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Rick's 1973 VW Super Beetle build

86K views 232 replies 21 participants last post by  Ziggythewiz 
#1 ·
Several months ago I purchased a donor car and have been spending my time reading this forum and stripping the car and getting ready for the conversion.

I am a 60 + retired financial executive. I have owned 4 VW’s over the years and in college my brother and I rebuilt the engine on a bug convertible. I have good mechanical skills and am an electronic hobbyist. Some time ago I installed a 3KW solar PV system on the roof of my home. I have also converted 2 bicycles to electric drive and six months ago I converted one of them to Lithium (48v Headway pack). My desire for more speed and utility led me to considering an EV conversion.

I have no metal fabrication skills except for the ability to cut, drill or shape aluminum with a router.(derived from my woodworking skills) I have found a local source for aluminum plate and several resources for aluminum welding.

I hope initially to have a range of approximatley 10- 20 miles. I will probably start out with a 96v pack of about 100Ahrs. I expect to get 25 mile range for local driving. Phase two of my plan is to upgrade by paralleling another 100Ahr pack. At that point I should be able to take short trips of 40 miles on the freeway. My choice of 32 cells is driven by the investment I have made in some cellogs and a circuit board by rwaudio that will give me LVC and HVC. When I upgrade to the extra capacity I will probably purchase a high amperage charger and a BMS. In the meantime I can charge slowly with a couple of 48v Meanwells.

My initial budget to get the car running for phase one is $15,000. That includes the AC-35 system which I will pick up inin Ontario, California tomorrow. I ordered the motor and adaptor from Thunderstruck Motors in Santa Rosa CA. and recieved a lot of offline help from Frodus and Gottdi. I have received a quote for 100 Ahr CALB cells from Keegan Han and will probably commit that purchase by the end of June. Later in the year I will evaluate the budget for phase two. The car is currently grey primer with the rear fenders, apron and rear hood removed. I am also considering fiberglass fenders, apron, rear hood and trunk.
 
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#41 ·
Hi Rick

Have you charged your pack yet? If yes ,what kind of charger and to what voltage did you charge?

I got the same batteries and they are still in the boxes. They were all at 3.331 volts when they got here,now they are at 3.328volts. It has been 2 weeks now.

I am still doing some restoration work on the car. I am using floodies to move it around while working on it.

Alvin
 
#42 · (Edited)
Alvin,

Yes I charged my pack yesterday. I installed 32 cells in two packs of 16 cells under the seats of my VW. I am using two Meanwell 48 volt power supplies in series. They can be adjusted and I have them set for a total voltage of 117 volts (3.65 per cell) I never saw the Amps decrease from the 11 amps I started charging with. They are now resting at 3.43. I am monitoring them with cellogs using a cellog board RWaudio sold me. I have one cell in the group that got to 3.70. My power supply won't go any higher so I think I am being conservative.

I have an EV Display which I bought from EV Werks and I can track Amps, Volts and Amphours. I also use a light objects programmable voltmeter that I can set to turn off the charger when it reaches a particular voltage.

I should add that I did cycle one of my unused cells with my Power Lab. I don't have the voltage detail but I got 47 Ahrs into one of the new cells and on discharge, to 2.8 volts, I got 94.5 Ahrs out of it. That would lead me to believe that they came to me at about a 50% charge leveI a My graph didn't save so I don't have other details. I will try another cycle but since I am limited to 6 Amps charging current it is going to take a long time.
Rick
 
#43 · (Edited)
I got my contactor today, put the tires on it and tried one more time to adjust the brakes. I had no luck with the brakes but got it running and did a three point turn in the drive way and garage.

Now I need to get the turn signals and brake lights working so I can take it to a local mechanic and get an alignment and the brakes bled and adjusted. The hand brake is the only brake I have that works at this moment. Fortunately the mechanic is 1/4 mile away but I have to cross Pacific Coast Highway. I will plan the time and my course carefully.

It was not enough to warrant an EV grin but I did just have a beer to celebrate. It was a long, but very rewarding day.
 
