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Matt's 1970 Opel GT - Project Log

75K views 350 replies 26 participants last post by  jclars 
#1 ·
I've decided to convert a 1970 Opel GT to electric.

As usual with my builds, this is a budget build not just for low cost, but trying to use as much unwanted/recycled/garbage/repurposed items as possible. It's not a performance build.

I'll try to update this front post to act as a table of contents for the progress on the thread.

To be updated, but, rough project specs:

- 1970 Opel GT ($200, but, $700, and up as I go).
- AC Forklift motor (free, from a scrapyard).
- Prius Controller (probably, haven't bought yet), with Damian's prototype brain for it. This might also be the charger.
- Recycled 18650 batteries from tool packs (already have).
- 70mph (110 km/hr) or so top speed (highway speed)
- At least 60 mile (100km) range, 120 mile (200km) would be better, I think I have enough cells.
 
#41 ·
Update: Speed Controller/Inverter.

I've picked up an inverter I'm hoping to use.

It's from a 2nd Gen Prius. Apparently the Toyota engineers made the things bulletproof. Every stupid and abusive thing you can do to them was anticipated and fails gracefully if it passes limits (usually thermal or overvoltage limits, so, it allows itself to be abused far above its spec until it actually reaches a limit that matters).

A 2nd Gen Prius (ending in 2009) was chosen because Damien has put a lot of effort into hijacking the brains of it, as a source of the cheapest (mine was $150 CAD and I expect I'm on the highest end) and most commonly available salvaged inverters available to DIYers. They're all hitting junkyards now and should be cheaper than buying components. There are functional test boards of the replacement brains that I can order blanks of from Damien.

No BOM or instructions or anything yet, but, I'm hoping I can be an encouraging non-EE average test-case situation for them.



Came with literally nothing other than the inverter itself. I asked what the hole was for and what used to go into it, and he (junkyard) said nothing. I said I wanted to look inside and make sure no snow got into it, he said no, it was indoors, and they never even opened it, there's a gasket on top that is expensive to replace.

Cracked it open when I got home:



Amazing how he got all those plugs apart without removing the top of the inverter. And how the case screws were only finger tight.

Seems in perfect shape but, yeah.

Pain in the ass, have to shop around for a wiring harness now. Shop said he'd sell me the cables for $30 next time he has a Gen 2 come in.

Good news is that this inverter has multiple functions inside it. It actually has two 3-phase motor controllers (you could link them and get 400hp to a motor), and a DC-DC converter that could be used as a battery charger too, so no need for a separate charger.

...

In other news, starting to think about what I want to do with my instrument cluster and what I want that to look like. I'll be redoing some of the gauges and trying to keep the font and style the same. The original layout:



- Speedometer I would have to electro-mechanically simulate, (originally planned to keep the trans and not have to modify this, but, with no trans planned now I have to fake it). But I want to keep it the same (maybe change the graphic to have km/h too).

- Tachometer is useless since I'll be direct driving the torque tube. But a functional equivalent might be the amount of Amps I'm drawing from the main battery. Not sure how I'd replicate that, but I'm mostly set on that going there. Having a logarithmic scale would be neat too, since, anything but peak acceleration is going to leave the needle at effectively zero on a linear scale. Not sure if that's possible, but that's my ideal.

- Battery charge/discharge I will probably leave as-is. I'll still have a small lead-acid battery to run all the 12v systems. It'd be nice to confirm it's working and what my 12v load is and if the converter can keep up.

- Oil pressure I don't need and don't have ideas for. I'm not sure what I want there.

- Temperature sensor I'll try to rejig probably to motor/inverter/battery temp. Nice things to know. Maybe I'll adapt Oil Pressure to a second temp sensor

- Fuel gauge is hokey, I'd rather see a voltage read-out, which I probably will anyways somewhere. But, I happen to have a battery-to-fuel-gauge electronic converter gifted to me from another DIY EVer, so, if I can get that working I'll use it as a "fuel" gauge.

- Clock I was thinking I might convert into a backup camera screen. I'll hide a digital clock somewhere else on the panel. There's not much space for a screen and I'd like some kind of screen. Maybe I'll use the radio area below instead and have a whole nav/infotainment screen there.

- I love the rocker switches. I love how they're not buttons, and how I could hit them by feel, and how far they move. I actually have two instrument panels, so if I need extra switches for anything I have 6 more I can use.

...

Ideas about what other things I may want?
 
#44 ·
I asked what the hole was for and what used to go into it, and he (junkyard) said nothing. I said I wanted to look inside and make sure no snow got into it, he said no, it was indoors, and they never even opened it, there's a gasket on top that is expensive to replace.

Cracked it open when I got home:

...

Amazing how he got all those plugs apart without removing the top of the inverter. And how the case screws were only finger tight.
For orientation, I'll note that the logo label on top is oriented to be read when standing at the open hod, so the bottom of the logo is toward the front of the car, placing the protruding corner at the passenger side.

That D-shaped hole near the rear of the driver's side, and the oval hole at the passenger side rear corner, are presumably for the output cables, through grommets, and you have the oval one labeled as "M1/M2?". If this is right, they would have required cutting off the cables or removing the top, and since the cable stubs are not there my vote is the same as what you have assumed... the top was removed.

Looking inside, the three phase conductor terminals for one motor are in that protruding part. I wondered if it were possible that both sets of terminals were in the protruding corner, so the oval hole passes all six phase conductors, but this video shows only one set. The cables which connect to the white multi-pin connectors need to go through somewhere, perhaps the D-shaped hole... but then where is the other motor cable? It's probably in this video: High Voltage Hybrid Inverters and Converters. That's far too long for someone who doesn't even have a Prius inverter to watch, but I suspect that the second motor terminals are in the driver's side front corner, coming out the bottom.
 
#43 · (Edited)
70 Opel kinda hoses you for the big gauges, they should be all mechanical. You might have to do something like Dakota, or build your own on a touchscreen or tablet. There's even apps for that. I use the oil light as the error light, big and in your face, shut down the system NOW kinda thing. I made the fuel and temp stuff work in the event someone else drives it. Hard to explain that when it says 165, you are out of battery (but then the oil light goes on). Fuel gauge then says empty but I see your point.

If you're feeling ambitious, you can slice off the back of the gauge can and put your own stuff inside.
 
#45 ·
Minor parts and boring updates:

- Another Opel owner helped me discover that the key to my steering column matches the key those (yellow) doors. The mechanism is just gummy and he had to help it move. So, no need for locksmithing. Unlike many other old cars that had a separate door and ignition keys, Opels had a matching key (and a separate key and key type for the gas cap). I had 2 keys, one is half-way cracked through. Both work in the ignition, but the keys barely match up (really bad key copying attempt).

- 7 years ago I bought a key copying machine in a scrapyard. I never used it. I spent 2 hours digging through boxes until I found it. Opels have 2-sided keys and are polar (it matters which side is up). They key machine isn't designed for that and the keys themselves don't have an easy reference point to align the front profile with the rear, but we figured out a methodology. I gave the key machine to him since he's far more active in the Opel community than I am.

