Posted: 06-21-2009 - 08:08 PM by
rmacey
Not much is getting done. Noah was off at camp. My buddy Stu came by with a tool to saw the tail pipe, so it's gone. It's hot. I get under the car and my goggles fog in about 30 seconds.
The intake/exhaust manifold stubbornly clings to the engine. I'm not making progress with that. I'm also not sure about removing the gas tank. It's about time to call for help.
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Posted: 06-16-2009 - 11:41 AM by
rbgrn
From the website at
http://www.refuelraces.com/,
"""For owners of all manner of clean power and high-efficiency vehicles, this is a chance to drive on world famous Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Electric, solar, hydrogen fuel cell, compressed air and other non-internal combustion engine cars and motorcycles will get the chance to drive the track for free*. This will include parade laps, practice lap sessions and Time Trial competition. Owners of Alternative Fuel Source and Clean Diesel vehicles can run with our conventional engine groups with the AltFuel discount. Crew, family and friends are all welcome to attend."""
While the event is a celebration of all alternative-fuel vehicles, it seems very friendly towards home-built EVs. Maybe now is a good time to get your EV track-ready and see what it can do!
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Posted: 06-14-2009 - 10:32 AM by
FastbackToTheFuture
This is my first post, although I have been working on my EV conversion for about a year now (on and off, some weekends more than others). This post will get the last year documented.
The donor is a 1969 Volkswagen Type 3 Fastback. It ran questionably with the original 1600cc pancake engine (one of the first fuel injected VWs). It had timing/fuel line issues, so I was able to get it fairly cheap. I drove it about 4 miles before it sputtered to a stop, and I had to call a tow for the remaining 11 miles. It has an automatic transmission, and I may be called daft (via my English friends) for attempting this but I need to try the stock setup before I go about finding a standard donor. The auto trans is more weight than a standard, but the T3 is one of the best layouts for battery placement (ie. weight distribution).
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Posted: 06-09-2009 - 05:50 AM by
rmacey
Never knew where the expletive-like expression Nuts came from. I sort of thought it had to do with getting kicked in them. Now I'm thinking it has to do with removing the air intake/exhaust manifold from a 1985 VW Cabriolet. There are something like 10 bolts to be removed. Some require crescent wrenches, others allen. With generous help we removed 8 or 9. Obviously these 8 or 9 are completely unnecessary because the thing is held very securely by the other one or two. The problem is you have to find these rusted suckers entirely by feel. They are on the back of the engine and cannot be seen from top or underneath.
After working on that for a while, I started sawing the exhaust pipe in two. Got bored with the slow progress (think I need a better saw or power tool). So I started on the gas tank.
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Posted: 06-08-2009 - 06:08 AM by
rmacey
Sat morning I took a break from the engine removal. It seems to be coming along nicely, but what do I know. You can see the progress on the webcam
http://maceyev.blogsite.org/img/main_fs.htm. I'm at a point where care seems to be in order. Until now, I won't need what I'm removing. When I remove the engine the transmission will come out and I'll need that.
So instead of working on the engine, Saturday I disconnected the exhaust from the chassis. It's still one long (10 ft) pipe. There appear to be sections, but I can't see how to disconnect them. It's above a major crossbar that I'd rather not fool with (less the entire car collapse on me). I may just take a hacksaw to the exhaust.
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