#45 ·
I rebuilt the front end with new discs. I also replaced the master cylinder and put new drums, pads and cylinders in the rear. I adjusted the rears so I have a little friction. I replaced every hose and all the pipes except the main one that goes from from to back. I tried to bleed the brakes and got a soft pedal. I didn't bench bleed the master cylinder like some have done. After going through a quart of brake fluid I bought some speed bleeders and went through almost another quart of fluid and still a soft pedal. I am ready to pay a mechanic to get the brakes bled and give me a sanity check that my brakes are good.

As far as alignment is concerned, since I replaced all the ball joints and tie rods I also want a mechanic to give me a sanity check on that as well. I want to run it with as little toe in as possible so I have less rolling resistance. I may adjust the alignment my self temporarily because I am thinking about going to a place that does alignment and has a four point scale. I want to get a reference of the weight balance for the next phase of my battery pack
 
#46 ·
Check the master cylinder again. To bleed that sucker you need to get a healthy wad of rags and with someone in the drivers seat with the foot on the pedal under pressure you need to slightly break loose the connections to each line going into the master cylinder. One at a time under pressure. Keep your wrench on the nut and tighten down before pressure is released. You may get some air out.

To bleed you bleed one at at time from the furthest away in the rear then the next furthest away then next and then closest. You also need to manually adjust your brakes prior to bleeding. How many bleeders do you have on your front calipers? Mine have two each and each one needs bleeding. Is the master cylinder the same as the one that was replaced? Did you move or adjust the master cylinder push rod get changed.

Could be that a line is kinked or the main line is clogged a bit. If your old lines looked ugly maybe changing all your lines is in order. I needed to change the master cylinder and main line and all soft lines. Rear wheel cylinders will be replaced as well. New drums and new front disc brake setup.

Have another good look at your setup. Try readjusting your shoes. Sure you have the right sized parts?
 
#47 ·
Pete,
Thanks for the pointers. I manually adjusted the rears to the point that the shoes are dragging on the drums. I won't have a helper until Saturday and my arms are long but not long enough to hold down the pedal while I tighten the nuts on the master cylinder. I already replaced all the hoses and all the lines except the main one from front to back. I have two bleeders on the calipers and went through a quart with a helper and another quart after I got the speed bleeders.

I am really looking forward to working on getting the turn signals other miscellaneous 12 volt stuff. I am happy deferring to a nearby mechanic for my brake issues, since I am at a point of diminishing returns with regards to my brakes.
 
#48 ·
Adjust them until they are tight then back them off. Not just until they are touching. Once tight they might center themselves. They might not be centered yet. Yes, you may need to defer to a local brake mechanic. Be sure they are competent mechanics and willing to really figure out whats not right. I learned what I know because I do not trust most mechanics. Some are great. Most have no clue. Most can turn a wrench but can't diagnose.
 
#51 ·
Hi Rick,

I feel your pain on the bleeding woes, I went through the same thing. I was originally keeping all 4 drums but after my own bleeding problems I converted the front to discs and that solved my problems.
Here's my 2 cents worth on bleeding: The more calipers. wheel cyclinders, etc that have air in the system the harder it is to get out. Doing one wheel at a time and bleeding it works best. You probably have air in the front circuits because it has the most up and down paths for air to get trapped in. I would suggest this:
(Note: The front calipers can be removed and a plate to make up for the disc put in place. This can allow the caliper and it's lines to be orientated for air to escape up to the bleed port and the rest of the caliper piston to fill with fluid only)
1) fill the resevoir
2) loosen/crack the first front circuit fitting at the master cylinder open till fluid flows then tighten
3) proceed down the line to the left front wheel at each fitting keeping the resevoir filled
4) After you get to the left wheel caliper and bleed it then start on the right front circuit and repeat.

