Motor startup

The last couple of Saturdays I've made some progress on the car but it has been spread out so here a summery of the last weeks. First I went with the motor, clutch plate and gearbox to (probably) the only other Gerrit Hengelaar in the world to make a proper drawing of the coupling. I showed my drawing in the last blog entry but this is the real thing:

This Auto-CAD drawing will go into the milling machine to make a perfect fit to the motor and clutch plate/gearbox. Inside there will be a bearing to make sure both axle's are aligned perfectly but still keep the clutch plate free to move on the center line and absorb some of the force when I floor the car ;) This will also make the making of the motor support easier because it will be centered and I can take the coupling and therefore the motor and gearbox as reference point. 

While the coupling is being made I've treated the chassis to make sure it won't corrode. First I've removed all the superficial rust last week and today I sprayed the whole chassis with tactyl so its nice and black again.

Last week at the end of the day we started the motor up for the first time to check if it works, and...

It does! Nice and smooth, no instant shock or anything. So, very happy!

Now I'll wait on the coupling so that I can start making the support and mount the whole assembly into the chassis. From that point I'll go further with the batteries and the new wiring. 

I want to keep the engine block from the car to keep the chassis and block together and as a memory. So I've cleaned it up and maybe it will make a nice (small) table or something, any thoughts? 

Yea first steps

Since the last update there have been some small changes and design of special parts that need to be made. Starting with the design, I made a drawing of the coupling that's needed to attach the new motor to the original gearbox and a drawing of the new motor support. 
The coupling is directly attached to the motor and gearbox, so there is no more clutch. There is no need for it because the motor stops in front of a redlight and I can still shift because there is so little weight to shift with one moving part in the motor. I can still shift through the gears but only using the synchromesh not the clutch. 
The entire clutch assembly is removed including the pedal, flywheel, etc. The only thing of the clutch that is used is the clutch plate. The plate is used for the tread that slides over the gearbox spline. The outside will be removed to save weight especially because it moves with max 5000 RPM (the brown part, see last post for photo). The middle part will be drilled trough so it can be screwed to a aluminium cylinder. This cylinder will be machined to precise specifications. It will have four holes for the screws, room for the gearbox spline and room for the four springs in the plate. This will attach the the new motor. There are different ways of doing this, and I'm not sure yet what's the best way but we'll make it work ;) Drawing below, blue part stays, red goes and white is clutch plate.

The motor support is a bit less high tech. I'm planning on using the original  motor support but I'll need to attach that to the new motor. I can screw the motor at the bottom and at the front. So I'll use a (probably) steel plate that goes underneath the motor. That will attach to the original support and the bottom of the gearbox. An other plate will go in front of the motor to screw it in there. This will end after two other small parts at the top of the gearbox. Maybe some sort of A frame for strength, and thin metal to box it all op. This same metal will be used to cover the bellhousing of the gearbox so it can't get dirty. Same story, drawing below:

I'll try to make the motor support myself, the coupler has to be made.

Beside the thinking and drawing I also did some real work. To be able to clean the chassis and treat it for the next 20 years every thing has to come of. So today I started further disassembly with the shocks, springs, stabilisation bar and breakline. This resulted in the entire back axle to fall of the chassis. Which was the goal ;) Next week the front wheel, and then I'll start grinding the chassis to get to bare metal, ready for tectyl or something.

From EV West I got two new parts! Left you see the throttle (hall effect throttle box 0-5v). It hooks up to the original pedal and gives the controller data about how much power I want to get. It also has an off switch when the my foot is off the pedal to shut the contactor or controller of if necessary. The blue thing on the right can measure the voltage of the whole battery pack and the flow of amps to the controller. The nice part is that it connects to a normal fuel and RPM gauge. So in the car, all original! It works by putting the high voltage cable though the hole and wire it up, that's it;) (No idea how it really works, haha). Its a Zeva fuel gauge plus, so with the rev counter. 300 amps will be shown as 3000 rpm. 

When I got home I tested the controller. Needed a 18v power supply, and the cable I bought. It started up, no problems. Installed the driver and software needed and it recognized the controller right away. With the software I can set the min-max voltage and amps, the kind of throttle(0-5v), Throttle up and down rate(how fast it reacts) and top speed. The fun part is that I can monitor the parameters of the controller how much throttle input, temperature  output current, etc. Also works perfect and the controller was a cool 19 degrees today.

Next time I'll start working more on the chassis, hoping to see some bare metal. And maybe spin the motor for the first time. To see if it works and if it turns the right way ;)

Small update

On Friday I had a couple of hours to work on the Robin. Me and Ben managed to get the engine out after which I removed the engine from the gearbox. I also removed the exhaust and fuel line. So everything that has anything to do with gasoline is gone!

The goal was to make the Robin electric but now that I have easy access I think I'll work a bit on the chassis and replace some parts to make my three wheeler last for at least the next 20 years! 

I'm thinking cleaning the chassis and repainting/tectyling it. Changing the 
shocks, some rubbers, refurbishing the springs and other things I'll find on the way. I'll probably have time for all of that while I'm thinking about the electrical part of the build ;)

The big parts and the overall things to do are clear to me but there are some questions about the details that are not answered yet. Luckily I have great help from the DIYelectriccar.com and Reliant forums, Jan from Zonderbenzine.nl 
and the guys from E&R Autobedrijf!