- Same Opel mentor helped me disassemble one of the rotating headlights, since mine weren't moving perfect, and because the 50-year old wiring is a must-replace fire hazard (rubber insulation crumbles and shorts). Watching him disassemble the headlight was like watching a marine field-strip a rifle, he knew exactly the process. How long would you figure it takes to disassemble a single headlight assembly with perfect knowledge? 5 minutes? Nope, 45 minutes. Would've taken me a week to figure it out. He recommended pulling the whole wiring harness anyway.

-Went over my welding plan with the same mentor, basically hoping he'd reassure me that my fitment issues weren't as bad as they seemed. He mostly concurred. The pieces don't fit together all at the same time, so we identified a process of what to anchor first (steering column which pulls a 1/2" gap in the firewall once the floorpan is settled), then progressively work through until all the fitment (windshield corners next) was lined up (floorpan/seats is last, smash 'em in place if I have to). I feel a lot better about firing up the welder finally.

- Pulled a Gen 1 (2001) Prius inverter from a junkyard. I'm not sure why. There's no open source projects to repurpose it and I can't design one myself. Pick N Pull doesn't even have a price sheet for it (they do not do EVs, this one slipped through on a bulk purchase). So the lady figured we could call it an "Electronic Ignition Module". $24. For that price, the caps and transistors have got to come in handy eventually on some project (induction furnace, welder, I dunno).



I busted 2 #40 Torx bits trying to take the wires out and eventually stripped the head, had to disassemble the wiring from the tranxaxle side. In the end I clamped a monster crescent wrench onto a bracket under the screw and got it to turn. Damned galvanic corrosion (Al vs. Fe).



- Figured I would need a smaller coolant pump, so I pulled the one from the Prius as well. They are famous for failing, and don't throw an error code unless the inverter overheats, which it won't do unless you're really pushing it. Passive circulation is sufficient. So I try to run it on 12v... appears to be shorted internally. So I still need a coolant pump. Hrmph.



- Set up an electric radiator space heater on a timer in the garage so that it clicks on a few hours before I get off work, so things aren't painfully cold to the touch when I get there. It clicks off when I get off work, so if I'm not in the shop that day (most days) to switch it to manual, it's not wasting power.
 
#46 ·
... Unlike many other old cars that had a separate door and ignition keys, Opels had a matching key (and a separate key and key type for the gas cap)...
I thought that only North American cars ever had that idiotic system with separate door and ignition keys. Although the Opel GT was a GM and sold at Buick dealers, it was European in every way, apparently including the keys. An old article suggests that the two-key stupidity (and one-sided keys) was common, but GM was just decades behind in switching; I'm old, but not old enough to remember antique keys for anything but GMs.
 
#47 ·
Minor progress:

- Got the last of the front wiring harness out of the way for any upcoming welding. Bit of a sad state, a lot of it is quite stiff and I'm not sure I'd trust it, but I'm intimidated by the cost and work involved in completely redoing it. I'm somewhat considering at least replacing the 50-year-old relays with modern-ish automotive ones since I have some of those.



- Wondering what the Prius carcass at the junkyard might have for large contactors. Didn't see any, might have just had the one in the battery pack (already removed)?

- Went to vacuum out the air vents (body panels), forgot to turn the heater off. Popped a breaker at midnight and didn't feel like waking anyone up to go reset it.

- Ordered a circuitboard from EVBMW that'll allow me to hijack the Prius Gen2 controller. Discovered I also need some other parts, paid 5x the price to order them from Canada rather than China so that I can get them soon, not in 6 weeks. Put together an order for the electronic components to build the board.

- Started taking inventory of batteries. Two years ago I'd slowly processed ~2500 lithium 18650 cells from tool packs. Disassembled and capacity tested. I have about another 2500 to process and then it's end of the line (source dried up). It's about 250lbs (113 kg) of batteries total, of which maybe 2000 are worth using, and another 350 are usable but low capacity. The remainder I either ruined or were faulty.



Presuming that ratio holds up, I'll have around 4000 cells to use. 4000 * 3.7v nominal * ~2ah per cells = ~30kwh of energy.

I'm guessing 250watt-hours per mile, so, ~120 miles range. About 4 milk crates of bulk, and a 400lb pack (before wiring, enclosures, etc). There's room for them there, but that's starting to be frighteningly heavy for the ass end of the Opel. Especially behind the rear tires where the gastank and spare was.

As much as possible I'll put below the parcel shelf, down into the frame under what would be the back seats if the Opel had those, but I'm estimating only 100lbs can go there. Maybe I'll have to put some up front too. I don't know how much the gas tank, spare, and exhaust weighed, but, can't be that much.

Total weight is also a bit of an issue. I deleted the engine (and hopefully won't need the trans), but I'm adding back 255lb of motor and, 50-ish lb inverter. Then 400lbs of battery. Certainly cutting it close. I have slightly heavier duty springs for the rear already, so that'll help.
 
#48 ·
Progress. First welds!:

Against my better judgment, I'm going to share my first welds on a personal project in 7 years. It ain't pretty.

I haven't filmed everything, but I did throw together some sped-up clips of some of the work so far:

- Jacking the two frames apart for the first time since Phoenix when we levered them into place.
- Using the angle grinder back in the storage unit, run off a dead car battery, tripping the inverter if I pulled more than about an amp from it. Practically tickled the sheet metal apart.
- Using the wrong primer, poorly.
- Chopping and welding some bed rail to fill the gap in the transmission rail.
- Carrying half of one car through another car.
- Trying to at least ballpark fit up panels.
- First permanent weld.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C7H-idrhwI
(Maybe later I'll put together a bit better video series on the build).

Welding excuses:
- It's been a long time.
- The best angles are usually given to the camera.
- I try to stay out of frame, so I can't actually see what I'm doing. I weld blindly at arms length and then check what I did after.
- It's like trying to write your name by holding a pencil from the eraser.
- To light the shot, I have so much glare behind me in the helmet that I can't see.
- Some parts are very thin sheet metal.
- I'm gap-filling awful fitment from desperate last-minute over-grinding back on inspection day (to give a hope of clearance to make it car-shaped).
- I'm using flux-core.
- I don't care that much.

First weld I burned through in 2 spots and had to build up material to fill.

There is no one way that the firewall lines up, it's deformed. So I had to decide on what to anchor first, and what to force into place later. M priority went:

1 - Steering column (heavier metal and easier to line up).
2 - Windshield edges (most critical fitment).
3 - Everything else.

Even then, I'm not quite happy with the driver's windshield fitment after, considering cutting the weld and moving a couple mm over. Also considering not caring anymore and just making it go together as-is. If I wasn't filming it I'd have my face close enough to see the weld puddle and what I was doing, in the future will probably sacrifice the camera.

Anyway, it's an ugly first step towards having a car-shaped car again, and probably one I'll redo, but, it's a step.
 
