This (major) step in the electric car project will see the arrival and installation of my shiny new Advanced DC FB1-4001A motor into the Tredia all the way from EV America in "NH". I still have no idea where that is or what it stands for but I fear if I find out then there goes all the mystique and romance of my motor's origin...
-Correction, I've had many emails ruining my fantasy. "NH" is actually New Hampshire located on the East Coast of America. There. I hope you're all happy now. :-)
Ok, enough waffling.
The motor has at long last arrived. We picked it up from my parent's house in Auckland and man is it heavy! 80 Kilos of corn-fed, yoghurt-toned electric motor. That's about 160 pounds!
The biggest technical problem of the conversion so far is the joining of the electric motor to the gearbox.
I had to find a way to make this tiny (in comparison) motor attach to a gearbox whose only known friend was a hot, smelly & noisy gas engine!
Many people have emailed me suggestions and I looked at dozens of other conversions to see how they've done it.
My favourite motor + gearbox connection has been Jay Caplan's Renault LeCar.
Jay used a method so simple it's brilliant! He has created a shaft coupler out of a slice of a two inch metal bar with a slot for a keyway, all attached to the splined cog from the old clutch disk (with the clutchy-bit removed).
You can see by my this well-meaning but naive little picture I made up on Windows Paint the main components I planned for my coupler.
I created this picture utilising ideas from other people's designs and all the great advice people have given me. There are many dozens of different couplers people have created. One thing I've learnt about couplers is that as long as the end result gets the job done reliably and safely, it doesn't matter what it looks like or how it works. Funny, people have said the same thing about my bass playing... Compliment or not I'll never know... :)
Obviously the picture isn't to scale and the shaft sizes are not accurate but it gives you an idea of how it will work.
As you can see from Step 5, the car has no clutch assembly or clutch pedal, which helps to keeps things nice and simple. It also means I can use the old clutch disk as part of the coupler.
I planned on having an adapter plate (1) cut to shape for the motor and gearbox to both bolt to. I did a rough measurement and estimate there will be a space of around 2 inches between the shaft of the gearbox and shaft of the motor once bolted to the adapter plate.
The coupler will consist of a slice of a thick, hollow metal shaft (2) with a keyway cut and a keylock precision welded in.
The old clutch plate (3) will be joined to this shaft, making one complete coupler.
Together, with the coupler filling the gap between the two shafts, the whole thing will attach to the gearbox (4) and live happily ever after!
So, I dropped off the motor and gearbox at local precision-engineers Pace Engineering for them to create my adapter. Three weeks later, the gearbox and motor coupler were created!
At $1000 NZ ($750 US) it was quite a bit out of my budget with the wedding and all, but after seeing the finished article I can safely say it was worth every cent. I can sleep soundly knowing that the coupler and adapter plate are made precisely and made strong.
As you can see by clicking on the picture at the top of the page, the detail of the adapter plate is fantastic! The plate fits the centre of the motor's face perfectly through the big hole (really technical terms being used here) and has guide-thingys which allow the motor & gearbox to guide straight on before bolting together.
It wasn't until I had a really close look before I noticed all the planning & effort that went into it. Top job Pace Engineering! Well done!
I was very excited about getting the motor back so I got Rob to come over and we set about getting the motor into the car. It's not an easy task as that motor is one heavy beast. I strongly recommend having at least one friend who's solidly built when you're lifting a 80 kilogram motor!
First problem was the old bolts didn't fit. The engineers either changed the thread size or my cup of engine/gearbox bolts got mixed up! That was easily sorted though, we ran down to Super Cheap Auto which had a good selection of bolts in the sizes we needed.
We shot back home and tackled the motor that afternoon. It took the two of us a lot of swearing and straining in the cold winter's air to get that motor in, and then more swearing when we found it didn't fit the first time!
We found that the passenger side drive shaft (driver's side in the USA) was touching the side of the adapter plate and it was stopping us from getting the motor in. Bugger!
There are two pictures below, one shows the green drive shaft with scrape marks on it, the other shows the area that I needed trimming off the adapter plate (circled in blue).
So, we hauled it out again (easier said than done) and I took it back to the engineer who happily sliced off the offending 10 mm at no charge. Cheers Pace Engineering!
So, we attempted the motor install once more!
This time everything went like clockwork. The motor and it's housing slid right onto the gearbox shaft and the coupler's guides matched up perfectly with the gearbox. We bolted everything together and before you knew it, the motor was on!
It's the most satisfying experience of the conversion so far. It astounded me that I knew nothing of the processes required for removing an engine and gearbox, let alone replacing it with an electric motor, and here I am - with the motor in the car! You can only imagine how good that feels.
You can tell by the ear-to-ear grin in the photo below!
The motor was only connected to the gearbox so we used supports underneath it to reduce stress on the gearbox and gearbox mount.
Even so, I couldn't resist putting the car in neutral and putting 12 volts to the motor just to see it spin for 10 seconds!
The sound of the motor quietly whirring away was music to my ears. Of course I couldn't stop there so we jacked up the front of the car and did a few seconds with the front wheels hanging there, while in first gear!
You'll have to see the video to see just how happy I was! Only 4 months into the project on the other side of the world and I had my motor spinning in the engine bay! Yeehaa!
The motor work didn't stop there though. I still needed a motor support arm created to support the weight of the motor.
Now this was almost something I could do myself but I didn't take the risk. I had one created similar to my white diagram below
The best place for a support arm at this stage was on the tail-end of the motor connecting to the existing engine mount so I measured as best I could and dropped the details off to a local welder.
After a few delays the welder was in the garage trying the new bracket out for size. Unfortunately my measurements were out slightly (an understatement) but he had his grinder and other things with him to remake the arm of the bracket there and then. 45 minutes later we had the bracket installed into the car from the existing engine mount to the tail end of the motor.
For extra motor stability I'll add another bracket within the next few months but there's no hurry for that. The most important thing is that the motor is installed and off the jack!
Ahhhhh (relieved sigh). A milestone has been reached. I've now completed 50% of the entire EV project! I'm one happy kiwi right now!
