Things to do

Things to do for next Monday:

-Fix vacuum pump.
-Reinstall hood.

Let's play spot the vacuum pump and vacuum reservoir. Can you find them?
Engine Pic as of 06-01-2009

Test Drive

Pot Box Installation

The 0-5,000 ohm pot bot will be regulating our acceleration. We fastened the pot box in the upside down position to the middle-top portion of the firewall. The old throttle cable had one side already hooked up to the gas pedal. We attached the other side of the throttle cable onto the firewall next to the pot box. Then we fastened the cable to the swing arm on the pot box. The wires attached to the controller according to the controller specification sheet.

Low Voltage electrical System

The low voltage electrical system consists of one 12V car battery. This battery will power the a/c, heat, radio, ignition, vacuum pump, and whatever other additional electrical components we decide to install.

We removed the rust from the old battery tray, painted it, and reinstalled it in the same location.

For reference, the battery rack was placed to the left of the firewall batteries, behind the high voltage electrical system.

The NorthWest 12V Battery.

High Voltage System

Our basic high voltage electrical system was placed above the transmission. We're using a 1"X10" board placed over the high voltage rack and some screws to fasten all the components down.
The high voltage setup looks something like this:
Batteries --> Shunt --> Fuse --> Contactor --> Controller --> Motor

Manzanita Recharger

We created a mounting rack for the Manzanita recharger and fastened it above the motor, in front of the firewall batteries.

The recharger was subsequently placed in it's rack and connected by three wires to the recharging port.

The recharging port replaced the old refueling port.

New components

We've decided to replace a few of the older components in the vehicle, such as...

The Contactor:

The Pot Box:

The Synkro Motive Controller, Various Wires, and other various Nuts, Bolts, Washers, Screws

Front Battery Racks

The first picture is the three front firewall battery racks. We have a support under the first and third battery rack as well as additional supports fastened to the firewall and transmission bell housing.
The second picture is the five front radiator battery racks. They have additional supports on the sides which fasten to the frame.

The third picture is the installed batteries. We're missing the middle battery because (long story short) Bill fused the cable to the post --> I tried loosening the nut to get the cable off the post and snapped the post from the battery. Oops!

Setting up the Welder/Recharging Port

We've received our MIG welder. There was some confusion on the initial electrical setup, but we were able to weld the final three battery rack that will go into the engine compartment. I'll have more detailed pictures soon. This picture is of the new 230V plug in the garage for both welding and eventually recharging Sparky.

Cutting Excess Metal Off Left Motor Mount

Bill found another person to help cut away the marked excess metal off of our left motor mount using a plasma cutter. The metal could have also been cut using our cut off wheel (our third cut off wheel purchased from Harbor Freight).

As you can imagine, we cut away any excess metal because metal adds weight. We want Sparky as light as possible for better battery operation thus additional miles traveled per charge.

We are trying to utilize the excess metal for future endeavors. The left and right pieces may be used for motor torque mounts. The upper piece may be used as a cooling plate.