#49 ·
When I first started welding and fab work, I use to whine about the difficult work like you're doing here. That was until I met and talked to people doing this kind of weld and fab work: https://tradesforcareers.com/underwater-welding-dangers/

After that, I just shut-up, studied, and practiced the skills needed over and over again until I became quite good at it. The skill along with other skills has taken me around the world, working on various projects (thankfully, none of it underwater welding!). When you get to the point where you stop complaining about the work and your tools and can appreciate the work that can be done, it can be very rewarding.

You might consider starting(or restarting your skills?) on smaller projects. Like designing and fabbing workbenches, tool stands, repairing and modifying tools, etc.
 
#50 ·
When you get to the point where you stop complaining about the work and your tools and can appreciate the work that can be done, it can be very rewarding.
1 - It's only the 2nd time I've ever done bodywork, and, the first time was just an easy panel swap.

2 - The cheapest flux core welder you can buy is the wrong tool for this job.

...

That said, a bunch of people have said this is nearly impossible to do with my current setup and experience, and, that's hasn't discouraged me. Don't mistake me documenting my kludging progress and explaining why it's challenging, as me claiming it can't be done. I'm literally doing it and unashamedly (well, somewhat ashamedly) moving forward regardless.

Me listing "excuses" openly is tongue-in-cheek admitting that this should be a lot better, while also explaining why it's not. If I ignored the camera and the backlights and wasn't welding gap-filling light-sheetmetal seams I literally can't see at 3am, it'd be a lot less screwy.

You might consider starting(or restarting your skills?) on smaller projects. Like designing and fabbing workbenches, tool stands, repairing and modifying tools, etc.
If I was doing external or visible bodywork? Absolutely.

For something that'll be hidden by seam sealer, paint and carpet? This is great practice.

It's a $200 car that I'm building from free or nearly-free junk. The whole project is something I'll enjoy the process as much as the end result.
 
#51 ·
Three things arrived in the mail today:



The Prius V2 board, the Blue Pill, and the ST-Link to program it. All purchased about the same time, one from overseas and the other two a day's drive away. Y'know, you try to support local, I paid like, 400% what they would cost from overseas, and the local shops took so long to get off their ass and ship the product they had no local advantage.

So, next up is to program the Blue Pill using the ST-Link, and hurry up and figure out what the missing pieces of my BOM are.
 
#52 ·
Not much for progress. With some help I think I identified all the necessary components to order, including the main connector for the inverter (it's actually the same one the Leaf uses). Parts arrived (sort of... grr, more on that later), ~$75 + $50 for Damien's board + ~$25 for rushed local supplier of the Blue Pill and programmer.

Looks like I'll have a functioning controller (and charger, and DC-DC) for around $300 CAD ($225 USD). Less if I was more patient. That's more than I paid for the car, but, still a bargain I think.

Started soldering.

Kinda screwed up. Headers got a bit jammed, tried to take them out, ended up lifting a pad.


(bottom left, but also, top left)

I scraped the trace next to it, dobbed some solder on, and hoped that the pad that lifted with the header would somewhat reflow there when I redid the header.

The top left didn't seem to be an issue, I can't see any traces on the top side of the board that lead to it.

And then...



... goddamnit Digikey. I needed 13x 1uF ceramic caps. I ordered 20. Digikey shipped me 11. The package says 20. So, I can't even test it today.

Also, I haven't soldered in a few years. And I'm spoiled because I used to operate a solder wave machine (fountain that arches 8 tons of solder). Bit embarrassed by my soldering.



I have a minor excuse because I was filming, and soldering at arms length to not block the camera, and was too lazy to switch away from my heaviest spade tip, but, still, I should be able to solder by feel better than that.

Bit of a humbling experience. Before this I'd have thought I was fine to play around with SMT stuff, but, obviously not. Lifting traces, incomplete solders, etc. Glad this was a through-hole project.
 
#53 ·
Been too long since an update.

Controller:

- I had a goal of getting my controller done (done-ish, motor spinning) in 2 months (got my Prius inverter Oct 30, so, end of the year). I'm close but didn't get there.

- There's a frustrating lack of documentation, as typical with Open Source projects. As typical, state of affairs was that you had to be capable of writing the project yourself in order to understand the project. I actually wrote a little on the philosophy of Open Source and how it's not fair or functional for the leaders in the community to have to do everything and that the rest of us have to step up and contribute too.

- In the 2 months I had to work on the controller, I only actually spent about 2 hours doing work. The rest was asking questions and waiting for replies from someone in the community. I don't know of anyone who's actually used the Prius controller before, except Damien on a test bench. I suspect no one with my knowledge level or lower has managed to make any progress. I've managed now, I think, to have a moderately complete roadmap, more or less by bribing the Open Inverter community with a promise to take their answers and write documentation that everyone can use so that I'll be the last person pestering them for details.

- The BOM had incomplete details to be useful to a non-EE. I got most of those answers.
- The pinouts were labelled, but not described as to what actually happens with them or what to do with them. Those are documented now.
- How to actually connect the control board to the Prius Inverter was completely undocumented. I drew an early sketch of what goes where.

- Johannes asked me to write stuff up into the wiki and created a new page for the project so: https://openinverter.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_Gen2_Board -- That's, oh, 60% complete for content now.

- I made some bad presumptions about what was needed, so, I'm still ordering programmers and converters and interfaces and so on that I didn't know were necessary 2 months ago. The last of them arrives tomorrow. Hopefully a motor gets spinning soon.




Bodywork:

- By a mixture of clamps, floor jacks, self-tapping screws and prybars, I got the lower windshield arch lined up decently.

- An Opel GT friend borrowed my windshield to be a template for his (an aftermarket run that didn't get the shape quite right, needed sanding). He also cleaned up my grinder-spattered windshield respectably. It's borderline usable now. He also gave me some nested snippets of hose that they used as spacers to align his windshield. I checked them against my bodywork, the worst parts of the fitment are where top and bottom are continguous with the orange car, so, good enough.

- Tack welded one corner. Welded about 2" on the other corner and ground it afterwards. Ugly but passable.



- Removed the windshield washer pump (an actual bellows that you pump with your foot).

- Finally figured out how to remove the brake booster and master cylinder. It's an odd arrangement, it's 2 feet forward on an extension because of space constraints. When I rebuild it I'll remove the extension and put it right behind the wheelwell I think. Don't know fi the booster works, and the fluid reservoir is rotted and crumbled apart.



- Engine bay is as empty as an engine bay could be. There's nothing left there. I'm now roughly where I wanted to be at the end of June last year. :/ Well, better than no progress.

 
#54 ·
looks like you're making slow but decent progress on the mechanical... sorry you have been frustrated with the OEM controller/computer stuff. Those issues are exactly why I stuck with SIMPLE dc motor, controller, charger with series string of large format cells; really much more approachable for the average DIYer.

Keep up the good work!
There will be a growing pile of available parts from OEMs, and it's great that people like you are pulling apart the controllers so we might be able to re-use them in the future.
 
