I want to build an adaptor plate myself. Looking for some tips and suggestions.

18276 Views 29 Replies 14 Participants Last post by FB Performance Trans, Dec 31, 2010

Gibby

Discussion Starter · Dec 12, 2010

Well I was thinking of ways I could build my own adaptor plate. I have pretty good fabricating skills, I can weld and I have decent drill press. Any help or suggestions would be great. Thank you!

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G

· #2 · Dec 12, 2010

It's a loaded question. First off what car are you adapting? Clutch or no clutch? Motor? There are plenty of search results which will give you plenty to chew on while you decide on the particulars. Many here have done their own. Myself, I decided to just buy a ready made one as the cost to fabricate one myself would have resulted in higher costs than the one I purchased. I have no tools nor do I have the skills nor do I wish to take that time to even try. I'll put my efforts elsewhere.

Do your homework and search. Then come back. We don't like to spoon feed but we love to help and give ideas. We need more particular information before we can truly help.

Pete

dtbaker

· #3 · Dec 12, 2010

Gibby said:
Well I was thinking of ways I could build my own adaptor plate. I have pretty good fabricating skills, I can weld and I have decent drill press. Any help or suggestions would be great. Thank you!

alignment (accuracy) is critical at 5000 plus rpm. unless you have a full metal shop with mill and lathe and precision measuring equipment, you are asking for trouble to do it yourself.

PatricioIN

· #4 · Dec 12, 2010 (Edited)

On the other end of the spectrum, I am one of those who made their own adapters. You can look through my build thread or website for more info. It wasn't that difficult, just time consuming. It saved me hundreds of dollars and worked out just fine, even at several thousand rpms. My car had a spacer between motor and transmission with all the necessary holes to serve as the adapter plate template. Then I cut out a hole big enough in the (close to) center for the coupler to pass through. Turned tranny upward and level, sat motor with coupler over tranny input shaft (I went clutchless) and spun it up with a 12v battery. I tapped it around until there was no vibration at all and scribed my location for through holes to mate motor and tranny plates together.

I used a handheld jigsaw and metal blades to (slowly!) cut out the tranny profile on the adapter and a simple drill press to make all the bolt holes. About $90 in aluminum, a few bucks in various nuts and bolts and it was done. I used most of the original tranny mounting bolts again. I did however pay a professional machinist to make my one piece coupler. Money well spent!

edit: Oh, I used 1/2" particle board first just as a test for the template alignment.

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vpoppv

· #5 · Dec 12, 2010

The adapter plate is pretty straightforward. Someone had sent me a paper template which I used to make a solid template out of 1/16" steel. I transferred the measurements to a piece of 1/4" steel plate and good to go! I won't lie, it IS very time consuming to get it all lined up right, but all you need is a drill press, a hand drill, good bits, cutting oil, and some patience. In this case, you don't want to measure twice and cut once, but measure 10 times and drill once!! "Close enough" won't work here because the alignment needs to be perfect, but given enough time you will get it right.

helluvaengineer96

· #6 · Dec 13, 2010

Think I might be joining you.. I ordered one over 2 months ago, sent them the transmission had to repeatedly give them the same measurements. Now I can't even get a response out of them anymore. Very disappointing. Could have easily built my own in this amount of time.

Please keep us posted on your progress.

Gibby said:
Well I was thinking of ways I could build my own adaptor plate. I have pretty good fabricating skills, I can weld and I have decent drill press. Any help or suggestions would be great. Thank you!

dtbaker

· #7 · Dec 13, 2010

helluvaengineer96 said:
... Now I can't even get a response out of them anymore. Very disappointing.

who is 'them'? not good news! I had great luck with CanEV.com now twice. The plate is not the hard part other than good centering, the motor hub really needs a good machinist to do right....

DIYguy

· #8 · Dec 13, 2010

C'mon, Gibby! lol I sent you all the info u need to get started. Same template as u need... http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52563
Just get a piece of 1/2 to 5/8" thick Al plate and go for it!

Gibby

Discussion Starter · #9 · Dec 13, 2010

Which supplier are you working with? I really think I can do it myself because I'm pretty good at things like that. Just need to make damn sure it is centered! I've read some other builders threads about how they built their plates. Removing the tranny certainly helps so Ill do that as well. Ill probably make a template out of thin plywood first. Just need to find some 1/2" Alum plate.

PatricioIN

· #10 · Dec 13, 2010

www.speedymetals.com I got all my aluminum from them. Was cheaper than buying local. Call them for a special sized plate.

Gibby

Discussion Starter · #11 · Dec 13, 2010

Yeah, I know. I'm just going to go for it and get started. Need to pull the tranny out first though. BTW thanks for the help and the pics!

helluvaengineer96

· #12 · Dec 14, 2010

baker,
I'd hate to drag anyone's name through the mud. I used one of the one stop EV venders who outsource the custom parts. I'll contact the primary EV vender tomorrow and ask for a refund, the primary EV vender does respond... It's the outsource party that won't respond.

Thanks for the input on CanEV.

regards

dtbaker said:
who is 'them'? not good news! I had great luck with CanEV.com now twice. The plate is not the hard part other than good centering, the motor hub really needs a good machinist to do right....

nimblemotors

· #13 · Dec 14, 2010

I'm one that does 99.9% of everything myself.
It is often cheaper, faster, and better, sometimes only 2 of 3.

