[rctous]

leaving in the tranny may be more work later than taking it out,the alignment of the new couple and the adaptor plate is very prescision work I bolted mine together with the motor facing straight down with the tranny facing up. If you have the adaptor plate built and the coupler built from someone who has the exact dims you may luck out by leaving the tranny in all the way through it. ( but I doubt it)

Brian

 

[rctous]

will 25 amps be enough for the car????? are you using AC? My car bare bones with lights on heater fan on and a blinker will draw 32 + amps,,, as long as you are not there very long and the 12 battery is big enough you will be OK I am sure. My 12 VDC battery is only 10AH.

Brian

 

[rctous]

I won't have AC... decided against it as it wasn't working properly in the ICE..

You know, I was concerned that 25amps wouldn't be enough, but the guy at beepscom assured me I'd be fine. Bottom line, it's cheap enough to make it worth the try! If I end up needing a bigger one, no big deal really.

what size is your 12 volt battery for the car???

also if the conertor is not not big enough you can get a second one and add it in parallel to the existing one and double your out put

 

[rctous]

hmmm... that could work if it ends up not being big enough... 50amps should be plenty.. I was thinking of just using the battery that was in the car.. not a good idea?

that will be OK

but usually an easy way to drop several pounds of weight with a much smaller battery

 

[rctous]

Now I am concerned My DC/DC is only 21 amps.
I had planned on using the stock battery for accessories or replace with a AGM battery of about 40AH. Perhaps I will have to replace all the lamps with LED type
I have heard so many different ways of dealing with the 12 volt, including separate charger for 12 volt and no DC/DC at all.
I guess whatever gets the job done..

Much of it depends on the size of the battery you plan to use for the 12 volt system of the car. A large enough battery can be charged seperatly and if you do not do to much night driving it will probably be OK, The advantage of a dc convertor is you will never run out of power and the draw on the traction pack is not very high, for example 21 amps at 12 vdc out put is 252 watts out put not that the dc convertor is 100% efficient but lets say it is for this example if your traction pack is 120 volts you will be using just over 2 amps of current from the pack to supply the power to your 12 volt system,,,, pretty insignificant all things considered.

Brian

 

[rctous]

My DC/DC is 55 amp and I used the same battery as Brian. I havent really tested it yet but Brians comments on his thread have me worried as right now I have my DC/DC on the batt side of my contactors. Now that I have that SLA I want to move it to the controller side so its only on when the system is on to stop battery drain.

Just some thoughts as I'm working on that system now......


Ben

I have heard that some do the dc convertor on the traction pack and don't even use a 12 volt battery,,, Iguess it will not draw hardly any current at idle? I am not going to do it but????? It would be interesting to see if ya did,, although if you have a seperate battery that it is responsible to charge the voltage would be to high(probably) as in "float" mode I do not think you would want more than 13.7 max,, and if the dc conv was set that low it may not fully charge the 12 volt battery,, hence the reason it should be on the contactor side or don't use the 12 v battery at all.

Just my thoughts,,, also Ben that battery didn't hold up so well for me ,, did ya notice how light it was???

Brian

 

[rctous]

I sure did and the fact that my car has a little more voltage requirement than yours worries me. I may have to go back to the original, although smaller 12V car battery. It's mounted in the rear of the car so luckily room won't be an issue.

Ben

not sure thats necessary I just think tha batteies we got were a bit how do I say" cheasy" I don't doubt that a 60 dollar version would have worked just fine,, Sorry man!!!

Brian

 

[rctous]

Look at his first post here , he got a Hell of a deal not sure what you would need to send though but they did an awesome job for him. And Cheap as well

http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/got-my-adapter-and-coupler-19676.html

Brian

 

[rctous]

I'm thinking of tryin to make this myself.. here's my thoughts - you guys tell me if it sounds right.

1. Get a transfer punch the right diameter for the bellhousing bolt holes. Lay tranny flat on 1/2" 6061 15"x15" aluminum plate and trace outline with Sharpie. Use transfer punch to mark dead center of each bolt hole. Use drill press to drill out holes.

2. Get my machinist to make a piece that fits over the end of the transmission input shaft perfectly with a punch point dead center on other end. Attach to shaft (it will extend beyond bellhousing), attach plate to housing with tranny bolts just tight enough to mark dead center of tranny shaft.

3. Use shaft punch mark to lay out placement of motor bolt holes and "inner circle" for motor shaft/coupler to fit through with compass. Use drill press for motor bolt holes.

4. Take to someone to have "inner circle" and perimeter outline cut.

How's that sound? Could I cut 1/2" aluminum plate with a normal jigsaw with a metal cutting blade or is it too thick?

not sure exactly what you are trying here but the way I did it I thought was very simple. make the adaptor plate for the tranny be sure to have at least 2 perfectly done line up pins. Cut a center hole where you believe the tranny shaft will be ( just get close) and oversize the hole by a bit. Bolt the adaptor plate to the tranny and position it so the plate is horizontal and flat. get all thread and cut small 1-1/2" long to fit the 4 motor mount bolt holes, thread them in but leave at least 1/2" sticking out. (this is how you willl mark the plate later.) Now hang your motor vertically from a cherry picker upside down with the coupler attached to it facing the tranny shaft. Lower the motor down and line it up through the hole in the plate you made, let the couple slide down over the tranny shaft. let the motor rest on the adaptor plate. Now the part you need to be carful with but we need to add 12 vdc to the motor to get it rotating. Once the motor rotates a few times it lines itself up perfectly, ( This was very easy , not scary but you should have help to hold the motor (I did it alone) there is no real drama her it just sounds like there might be but there isn't. once you have established the motor turns the tranny nice and smooth you can mark the 4 holes to mount the motor. Be sure to rotate the motor to the right position in reference to the tranny for the final way it will sit in the car.