#55 ·
sorry you have been frustrated with the OEM controller/computer stuff.
I should be clear though... that I'm certainly not entitled to anyone's help. Anything anyone does on an open source project is more than the zero effort we'd have without their help.

Damien for example, reverse engineered the Prius Inverter then built an interface circuit, then designed a 4-layer circuit board, then wrote the BOM, then paid out of his own pocket to have a run of boards fabricated. I could do zero of those things, and those alone take the project to 90% completion.

But... I almost have to be able to do that 90% myself to figure out the last 10% without any extra help. So, even though it's incomplete and slow to have others fill in the blanks, it's not like I'm complaining. Just lamenting.

Those issues are exactly why I stuck with SIMPLE dc motor, controller, charger with series string of large format cells; really much more approachable for the average DIYer.
I asked my forklift guy if there was a drive motor I could buy. He said no, but he'll set a machine aside for me when there's one being scrapped and I can have it for free, same as last time.

I got there and it was an AC machine. I asked if he had any DC machines, he said nope.

And that's the story of how I ended up building an AC drive.

I took the controller, but, the guys at the the inverter company laugh-noped when I asked to repurpose it. It's proprietary and they don't even have the final code, they set up a framework for each manufacturer to complete in the way that makes sense to them, and it's tens of thousands to even have access to that, let alone the unfinished last mile.

A year ago Damien had already done most of the work on the Prius control board, and pointing out how it also had a DC/DC converter built in that could be repurposed as a charger. So, that's what I figured I'd pursue.

Without re-using the Prius, it's more like $1000 to build Johannes' inverter from parts. Which probably doubles the budget for my "cheap fun project" vehicle.

So, the project would've been dead in the water without both Damien and Johannes's hard work (Damien's control board takes advantage of the software Johannes wrote).
 
#56 ·
Today is my 1 year Opelversary.

A year ago today, I spotted a cute-looking corvette-like car covered in snow in an outdoor car lot while buying used winter tires, and took a picture of it through a chainlink fence.

Not being a car person in the slightest, I had no idea what it was. Looked through the seller's other listings and found out it was called an Opel GT. I ended up coming here and asking about how to tell a good donor from a bad one.

It sold before I could take a closer look at it, but that conversation led to being told about a guy trying to sell 3 of them in Phoenix, especially suitable to me because they were being sold for not much more than sheet metal, already half disassembled, and without the rust I would find on anything in Canada at my budget. 4 months later I ended up buying 2 of them and a bunch of parts, and made the 3000 mile round trip to pick them up, including 4 days spent gutting and chopping them in another Opeler's back yard and my first ride in a GT courtesy of a third Opeler.

And here we are 8 months after that with me still doing a job I figured would take me 4 hours because I didn't know the difference between a cowl and a footwell. :D

But don't worry, I knew that was the hard part, the easy part is the electronics which I have made equal progress spending money on with equally small results. Speaking of which...

...

With some help from a local Opeler:
- Headlight lever finally removed by destroying it. Previous owner glued the plastic on. Cheap replacement no problem.
- Center console removed for the first time, no longer trapped by the lever.
- E-brake lever removed.

There's not a lot left to take apart. Pretty soon the only things left for me to do is put things back together. Supposedly these things can be used for transportation, not just holding the garage floor down.

Next... final plan for welding the two cars together...

I've been mostly talked out of my earlier position of "Extra sheet metal is better" and instead into "minimize the amount of overlap". My original thinking was that if I doubled up the seat rails they'd be extra strong which is good for rust-prone cars to have extra metal. But, especially in Canada, between two sheets of metal is just a place for water to get trapped and rust (or freeze, rip, then rust) both of them. Also, the orange car was never in need of repair. It's sections are missing because the previous owner cut them away purposefully, it doesn't need strengthening.

So, even more of the original car is going under the knife:



I'll be slitting along the top of the yellow seat rail, so that the parts aren't trying to nest like two cups stacking, leaving airgap. And, I'll just be chopping off the extra seat rails that extend to the rockers.

However, that outside yellow rail cupping against the orange rail is my only reference point. The insides of the orange rails have been removed:



In retrospect, had I left the orange rails intact and just cut the yellow right at the edge of them, that would have been best. Let's review!

I did this to it last summer:



I cut up both the intact orange and intact yellow seat rails, so that they'd stack like cups.

Which... is okay. Because I was originally quite worried about not knowing how to align and reference the seats. What I can still do now is:

1 - cup them one last time
2 - screw them together with sheet metal screws
3 - take the screws back out
4 - chop apart my reference points
5 - use the screw holes to re-align them before welding.

One side effect of having using the top of the trans tunnel as a prying surface to shove the two cars together over and over, is that I think the trans tunnel has... sucked in it's gut so to speak. The yellow seat rails are narrower than the orange ones. Stretching them back out to fit both sides at the same time was a bit of a challenge. Even getting the driver's side rail to land squarely was a challenge. Ratchet strap and some clamps worked:



That held one side steady, but the other side was now 1/2" off. I used a tire jack inside the trans tunnel to expand it, then affixed it all by putting the hinge bolts into the seat rails.

But I've now hit a bit of a problem. I don't know what angle the seat rails should be, nor the floorpan:



I've obviously stepped on the edges of both unsupported floorpans a hundred times, and pried them downwards to fit the firewall/trans tunnel through. I'll put a floor jack on the ground to lift the pan wherever it needs to be, but, whatever angle it's welded at is the angle it'll be forever (metal doesn't stretch well).

So, waiting to hear back from some other Opelers.

1 - the width-wise seat rail (across your lap)... should it be level? If not, what angle?

2 - The floorpan itself, maybe at various places, should it be level? Does it slope towards the rockers where the drain holes are? Does it make any funny bows or dips or other shapes?

... Once I know that I can start chopping and welding. Might need to borrow/buy a transmission cross-member too, neither of my cars ever had one, I'll probably need one for my motor anyway, and I want to make sure the rail spacing is correct before I commit it.
 
#57 ·
As to the angles of the seat rails and floorpan..

I forgot, I already have the answer to this.

The front seat rail makes sense to be level. It could be any height. You can't sit diagonally or it'd hurt your back to drive. And, why would they have a seat that had to be built diagonally if they could choose any angle? They would just choose to be level. So, those are level.

They do drain towards the outside too. If the seat rail is level, then all you have to do is look at how square the bottom is to the top, to know what angle the floor runs at (because the floor runs at the angle of the bottom of the seat rail).

Answer:



It's a weird cross sectional area.

Also, if the front seat rail is level, and the floor was level (it's not), then side seat rails would be the same height. They're not. The inside is barely 1/4" deep at the back, 1" at the front, and close to 2" towards the rockers.

Problem solved.
 
#58 ·
Part of why I've only been working on the GT one day a month is because it takes me forever to make decisions. Especially co-dependent decisions. I hem and haw, and I have to build mental momentum where I understand what I want to do. I have to juggle as much of the details as I can in my head. When I get to the garage at 9pm, and can only grind for maybe 30 minutes, I'm never ready, so I get roadblocked by not being able to grind, and not being able to proceed and figure out the next thing without even exploratory grinding.