The problem is that with massive amounts of air in the system at all different places the air just compresses and moves back and forth instead of bleeding.
Good luck
Zak
 
#52 ·
Hi Rick, I got my little orange bug on the road last week and have 84 EV miles on it to date. I too have experienced the brake bleed blues. I get a little brake at first push but to get real stopping power I have to double push. I'm at 72v of floodies weighing 630 lbs but can stop confidently. You might try the double push on your trip to the mech. By the way, on my dc system I have hit 55 mph on the freeway (late night run LOL), so I expect that with wings you can fly! Sound like a very sweet system you've put together. I love driving my Bug and expect you will too. From one first time recent builder to another, Congratulations!
 
#54 ·
Oh yeah, it takes a steady 300 amps to maintain, and a nice long down hill on ramp to get there. I don't plan on doing that too often. Thanks for your tip on the Lester battery charger conversion, it was an easy job and saved me major bucks. Your probably right about the upgrade thing too.
 
#55 ·
Guaranteed right about the upgrade issue. Been there, done that. My first conversion started as a 72 volt system. Bumped to 96 and boy what a difference that jump made. My MG was 120 volts. My current Bug project is sitting at 72 volts and sucks. Soon to be bumped to 185 volts. Once all the cells are bottom balanced then we will do the bump. Our charging project is going very well. Testing our new setup this evening.

Pete :)
 
#56 ·
I have been spending the last few days trying to diagnose a problem that I am having with either my motor or my controller.

I cannot seem to get the motor to go past 100 RPMs unloaded in nuetral. In an earlier post I mentioned that I was able to do a three point turn in the driveway. Initially I just thought something needed adjusting but now that everything is checked and tightened I still cannot get the motor RPMs above 100 and the motor temp goes to 65 to 70C in less than a minute. The controller stays at 35 to 40C and the outside temp is 72F (22C.) I was drawing about 100 Amps when the motor was going 100 RPM.
 
#59 ·
Rick,

Does the display show the 100 RPM or does it show zero? If it shows zero with the motor running, that meas there is an encoder issue. If it does show RPM, then try switching 2 of the motor leads. The will reverse the rotation of the motor in respect to the encoder signal.

Feel free to give us a call if you need help.

Brian
 
#61 ·
Now that I sorted out the motor problem it was time to work on the brakes again. I did get the car to a local guy that specializes in VW's and whom I trust. He bled the system, found two leaky stop light switches. and fixed a leak in one of the disc brake calipers. I picked it up this afternoon and drove it the 5 miles back to my home.

I took the cautious route home, making a lot of right turns and going a little farther that the direct route. After a block I stopped near a park to logon to my EMW display on my Android. As I was parked on the side of the road a group of guys walked by and asked if it was an electric VW. They loved it, and I enjoyed the recognition. Less than a mile away I was stopped at a signal and some guy shouted over from his Chevy SUV, "I have a '74 Super Beetle but that electric is cool." If I didn't already have the EV grin I sure had it by then.

I was getting 15-20 Amps of regen as I slowed with traffic. Most of the drive back was in third gear and I got great acceleration. Earlier in the week I was concerned with the transmission noise but now it seemed ok. Maybe I was getting used to it or maybe the oil was getting dispersed on the gears and quieting it down.

Something about my EMW display was not right because my watts per mile kept decreasing and the remaing amphours display increased until it read 90, which is my full pack capacity. When I got home I checked it and reversed the setting. That meant I would have to take it for another drive to test my adjustments. LOL I quickly checked that my brake lights and turn signals were working and drove from one end of Hermosa Beach to the other end. Since my little beach town is only a square mile in area that did not cover a lot of territory but it was another great drive. The EMW display started incrementing down and I used 10 Ahrs of capacity on my drive. My speedo/odometer aren't working yet so I don't have good data on how far I actually traveled. The EMW watts per mile also kept increasing but it only got up to 50, probably because it is cumulative and had about 5 miles worth of negative data.

I still have a lot of things to work on but the car is functional and I can now take it on small errands around town.
 
#62 ·
Excellent news on your car. Now brake sensors leaking is not something I would have thought of unless I saw and obvious leak. Never seen a bad leaking sensor. That is a new one on me. Thanks for that information. I will put it away in my noggin for future reference. A new brake caliper that was leaking? Ouch. I had a nice drive in my VW yesterday after I upgraded to 156 volts. Wow what a difference it makes. Well, I already knew it would. But 72 volts REALLY SUCKS. I will be bumping up to a max of 192 volts here in a few days. Got my cells balanced so I will be doing fine.

