Joined
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566 Posts
The cooling system is flowin'! The Prius pump is strong, nearly silent, and only has one moving part. The system purged itself of air bubbles rather swiftly.
I ditched the 3/4" ID tubing, as it was kinking too much in front of the motor, and in the end was unecessarily large—I managed to get 5/8" ID tubing over the Leaf ports with a heat gun and some soapy water as lubricant.
I used PEX elbows to avoid any tight bends (3/4", but PEX uses a different sizing system), but they may not have been necessary after downsizing the tubes. They seem to be as good as steel and as cheap as plastic. The tubing might be too loose on them without clamps, but I'm gonna give it a whirl.
There was very little room on the left, so I wound up just stuffing the two tubes from the motor through an opening and wrapping them with more tubing as protection. My plan is to just keep an eye on things to see if the protection falls out, or gets damaged too quickly, or what. Getting tubes to the motor was very annoying, and it seemed like any useful cutting of the body would be visible.
I didn't have the Prius water pump connector, so I just filled the sucker with Fluid Film to prevent moisture from shorting anything out...I don't love it, but I'll wait and see before trying to find a connector.
At this point, I'm kinda just waiting on the axles before doing much more. Road tests will surely adjust my priorities and unearth some design failures.
I ditched the 3/4" ID tubing, as it was kinking too much in front of the motor, and in the end was unecessarily large—I managed to get 5/8" ID tubing over the Leaf ports with a heat gun and some soapy water as lubricant.
I used PEX elbows to avoid any tight bends (3/4", but PEX uses a different sizing system), but they may not have been necessary after downsizing the tubes. They seem to be as good as steel and as cheap as plastic. The tubing might be too loose on them without clamps, but I'm gonna give it a whirl.
There was very little room on the left, so I wound up just stuffing the two tubes from the motor through an opening and wrapping them with more tubing as protection. My plan is to just keep an eye on things to see if the protection falls out, or gets damaged too quickly, or what. Getting tubes to the motor was very annoying, and it seemed like any useful cutting of the body would be visible.
I didn't have the Prius water pump connector, so I just filled the sucker with Fluid Film to prevent moisture from shorting anything out...I don't love it, but I'll wait and see before trying to find a connector.
At this point, I'm kinda just waiting on the axles before doing much more. Road tests will surely adjust my priorities and unearth some design failures.