I hate tackling things piecemeal. I like to binge-work on projects. When I start working, it's normal for me to not eat or sleep for the first day or two and just work day and night. Having the habit of going to the shop and only wasting an hour catching up to yesterday's momentum has been working great. Got more done this week than I have since the summer combined.

Yesterday night, did a bunch of chopping. It was easy, still had mental momentum so I just showed up and grabbed the grinder.



Hit a snag, and maybe why panels weren't nesting well before. The floorpan gutters/strengthening grooves need to nest, but on the lower pan (orange) it still had the edge of the trans tunnel welded to it. No room to get a grinder between them anymore, tin snips to the rescue.



You know when you try to order one perfect pizza for multiple people, then just give up and order everyone their own?

Combining suggestions from everyone I'm rosette welding and seam welding. It's a lot of time and definitely overkill for the seats (good practice for firewall), but "solve a problem" time moves at 2% the speed of "just do the work" time. I don't think I'm exaggerating, a lot of work to do with no decisions to be made is 50x faster than having to figure something out.



Another roadblock, the '70 (yellow) and the '73 (? orange) seem to have different seat rail heights for the longitudinal rails. The back end (where the rear seat bolts is) is tight, but the front has 1/4" gap. Back a few month ago when I documented this I figured I just had metal blocking the path so they wouldn't nest. But even with the metal gone, there's still 1/4" difference.



You could shove a pencil between the overlapping seat rails. I don't think they're bent, they're actually different vertical heights for the rails. Maybe.



My solution was to drill an excessive amount of screw holes (what's a little more welding?), bash it with a hammer as I go, and stop caring because none of it is critical. It'll be plenty strong. All 4 seat bolts are the same height, it's just in between them where the rails aren't the same height. Doesn't matter.



Chopped as planned and a few sheet metal screws to start anchoring it.



The passenger side has two rows of rosette holes. That's because the driver's side I got lazy and cut the orange straight through the seat rail and the floorpan last fall. Don't care, won't matter. Moving on.
 
#59 ·
Time to check is the seat rails are level.

On one hand, I have to consider that the orange rail has sagged.

On the other hand, I have to consider that I have doubled-up sheet metal from where the two panels will still be nesting.

These errors work in opposite directions.

Hmm...



Errors cancel each other. Moving on.

One of the first things pointed out to me last summer was that even between the two cars, I didn't have a complete floor pan. The passenger footwell had holes in both. No problem, I saved all the old cutoffs to patch with, thinking I'd be laying a 6"x12" patch piece.

Came across once piece... oh wow... it's just about a perfect match!



What are the odds?!

Oh wait, damnit, it has rust holes in the patch piece right where I need to use it.

... wait a minute...

This is literally the scrap piece I cut out of this section several months ago, because it was rusted.

I've been embracing the "minimal overlap" mantra, and went about snipping and trimming floorpan (by hand, it was 3am) until it was only 1/4" overlapped. What I imagined would be that 6"x12" patch ended up more like 6"x1".

It's hardly even a patch. By the time I'm done welding you wouldn't be able to tell I re-used the floorpan. I could've used a soup can.



Spent some time underneath to check the fit with the transmission crossmember. I'd hoped the holes would line up and tell me if I was off.

Turns out the holes are oval so they tell me nothing. (Actually, looked maybe 1/4" too wide).

The back of the transmission tunnel was definitely 1/4" too narrow, I could tell by the corners of the seat rails not matching, but 2 feet away the transmission hole was 1/4" off in the other direction, too wide. Obviously a result of how 3 of us jacked, levered, and shoved the two bodies together to tell a happy tale to the DMV last summer. We used a jack under on the cowl to lift it up (bent up and inward, sucked in the sides), I used a massive prybar at the back end (bent up and inward also), sat on the back "seat" and put my legs on the seat rails to shove it all forward as hard as I could so the footwells would clear (splayed the footwells down and wide).

My attempt at fixing it was to use a bottle jack sideways against the transmission rails near the transmission to keep it wide enough to stretch the back end first. No dice. So I wedged a tire jack into the back of the trans tunnel to try to widen it directly. But the tunnel has nothing for rails at that point and it's shaped like a triangle so the jack would just push itself down and out as I tightened. So I used a floor jack and a 2x4 to force the screw jack to stay still. 3 jacks at the same time.

But tightening the screw jack just lifted the trans tunnel up, rather than expand it outwards.

So I cut off the last 2" of the seat rails where it was bothering me that you could see they didn't line up.

...

The rest of the night was spent trimming floorpan, drilling holes, breaking drillbits and screwing floor panels together.

I know this looks like the same image I've posted 3 times this week but it's 3 hours extra work from the last one:



... minor milestone. It's not welded yet, but the car doesn't feel like a pile of junk anymore.

With the trans tunnel missing everything has always squeaked and groaned and it moved when I stepped on it and I had to be careful where I put my weight. With 50 screws in it it, it feels like it's one piece again. I can just lean or step on it and it doesn't flex out of the way. Something neither of my GTs ever felt like with how much interior damage they both had. It's actually feeling like there's something that can be a car, not just a garage full of sheet metal.

Speaking of junk...



That is a factory weld on my GT.

Rear of the trans tunnel, right before the cross member behind the seats, passenger side. It was under all the seam sealer and sound absorber stuff.

Someone got *paid* to weld that so poorly. Suddenly I don't feel so bad about my lack of welding skills anymore (which we're about to see demonstrated fully).
 
#60 ·
Speed Controller Update:

Since blowing up one microcontroller or both around Christmas time, I ordered a new one of each.

One of them arrived with a solder splash all of over it. Asked for another new one, got a replacement. Waited for it to arrive.

Ripped apart the board and put the new Blue Pill in. Ran through all the same routine of progressively connecting and programming it and the D1.

Doesn't work. There's this fancy webpage interface that's supposed to show me all the dozens of inverter parameters live updated and for me to tweak and configure to my motor. The interface loads, but none of the parameters. So the two controllers aren't talking to each other.

Doesn't work, and I can't tell why it doesn't work, and I can't figure out at what point what doesn't work.

Another 3 weeks of asking questions, but there's not much specific to tell me. Maybe no one has actually tried this combination of hardware before. I knew I was among the first, and some guys just used alternative hardware for pieces of stuff that they already had laying around.

Arber, who wrote the tutorial to bridge between the developer and guys like me, goes to see if his tutorial works for the first time and runs into the same dead end as I do. Controllers won't talk to each other. He's stumped. (spoiler, tangent, he had a separate issue, unrelated).

Kiwifiat says he'll order one of each and let us know when they arrive.

Two weeks later they arrive and he hooks them up. He gets them working just fine no hassles. He asks me a few questions. Really basic. Is the device on? Does the LED have a heartbeat so you know it's doing something? How are you connecting power? What can you see?

