted to sell it when I get burnt out or frustrated. It's much easier to find a buyer when the thing actually works (even if only marginally so). I don't attach sentimental value to things, or form emotional bonds with people and things, so once I've had the experience I can move on at the drop of a dime. So far, I've kept the Inhaler trapped between _"doesn't make sense to sell it in pieces and sacrifice my labor"_ and _"if I push a little more the value will leap, and I'll be much closer to performance that will stir the adrenaline junkie in me!"_


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

jackbauer said:


> Sorry to hear it didnt work out. I suspect the motor was the real issue. If you had the motor in and were able to move a few feet on 12v it would have made the thing more attractive. Certainly did for me.


Possibly, though there were other issues that were bugging me.

I used to sit in it and imagine driving. Didn't like the position as much as I thought, I felt too low in the seat and the layout of controls and instruments weren't quite right even with a standard steering wheel.

As much as the MR2 owner's club was sorta fun I never got on with the humour or the general driving/ownership mentality. I felt too far removed from the average owner.

The mind boggling array of little black boxes was driving me nuts.
The lousey head lights with the very expensive modification to make them brighter.
That rear wing and those wheels.

I have seen mk2s that I like but it would cost me a lot of time and money to make it how I would be happy with it.

I think if it drove on the tractor set up I would still be tempted to use the EV parts on another donor.


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## Duxuk (Jul 11, 2009)

You can find the trike regulations at www.Kasper.co.uk/bob where you can download the draft regulations. They are rather out of date and caused me a failure but will give you a lot of usefull information before you spend any money.

Andrew.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Cheers Andrew, I will have a good read of that later. The link wouldn't work on my server so I had to find the Kasper site first. Interesting insight into someone elses family life!


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Latest update on the MR2 project.

Having sorted out all the paperwork for scrapping it and removing all legal responsibility for it as a vehicle Arch and I have been stripping parts for recycling.

The big milestone today was.....



Well, I'll let the photos speak for themselves.































































It was a lot of fun to do. Next job is to remove the suspension and steering components and then quarter the shell to make it easier to get to the scrap metal yard.

For all those UK MR2 fans who told me how valuable an original and rust free car would be but never stumped up any money to buy the car, or the shell, from me here is a photo of the inside of a 21 year old sill.


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