After dealing with the engine and thinking about the chassis and other bits I started to try to get my head around the one off parts that need to be made for the car. Coupling between the electric motor and gearbox(using the clutchplate), cover plate for gearbox with or separate motor mount to the gearbox, motor mount to chassis and battery box  The rest of the components are going on the body in the engine compartment of near the batteries. 




The last couple of weeks I made a lot of visual progress which I'm very happy with, now it will be more details, thinking and slowly building. I'm still exited and looking forward to the next steps!

A bit closer to the beginning

On the second day of stripping the car the goal was to separate the body from the chassis and so finish where I started last week. But first things first! The first parts have arrived. After some discussions on different forum about the EMC, 5v throttle box etc. I bought the kit I wanted form EV Drives and a Hall effect throttle box and fuel gauge from EV West. The kit arrived this week with the motor, controller, contractor and some small stuff! I'm a very happy man today :D ---------------------->

Last week I wrote some stuff that needed to be done before I could start the ´divorce´. I removed all the small parts like break line, grounds, handbrake etc. and I removed three large parts. The radiator and altimeter to make the separation easier and the fuel tank to finally be done with it ;) 

Then we (me and Arjon) used the lift in the garage to lift the body up, blocks on the polyester besides the chassis beams. Worked like a charm although I mist some small stuff of course and it was quite difficult to balance the body on the lift, we had no idea about the weight distribution without the chassis. But we got it done it the chassis is free!

The chassis looks great! No big rust spots, a couple of rubbers are a bit dry. So it will need some attention but not to much. 

Next week I´ll remove the exhaust and the engine. Get the gearbox free so that I can mock up the new electric engine. 

I have to start thanking Ben and Arjon from E&R autobedrijf. Just perfect to be able to work in there garage!

First day

Today was the first day of the conversion. I started with weighing the car, left was 130 kg and right 123kg. Front tire was more then 150kg but the scale did not go further... But it will get lighter at the front and heavier at the back so that's no problem. 

For now the goal is to separate the body from the chassis for easy access to the motor and later installation of all the new electric parts. I started with the interior, the seats, back bench, steering wheel/column, volt meter, clutch cable, speedometer cable, seat belts, gear leaver, center console and some lose bolts attached to the chassis. 

Then I began in the motor compartment removing the battery and heater. After that I undid the two bolts in the front of the compartment, heater/choke cable, ignition cable, break line, fuel line, and the radiator hoses. (next time gas cable, starter motor cable and radiator, rest of the earth connections) 

From the bottom of the car I removed the fuel tank, fuel pump and some more bolts holding the body and chassis together. (next time 5 bolts of back chassis, handbrake, break line bottom of motor compartment, reverse  light switch)

It was a good first day, nice to take things apart (except the rusty stuff..) and getting a basis from which I can work towards the full electric goal :)
I'm hoping to get the parts this week and separating the body and chassis next weekend. Then I'll see what really needs to be done.

Drive 'home'

Today I tried to drive the car from the storage garage to the garage where I can work. A 100km drive for a old English car that didn't drive for 6 months. First couple of try's no power, no ignition but the engine turned over so there was hope. After 10 min the car started but old clutch problems started. A loud rattle and when I pushed the clutch the engine stalled. So no driving but a friend joined me so we towed the car to it's new home. 
The real work will start next weekend, looking forward to it!

Start of the EV conversion

Since some years I´ve been planning to convert a Reliant Robin 850 to electric power. This is my blog about the conversion that I start tomorrow. In my mind is the Robin a perfect platform because its very light (400 kg incl. ICE) , a very simple set-up without complex Airco, power steering or even a radio and a separate chassis/body for easy access when the body is removed. 

I bought my Reliant 1.5 years ago and drove it quite often and semi rebuilt the engine because it blew up on me... But it's still a very lovable car, I know it pretty good by now and only more reason to make it a EV!

For my conversion I'm going for a DC setup with a clutch less coupling to the electric motor. I want to build it on a budget so I want to keep it as simple as possible. Here a scheme of what I have planed:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8092/8518664403_7c583e3f52_b.jpg

As you can see in the scheme the current plan is to use 6 battery's (accus) of each 12v for a total of 72v with one 12v battery for the auxiliary power. This runs trough a Alltrax AXE 7245 controller that breaks up the full power in to as much as the throttle tells it to. This controlled power goes to a D&D ES 15-6 motor which turns it into motion that goes via a coupler and adapter plat to the transmission and eventually the wheels. I'll some safety features, charger, link to 12v cables a fuel gauge and I should have a working EV.

I’m hoping on a top speed of around 80 km/h and a range between 50 and 100 km depending on the battery’s that I install. With 12v deep cycle battery’s as the cheap, easy, heavy and low range option and lifepo4 battery’s as the best option. For now I’m sticking with the cheap and easy option for the first try always leaving the door open for an upgrade.

The motor/controller combination on 72v has a less horsepower than the internal combustion engine (ICE) but more torque. Both horsepower and torque are peaked at low RPM with the electric set-up instead of relative high rpm. So it should be good from 0 km/h.

	ICE	Electric
BHP	39 at 5500 rpm	25 at 1600 rpm
Torque ft/ib	46 at 3500 rpm	65 at 1600 rpm

I'm not so good at all the electronic calculations so I'll see what happens when everything is in. It's all theory now.

First things first, the car has to come to the garage before anything can be done. Then I'll check if the plans are feasible and if the first parts are ordered there is no turning back!