I tell him LED is on solid any time it's powered, so I know it's not fried. Is that the "heartbeat"?

Apparently, it's not supposed to be. It should be blinking if things are working. THat's not written down anywhere.

It conclusively means that the controller isn't flashed. It's suggested I try re-flashing it.

I reflash it. Flashing process reports success, same as last time. Says it flashed successfully, no errors. But doesn't work. I post a log.



Johannes asks me to scroll up and post the log of what happened earlier when I flashed it with the loader file.

I ask what loader file?

Apparently there's a loader file. You have to flash the Blue Pill with the loader file first, then flash it with the software second.

This isn't written anywhere. The (3rd party) video tutorials they linked showing how to program the Blue Pill don't show it or mention it. They just show using one file. One file is apparently common enough, but for some special reason, this project has a 2-step process.

There was one reference to "loader and programming file" earlier in a process, but no links to either, so I had to dig into a thread to find the programming file 2 months ago.

"loader and programming" seemed to me like a combined thing. Apparently "loader file and programming file" is what was meant.

The file I found 2 months ago? Correct file. That was in the programming directory.

The loader file? Oh it's not part of what was updated that day, not mentioned by anything in that thread, since it hasn't changed in a while no need to mention it.

Okay, back into the directory... I still only see the programming file, no loader file. I didn't miss it, or neglect to inquire what that extra file was for, it's just not there.

Oh, that's because that directory is only for the programming files, not the loader files. You have to go to a different directory to find the loader files. It's not linked to or mentioned in the programming parts.

This all makes perfect sense from the developer's side. Everything is nice and neat and ordinary. But from the amateur's side trying to follow directions, there are gaps.

...

So it took 5 seconds and my inverter hardware is blinking and the web interface live updates all my inverter paramenters and lets me change them now.
 
#61 ·
Did you try the self-drilling, self tapping TEK (type screws) to hold your body pieces together? The hex headed ones are the easiest to work with. Great work and patience with the replacement controller board. If you ever get it to the final working stage, you should do a clear and complete(one with a lot better information than you were given) post(s) of the steps required to get there.
 
#62 ·
Did you try the self-drilling, self tapping TEK (type screws) to hold your body pieces together?
Yes. Used about a hundred so far.

Same video I posted earlier, timestamped...

https://youtu.be/3C7H-idrhwI?t=396

Sometimes they're nice, sometimes they're not.

If you ever get it to the final working stage, you should do a clear and complete(one with a lot better information than you were given) post(s) of the steps required to get there.
I would, if for no reason other than so Damien can sell the rest of his Gen2 boards.

But... beyond that there's basically no point.

I bought a control board in a narrow slice of time when things were being built that way.

Damien (and Johannes) have switched to JLPCB, which is so much cheaper than their previous supplier, that buying SMT boards pre-placed and soldered is about the same cost as buying components and building them yourself.

So, this last week or two Damien re-engineered just about every single board that he sells to use JLPCB's component inventory.

It looks like using the Blue Pill and through-hole components is a dead tangent that won't see any more development. So, no need to learn or teach anyone any of this. It's all integrated directly into the new ones he makes.

Also, not sure what the future of Gen2 prius inverters is, as Gen3 has seen 4 or 5 guys all kinda pitching in to help Damien on little things, where, I'm the only one I've seen so far using the Gen2. The Gen3 control board Damien designed is actually a direct swap-out for the one in the inverter itself. He designed it around the same form factor. Also, there's onboard hardware to repurpose the MG1 inverter as a batter charger (just waiting on software).

I've been saying for a while, looks like I picked the wrong horse. Which is fine. I should still get it working and temporarily moveable, and, I'm only out of pocket $300 or so for the board and components. If I upgrade to Gen3 because that's where the community's development efforts are, that's an acceptable tradeoff to me. Heck, that's less than a charger would cost me to build.
 
#63 · (Edited)
Productive-ish two weeks of bodywork. Four steps forward, three steps back. Frustrating, but, inching progress. Probably spent more time on the car than I have combined since I left Phoenix.

First up, a terrible choice to start on, the cowl seam next to the VIN plate. I had tried drilling holes to rosette weld, but, I lacked a way to clamp the metal underneath. Even my long welding clamps didn't reach or wouldn't fit. So, in the end there was no point to the rosettes, most of them were just holes I had to hover and fill. I both burned through and left holes. Gave up and coming back to it later with more practice since it's a cosmetic area.



I figured a good place to practice would be the seat rails, since they've got 3 seams, double the metal, aren't really that structural, and will be hidden under the seats.

First up, driver's side:



So, this has become my method:

1 - Tack a few places with the 2-setting welder on "Low", then tack as much as I can just to build up thickness.

2 - Try to run a bead (I've stopped doing this). Run 1/4"-long diagonal beads, pause 2 seconds, run another one next to it when it's partially but not fully cool.

3 - Sometimes, flick the welder to "High" and try to run a bead through all of that to re-melt it and fill inevitable voids.

4 - Grind it flush.

5 - Find all the places there was too much material to melt and it left gaps. Also find pinholes. Fill them.

6 - Grind again.

7 - Repeat grind/weld cycle 3 times before most of the holes are covered.


Moving on, passenger's side. This one also has rosette welds to try.



A tangent on this one...

When I was welding the rosettes behind the rear seat bolt, the metal... changed. Hard to describe. It was like it wasn't steel anymore. It looks like I welded across the whole surface, but I didn't, just the rosettes. It was matte grey and clay-like. When I ground it, same deal, was not like steel anymore, soft and gummy. It's right through the base metal. The base got hot, but, not that hot.







Anyone familiar with that?

Could be all the lead paint alloying with steel?

Could be all the zinc and chromium from the zinc chromate?

... end tangent. It doesn't matter and I'm not fixing it, was just curious.

...

Next up I wanted to experiment with a vertical weld, so I picked the driver's footwell, under the cowl. I remember hastily and angrily cutting this at Doug's place, knowing there was no extra overlapped material as usual, because I was running out of time and worried about how I was going to make the two body sections nest together for the inspection.

I just ran the grinder vertically downwards, lined up with where the wiring harness sprouts from the footwell on the top portion.

Except, despite lining up perfectly in the transverse direction, there was this whole extra triangle section missing in the longitudinal direction. I couldn't figure out what I did. Had I bent it? Had that panel gone sideways for that triangle and I had cut it?

These are great questions for someone who cares what the panel up behind the dash looks like. Instead I got tired of trying to figure it out and used the 3rd biggest hammer I own. Done.



My smashing job didn't result in a great fit. Especially where the metal changed directions. So screwed a 1/2" strip of sheet metal to fill the little gap left.



I chose... poorly.

I tried welding from inside the car, at arms-length (can't fit into the area to see better). It added some material but, I could not get it to fill.

So then I welded on the other side, in the engine bay. It just kept feeling like there was more to weld. I welded down the middle. I welded at the edges of the filler piece. I added so many puddles that dripped and ran down the metal that I turned the welder to "High" and tried to fuse back down to flat.