Did this make sence? It worked perfectly for me. I guess I forgot to mention that this works with a basic couple not a clutch system (unless you used a couple as a line up tool.)

Brian

 

[rctous]

patrick if you want to call me I could explain it better perhaps on the phone, I have never been a very good typer. There is no reason that you could not do this yourself.

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Brian

 

[rctous]

hmm.. that really concerns me as I have not been able to get it to go into neutral. Just turning the input shaft by hand and moving the "lever"? on the tranny into different "clicks" I still get the gears moving.. no matter what position I put it in. Know how I can shift it into neutral now that it is out of the car?

I joined a zx2 forum to ask these kind of questions and was warned to do something to prevent them from falling out when I removed the drive shafts, but then a Ford mechanic told me "nothing" would fall out if I removed the shafts...

there may just be some free spining going on be sure to hold the output shaft so it can't move while turning the inpit shaft, then try a variety of positions

 

[rctous]

excellent news all the way around

 

[rctous]

Here's one question/observation/thought though... I was careful to measure the height of the tranny bellhousing and passenger side 1/2 shaft before I disassembled the car.. and now they are higher than they were. I was vexed by this for a while, but I've come to this conclusion: since the motor mounts and roll controllers are all flexible rubber, the extra weight of that engine isn't pushing the whole assembly down anymore. It's only off by about an inch, and everything is level and lined up well... Anyone else have this issue?

My guess is that since it's all flexible enough to bounce up and down a bit, the fact that's off a little now that it's lighter shouldn't hurt anything. I guess I'll know for sure after driving it a bit. Next step is having the passenger side custom motor mount fabricated. I'm NOT going to attempt to do that myself!

The only issue you may have is the axles not going in far enough ( since the motor is an inche higher it will shorten the length) and worse yet popping out when the car is lifted off the ground or getting serious air when driving,, probably enough give in the 1/2 shaft but just be sure there is.

Brian

 

[rctous]

lol.. thanks.. hadn't cosidered that! Now I have to spend a couple of hours in front of the car pondering that little scenario.

That could be a big scenario well worth pondering,, as well if the motor/tranny is not exactly centered where it was originally one side may be long and the other too short. I was lucky on both accounts.

Brian

 

[rctous]

DUDE your meters are crook id ( how the heck do ya spell that?)




(just kidding) looks great

Brian

 

[rctous]

your not worried at how low the rear battery rack is? seams very low to me you hit it on something (speed bump) (sloped driveway) it will not be good

Brian

 

[rctous]

ha! I knew someone would bring that up.. Yes, I'm pondering that thought. I will need to be very mindful of how low it is. It is about 2 inches lower than the bottom of the spare tire well that was there before. I am sort of winging this one and hoping it'll be ok... If I find I start scraping it, then I'll redo it.

not the scraping I would be woried about ,,, it would be the hard knock out!!!!

 

[rctous]

take some pics for us after ya get the batteries installed in the rear box ,, curious to see it then,,

Brian

 

[rctous]

Here you go... Will need something done to the rear springs/shocks! But I knew I would have to beef them up anyway... I will get those taken care of before I begin to drive it regularly.

can you do air shocks for the car? I am sure it has struts probably.

 

[rctous]

I got the front most rack off to the welder today and finally gave in and decided to have them come out and help me do the one over the motor next week.. They're very close to me, so the charge shouldn't be much more than if I take it to them and it will be done and will be right.

Spent a couple of hours today trying to figure out how the hell to wire the 12v heater switch so that it can only have power if the blower motor has power... poured over the wiring diagrams, poked the multimeter into more places than is really decent... Finally figured it out. Turns out (and I'm sure many of you of you are thinking "no sh!t, sherlock"), that the blower motor can only come on if two things are true..

a) the ignition is in the "run" position, and...
b) the blower motor switch is in any position but "off"

Problem is I was probing in the wrong places, not realizing the two connections I need to make are in two different places. Finally tested it with the multimeter's red probe in the blower motor's power connecter and the black probe in the blower motor switch's output connector.

Yeah, I probably didn't explain that well. Suffice to say it makes sense to ME and I'm confident it will work! lol

UPDATE:

Ok, after trying what I said above, I found out it doesn't work so well since the voltage being pulled by the blower motor varies depending on the speed the blower motor switch is set to (duh). Anyway, depending on the position, there would not have been enough volts to power my relay for the heater. So.... after thinking it all over, I decided that my ground for the switch was in the correct place (on the panel position switch - only provides ground when something other than "off" is selected). Then I drew power for the switch from a 12v "run" source (same one I got power for the gauges from). Tested that and it works great. Long story short, my 12v heater switch that will control my relay (which came in the mail yesterday) is in and wired and works great. I'll post a photo later.

Patrick you are looking at the blower wiring the wrong way,,, you will look for negative voltage not positive voltage,, there is a wire there that will trigger a standard 12 volt relay if you have + 12 volts (from the ignition) to the coil of the relay and the other wire from the blower will supply the neg to the coil to activate it only when the switch is moved to any position other than off. Try that man and I assure you it will work ( to make the testing use a yest light and instead of clipping it to ground clip it to + 12 vdc and probe the large wires going to the blower and find the wire that keeps the test light lit when in all positions other than off) also the intensity of the test light bulb may alter a bit but it will still be enough to keep the relay (that you will add) energized.

if you need a better explanation call me and I can explain it better on the tele

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Brian