You know I do update my blog and folks are welcome to comment on the blog. Video coming.

Pete :)
 

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#64 ·
Congrats!

I've had a couple leaky switches, but they were pretty obvious. There's two kinds of switches, with and without failure indicators. The ones with have a third contact in the middle. On mine these would overheat, melt a hole in the plug, and all your stop juice bleeds out on the road and you almost hit a cop because he decides to park in a left turn lane.

I'm not sure why mine failed and I don't much care. Whoever the idiot was who decided to make a safety component where the error indicator frequently causes total brake loss should be strapped to the road in front of a lead sled with no brakes.
 
#66 ·
I drove the car to Starbucks this morning and found several guys hanging around the car when I returned to the parking lot. I answered their questions and enjoyed talking to them. I love the attention I am getting with this car. When I got back to my garage, I tried to charge up the batteries but found that one of my 48 volt meanwells had bit the dust. Spent some time rigging up a new cable so I could charge half my pack at a time with the good 48 volt power supply..

This is going to be tricky until I get another power supply. The only ammeter I have is the EMW and it doesnt measure charge current or amphours when I am only charging half the pack. I need to get one that can measure the output of the meanwell, because after an hour of charging the pack voltace and the 16 cell voltage of the part that I was charging hadn't changed. Maybe both my Meanwells have bit the dust. Since I am the BMS along with some cellogs so this is going to be a time consuming proces getting my pack up to a SOC that is balanced between each 48 volt (16 cell) section.
 
#68 · (Edited)
Thanks for the tip. I will dig up my clamp on attachment for my DVM.

I had the Meanwells in series so they were charging the entire pack. I adjusted them to put out about 115 volts (57.5 volts each) They are isolated so I could do that. I found out though that the remote switched terminals were not isolated so I guess I will use a relay on the 110 AC side to turn them off when my programmable volt meter hits 115 volts. That is about 3.6 volts per cell in my 32 cell pack.
 
#70 · (Edited)
You are correct, I don't know what I was thinking I have also changed my original post so I don't mislead anyone.

They are Meanwell SP 500-48. They put out 480 watts (10Amps). I wasn't successful using the single one because it keeps tripping my GFCI. I also tried my clamp on ammeter and it doesn't work so I am off to Home Depot for a clamp on Ammeter.
 
#71 ·
I rcouldn't find a DC clamp on Amp meter at Home Depot, but I found a Kill a Watt that will tell me how much amperage the Meanwell charger is drawing.

I got the GFCI issue resolved by disconnecting the green wire from the cord to the frame ground at the charger. I am supposing that since the Meanwell is isolated and can run on 120 or 240 volts that the neither of AC inputs are connected to ground as is the case with most domestic 120 volt devices. Does anyone know if this is a correct assumption?

It is an important question for me to understand since the J1772 connection spec shows both the 12 volt and 120 volt grounds being connected together. I have my 12 volt system isolated and run a lot of black wires back to the 12 volt negative side which is not connected to the chassis. I'm not ready for a J1772 receptacle yet but I want to plan for one in the future.
 
#73 · (Edited)
I looked it up and it appears to only do AC current. AC/DC volts though. Thanks for the suggestion, next time I'm down there (it's 5 miles away) I might pick one up for a spare.

In the meantime I ordered a Lightobject ammeter with a shunt which should arrive by Tuesday. That will be a nice thing to have. I already have two of the programmable volt meters and I am anxious to see of the current shunt will work with one of those. I plan on putting the ammeter on the charger leg. Then I can watch to see when the current starts to taper off.
__________________
 
#76 ·
Me too. I haven't hooked up the second one yet, and I have a Amp meter coming. I saw those isolators on the lighobject site and maybe I will add a couple just to be safe. Those will add to my amperage draw. One of the 12 volt programable switches is going to be used on my 12 volt system as a low voltage shutdown.
 
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