By the time I was done it looked like I'd stapled a crocodile to the metal. There's probably a half pound of wire in there, and STILL holes everywhere.



Then I tried to clean it up and grind it back to a reasonable thickness. Went through almost a whole grinder wheel until my hands were numb. Took off way too much material and exposed some holes. Dozens of holes. Ugh.



Vertical welding sheet metal in a place that I can't reach or see much of what I'm doing is difficult. I gave up for now and moved onto the floor pans.
 
#64 · (Edited)
Oh, and I upgraded my welder by adding a 150A FWB rectifier, so it's at least DC now instead of AC. Seems to have predictably cut down on the spatter.



This actually went pretty well. Slow, but, measurable progress with no unknowns.

What's odd is that the welds look much worse than they are. When welding, I can control the puddle well, nice and smooth, steady, it goes where I want it to, and it fuses the metal together. But the metal I'm adding doesn't follow the puddle. It wanders and drifts off up to 3/8" away as it cools, usually towards the nearest other glob. Hence the crocodile look to it. It's almost like I'm TIG welding, the base metal is fused, but I'm adding globs randomly to the surface like I'm using a hot glue gun. This isn't a problem, since I don't actually need extra material and am removing it later, I just need the puddle to fuse the metals, but, it looks bad.

I didn't rosette weld since the overlap was so narrow most places. I just followed my procedure from the seat rails, and then went to run a bead underneath.



Welding upside-down was, as expected, even harder than vertical.

There's no forgiveness. If you overheat an area, it will drip. If it drips, you cannot just weld hotter overtop the same area like you can from top-down. Any attempt to fix it just makes it drip more. You have to stop and grind it.

Also, I don't have room for my welding mask and the creeper, so I'm worming along the floor. And, welding off to the side. But not enough to the side to have room for my shoulders to to be sideways. Between that and trying to apply pressure upside down with a grinder (having to lift my arm and the grinder, rather than using those weights to do the grinding for me), it's fairly exhausting. I have to stop every few inches.

Also, I note underneath there is no seam sealer, which I can't imagine my welds not needing. I wonder if it doesn't hold up to direct contact.



On that note, the reason many of these photos are taken after welding and not after finishing, is because I can only run a grinder for the first 30 minutes or so that I'm in the shop. Otherwise I feel it's too late at night.

So when I get to the shop after work, I try to remember all the things I wanted to grind the previous day and run the gauntlet before it's too late.

This is the most frustrating part of the process because, with a flux-core welder being so poorly suited to sheet metal, it will often take 3-6 attempts at a seam before I caught all the screwups. And, I can't alternate weld/grind/weld/grind/weld/grind, I have to do all my grinding at the start. So it's become that progress has slowed to a stop because I'm bottlenecked on grinding. And I'm getting nothing done and I only get one chance per day at fixing a mistake. I'd very much rather "Oh well, grind it flat, try again" back and forth without having to change positions and jigging, and get one area finished and feel good about completion, versus having to juggle all my mistakes across the whole car every day, trying to re-establish the position and jigging, and never get anything done.

I've been at the shop every night for the last 2 weeks, and I get done maybe 1 foot of welding done per night by the time I figure out how to get access and set everything up and do 2 or 3 passes after fixing yesterday's mistakes. Over half my time is moving stuff around rather than just getting work done.

Here's a shot of the floorpan, welded from both above and below. Haven't had time to grind yet. I think the upsidedown stuff is decent, I'm clearly getting penetration through to the top side, stopping just before burnthrough most of the time.



More frustration. Sometimes, even waiting 5 seconds between the shortest possible tacks, a burnthrough results in "pushing" the pinhole an inch or two before it even starts to close. I've resorted to just holding the trigger and clanging around the hole like you'd call farmer's for lunch on a triangle. Eventually all the edges are thick enough to actually hold a tack and start to close. Then it has to be all ground then probably welded again once or twice again later.



Trying to be persistent but it doesn't feel like progress anymore.

Last bit of welding I've done is some of the underside of the driver seat rail. This is the side that didn't have room for rosette welds.



Had some time to reflect on, if I was doing it all over, what I'd do differently, but, this is enough blah for a day.
 
#65 ·
The reason I haven't posted any updates isn't because I haven't been working on the car. I've actually been working on it almost every spare night for 2 months since my last update, and given a choice between documenting and working, I've been working.

Also, because I can only grind at the start of the night, not when I'm done, all my pictures are of ugly welds rather than what I clean them up to be when I run the grinder again. So I kept putting things off until after I'd grinded.

Bodywork Update:

- Welded underside of passenger seat rail. First pass anyway. And there's a 4" triangle that starts on the right that I need to patch under the seat rail where I over-trimmed.



- Welded first pass on driver's side cowl. Came out a lot better than the passenger side because the opening into the cowl is 1/8" away and it could be clamped tight (passenger side has the vin plate and isn't accessible for at least 10", I don't have clamps long enough). I later cleaned it up and grind it smooth and no second pass was needed.



- Next up, a 13 hour work binge to mostly finish the biggest gap, the back of the trans tunnel where it means the parcel shelf box frame. There's a 1" gap because I had to cut extra to angle the whole yellow trans tunnel/firewall/cowl section into the orange body. It's also beat up from being pried on by 3 men.



It's actually 3 layers of metal:

1 - The square-ish top of the trans tunnel.

2 - The round underside where the driveshaft passes, and

3 - A second hovering rounded shell of heavier gauge sheet that reaches from the diff to just inside the trans rail, perhaps to protect from torque tube failing and puncturing through the car.

The handbrake lever cavity is formed between layers 1 and 2.

Also, either the previous owner when removing the trans tunnel, or me, trimming it flush, left the edge of the floorpan loose from the parcel shelf box, so that had to be welded first.

Here's the underside:



And welded, poorly...



Naturally I don't bother to straighten the trans tunnel floor *before* I shove the trans tunnel in place and weld the seat rails. So then I had to straighten sheet metal from a gap I couldn't even reach pliers into. I ended up cutting a 2x4 into an arch, propping it against the underside with a jack, and using the 2x4 as an anvil. A ratchet extension as a punch and I mostly flattened out the bottom sheet.

- Next up, I wanted the back of the trans tunnel to be strong because I knew I had no way to rejoin the middle layer of sheet metal. I could weld the bottom and the top but not the inside. I cut up some bedframe angle iron, chopped it in half, hooked the pieces in from the middle of the underside, then lifted them together and tacked them into place. This took like 8 tries because there's no way to hold them and they kept slipping on me and falling back to the floor after I'd already crawled out from underneath, but, persistence worked. Slagged the back rail and filled the rosettes on top.

- Gap-filled in 5 pieces. The lower part of the arches on either side, the underside of the top, and then top of the arches on the side. The difference in the gap between the bottom (round) sheet metal and the top (square) I just filled with probably a pound of weld about half way up until they got too far apart to make that sensible. I figured by the time I tried to weld a 3/4" wide strip 4" tall, with only 1/4" gap, I'd just up with so many holes I might as well fill it solid anyways. So I did. The only patches were on the top 1/3 where the square sheet starts to really rise above the lower arch.