I've made two Motor->Transmission plates and couplers.
It is time consuming, and you have to get it right.
There are two pins that center the engine to the transmission, those
are the only ones that matter, the other bolts just hold it together.

A simple way is to just paint the trans facing and then carefully set it on down on the aluminum, and you have a direct copy on the aluminum.
"Carefully" would probably best be done using some mechanical method, not just human hands, like a rope and pulley or jack or something.

You can do it, just take your time and be prepared to do it twice.

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jehan12413

· #14 · Dec 15, 2010

I did mine a little differently, with the transmission in the car. First I drilled a hole in the center and used an adjustable hand reamer to get a tight slip fit onto the transmission input shaft. Then I slid it onto the transmission, used C clamps to hold in place while I center punched the mounting bolt holes. Next removed the plate drilled holes on drill press. Then removed faceplate from motor machined adaptor to locate faceplate through center hole of transmission adaptor plate and simply center punched holes through motor faceplate. Seems like a lot but it only took a few hours and the only machine work was the small adaptor to locate motor faceplate onto transmission plate.

PatricioIN

· #15 · Dec 15, 2010

jehan12413 said:
I did mine a little differently, with the transmission in the car. First I drilled a hole in the center and used an adjustable hand reamer to get a tight slip fit onto the transmission input shaft. Then I slid it onto the transmission, used C clamps to hold in place while I center punched the mounting bolt holes. Next removed the plate drilled holes on drill press. Then removed faceplate from motor machined adaptor to locate faceplate through center hole of transmission adaptor plate and simply center punched holes through motor faceplate. Seems like a lot but it only took a few hours and the only machine work was the small adaptor to locate motor faceplate onto transmission plate.

That sounds like a good way - to find the center first... But, uh... I have no idea what a hand reamer is.

nimblemotors

· #16 · Dec 16, 2010

The input shaft of the transmissions I've done is not solid, it moves around, the crankshaft pilot bearing is what centers it, so I'm not sure this method would work to find the center. I measured carefully from the engine side to the crankpilot and xferred that to the plate.

jehan12413 said:
I did mine a little differently, with the transmission in the car. First I drilled a hole in the center and used an adjustable hand reamer to get a tight slip fit onto the transmission input shaft. Then I slid it onto the transmission, used C clamps to hold in place while I center punched the mounting bolt holes. Next removed the plate drilled holes on drill press. Then removed faceplate from motor machined adaptor to locate faceplate through center hole of transmission adaptor plate and simply center punched holes through motor faceplate. Seems like a lot but it only took a few hours and the only machine work was the small adaptor to locate motor faceplate onto transmission plate.

FB Performance Trans

· #17 · Dec 16, 2010

Gibby said:
Well I was thinking of ways I could build my own adaptor plate. I have pretty good fabricating skills, I can weld and I have decent drill press. Any help or suggestions would be great. Thank you!

dtbaker said:
alignment (accuracy) is critical at 5000 plus rpm. unless you have a full metal shop with mill and lathe and precision measuring equipment, you are asking for trouble to do it yourself.

Having accomplished this ourselves for many different automotive applications, I believe dtbaker’s comment is right on the mark.

Sure the typical adapter plate looks simple enough to build, but don’t be fooled by appearances. Concentricity between the motor’s output shaft that the transmission input shaft is absolutely critical. The best way that we’ve found to achieve the accuracy that’s demanded is to purchase a pre-engineered jig plate that locates the transmission dowel pins in relation to the centerline of the input shaft. Once the centerline is located, the orientation for mounting the transmission is governed by the location of the dowel pins.

Once again using the predetermined shaft centerline, the electric motor mounting bolts must be properly located and orientated so that the electrical connections are in the desired location. If the electric motor faceplate has small circular protrusion surrounding its output shaft, its diameter should be accurately measured. A hole or countersink (with sufficient depth) using this diameter plus a .005 should be machined at the centerline into the adapter plate. The motor can then be slip fit and orientated to locate its mounting holes.

The CNC machined aluminum adapter plate that we designed for use with an automatic transmission can be viewed of the following post: (We wanted to make it a bit thicker in order to accommodate the use of counter-sunk mounting hardware and a larger billet steel coupler.)
http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/automatic-solution-ev-conversions-53052.html

Our recommendation for the “do-it-yourselfer” is to let your local machine shop get involved in making the adapter plate for you.

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PatricioIN

· #18 · Dec 16, 2010

yes, ultimately that would be the absolute best way... having said that, MANY MANY people have made their own and driven their vehicles for thousands (I know of one guy for almost 200K) miles with no problems. It isn't that difficult.

DIYguy

· #19 · Dec 16, 2010

Don't let them scare you off. Yes, it's important to have some basic measurement tools and ability to blue, scribe, punch, drill. If you pay attention to details you won't have too much trouble. BTW, there is no need for an adaptor plate that is 2"+ thick Aluminum.

jackbauer

· #20 · Dec 17, 2010

Here's two videos of my design. still running fine no problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLpKyxSMSKc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDV0hMxfGwQ

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