"Done", after some grinding:



And the underside, and I also connected the last 8" on either side to connect to the seat rails, which means the underside sheet metal is "done", at least a first pass:



Around this time I noticed the floorboards had rusted through in what I thought were "good" original Orange-car areas. Tried to patch and still left holes. I've wirebrushed and spritzed with Evaporust every day for a couple weeks and it looks like those are the worst of them, so maybe just fill them rather than patch the whole panel.



My big push for that month was to finish the seam at the back of the trans tunnel so that I could bolt the torque tube on and have some choices as to what I wanted to work on if I burned out. I.E. Instead of endless bodywork, with the torque tube attached and no worries about welding near it, I could start to plan the electrical driveline for variety if nothing else.

For what it's worth, I've never actually seen either of my vehicles with a driveline hooked up. The only driveline items the orange car came with ended at the diff, and the yellow car ended at the torque tube plus a loose engine. Neither had a trans or driveshaft, though there was a driveshaft in the parts pile.
 
#66 ·
--Intermission--

Boring story, skip it to stick with the car stuff.

A friend sold his GT rotisserie to a gentleman who will end up not needing it until the summer, so, he offered to let me be borrow it short-term on a kind of "get my ass in gear" basis until then.

This, naturally, after I'd just completed all the cramped upsidedown welding from underneath the car. ("all, mhm", sneers future me I'm sure).

The rotisserie takes up 2' behind and 2' in front of the car, and I thought it'd be a bit tight, plus it requires welding up support inside the vehicle. So I opted to borrow just his body dolly instead.

Philosophy tangent:

When I was a kid, sometimes I'd watch TV shows with my dad or see magazines with "simple" little projects. Simple projects that required thousands of dollars of woodworking equipment or whatnot. I was too young to realize that, like how modern music videos are only funded by cell phone product placement the pop star is waving around while they dance, that the focus of these shows weren't really to show you how easy it was to make things, they were there to make you feel like even easy projects required expensive sponsored tools.

I didn't want to spend a lot of money on my vehicle. I started a business in a local recession a few years ago, and while I could, it's not smart for me to spend on anything that's not paying off debt. I don't work hard, but I work long hours, 7 days a week. I know that cars aren't cheap like bikes and other small projects and I wanted something to work on... but it was mostly a "have something to look forward to" project than a "spend money on a luxury" purchase. And if it's something actually fun to drive but pays for itself by saving me on gas, it doesn't seem like I'm treating myself before I've earned it.

In that spirit, I'm building a car functionally from garbage, somewhat to complete my trilogy of electric bicycle and electric motorbike from garbage projects/tutorials. And because I don't have a garage, there's extra pressure to actually complete a car project. The cars were sold to me for maybe double the value of scrap metal. The batteries I got by intercepting the waste stream from a tool company. The motor I got by intercepting the waste stream from a forklift repair shop. The controller from a junk car. The biggest expense is likely the ~$1000 in gas it cost me to bring them back from Arizona (excuse for a vacation anyway, got to see the Grand Canyon alone with no tourists for a whole day).

Anyway, what I'm getting around to is that, the body dolly feels like cheating. Even more so does a rotisserie. It should really be the first thing anyone spends money on during a restoration. If I'm giving advice, it's to start with that, first step.

And, I'm well aware that my crappy $40 flux-core welder is the worst possible choice for welding thin sheet metal and I should've just bought (or built) a MIG. I even have a bottle.

But... one of the things that I like about my project is that I've basically been able to do it all with about $100 of shitty tools (I dunno, maybe $200). I'm cheap but I'm not that cheap, I'd blow $1000 on tools if I felt like adding some. But I remember what it was like to be the kid that thought that building stuff was for "other people" because none of it seemed possible with tools we already had in the garage. I do like demonstrating that there do not have to be high barriers to entry for a hobby.

And, sometimes, you learn the most when being determined to make the less-optimum tool for the job have to do the job. I wouldn't do it again, but I'm okay with having done it once.

When I finish a project people often ask, almost defeatestly, about what kinds of tools I had to have to make it. They're saying without saying "I'd love to do that but I don't have the space/budget/whatever, you're spoiled."

And you always get more experienced people who act like the bare minimum to get into a hobby is all the gear they've accumulated after 20 years at it on a professional level as if everyone curious wants to commit to that, and that anything less will "never work".

You need a $2000 welder to build a gokart.

You need a $250 multimeter and a $1000 oscilloscope to start with electronics.

Etc.

Anyway, no point in being pedantic. The body dolly is amazing.

For weeks, I couldn't even use the creeper under the car because with the jack stacks maxed out: Creeper, Me, Welding Helmet, pick 2 of those 3 there's room for. So every weld I'd be laying on the cold (Canadian) concrete floor, bucking and shimmying 2" at a time, all the way under all the way back. Welding upside down with my unsupported head back and arms stretched horizontally. Every time I forgot a tool, needed to adjust a lamp, needed to piss, wanted to take a picture, cramped up, or even just wanted to turn and face a different direction (my shoulders are wider than the car was off the ground), was an excuse to just quit for the night rather than crawl all the way out and all the way back under. And there's never room to get out from beside the car either.

Lit my beard on fire thrice from rebounding sparks. Lit my hair on fire when the bandana slipped off. Ugh.

For anyone who doesn't own a body dolly or rotisserie, especially for body work, I can't emphasize enough how huge of a difference it makes:

- The night it was installed, I yanked out the rear assembly and sat cross legged where the diff used to be.

- When I want to work beside the car, I can shove it sideways.

- Any time I'm under the car, I'm comfortably on the creeper. And I can roll and switch which direction I'm facing.

- Any time I need to move under the car, the dolly's framework is like monkey bars, one hand can spin or move you anywhere you want to be. You can brace your arm, or tools, or rig clamps off of it.

- Whatever the perfect height to work is, up or down it goes.

- Any time I'm leaning over or crawling into the engine bay? The car has a scaffolding around it that fits my steeltoes.

- Want to film what you're doing? There's distance between ground and car to frame the shot properly.

- Want to see what you're doing? There's room for a lamp to cast light rather than just a spot.

... And yeah, it feels like cheating.

But, right when I was burning out from being there every night for a month, crawling underneath, fixing the same pinholes for the fifth time, going home sore, it's let me not even think about it and had me going another month of nightly work.

I'm not absolute about anything. I proved my point that it can be done without, it's just less comfortable, and I don't know that I'd have spent the money to build one myself. But it sure has helped more than anything to keep up my momentum. Frustration and futility are the two common silver bullets for my projects, so, it's made a huge difference.

Anyone doing a restoration is crazy to not build a body dolly, if not a rotisserie too. And with 8 bolts it flatpacks back into half a broom closet. Just my two cents.

 
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