All Charged Up - And no place to go (yet!)

I picked up the battery pack yesterday. Sixteen 6-volt deep-cycle batteries ... at 65 lbs. each.

UPDATE: April 29, 2007

Before I pull the gas motor, I want to make sure it runs OK, as I plan on selling it. We took it for a short spin ... runs strong!


Because the car has been previously lowered - and I want to keep it that way - it will be necessary to have new springs wound to compensate the added weight of the batteries. One of the parameters the spring winding company will need is the current individual wheel weights. I bought a rather expensive piece of equipment that the race car folks use to "tune" their cars. It weighs each wheel individually. I'll keep the weighing equipment until I finish the car and then sell it on eBay. (I'll need to re-weight the car after all the electrical equipment and batteries are installed, so as to determine how the new springs will be wound.)

This is what the weights are as the car now sits.

POWERHOUSE

The new electric motor has finally arrived. Soon (after we get the pool room conversion "pretty well" completed, I'll start putting some serious time in on the conversion. Watch for frequent pictures and progress reports.

UPDATE: April 6, 2007

The parts required for the conversion are finally rolling in. It was like "pulling teeth" to start the flow.

I expect to start the actual conversion within a week.

Stay Tuned!

UPDATE: February 26, 2007

The new license plates arrived today. Looks good!

UPDATE: February 11, 2006

Not much work on the project since last report. Leaky tires were fixed (tubes put in two front tires) and all wheels remounted with new wheel studs and nuts.

I also made an "Executive Decision:" I have a set of high-performance disk brakes off a VW Scirocco, which I had intended to install on the project car. The decision I made was to defer the brakes until the car is up and running and then determine IF I really need the Scirocco brakes. The change-over is no small job.

The battery was removed.

February 5, 2007

UPDATE:
No luck getting the wheel lug nut off ... even after heating with a propane torch. So I did the "sure-fire" thing: I took my 1/2" electric drill and drilled down through the lug nut and wheel stud. Hard job, not pretty, but it worked.

Next, I discovered that ALL of the lug nuts on all four wheels were apparently tightened by a crazed impact wrench cowboy. No way I could budge them. Today, I rented an electric impact wrench and finally got 14 of the remaining 15 lug nuts off. Well ... At least there is only one more nut to be drilled out!

This is going to a long project!

February 3, 2007

Four 130 watt Kyocera Solar panels arrived Friday. Later they will be mounted in a sun-tracking mount and the energy will be used to recharge the batteries in the Electric VW. Can you imagine: Driving a car that NEVER needs gasoline and NEVER needs to be plugged into the power grid?

(PS: For you techno-readers, the solar panels are not expected to be a "fast-charge" system for the batteries. With a 9-amp charge rate, if the deep-cycle batteries are pretty well discharged, I expect that it will take about two or three days of good sunlight to recharge the pack ... maybe even more. But since I don't "need" to drive the car every day, that's no problem. If needed, I can also simply plug the on-board charger into the power grid and recharge overnight. Is that cheating?))

Last look at the old "stinkpot." I'm not sure when it will be pulled out, but it will be soon!

One of the first jobs was to remove the two front wheels and determine where the slow air leak was. Problem #1: One of the lug nuts was too tight and when I went to loosen it, the nut rounded off and I couldn't budge it. Tomorrow, I'll try to heat it with a propane torch and see if that will loosen it up. If not, then I'll have to use a Dremel and cut the nut off.

Measuring the height of the bottom of the fender well. When the car is loaded with the batteries, it will be a heavy vehicle. I will probably have to buy special springs in order to reestablish this original height. (Did you notice that the car has been lowered? Very cool ... and I want to keep it this way.)

Why am I dressed so warmly? Maybe because it's 28 degrees!

January 26 2007

The V-Dub is sitting in the workshop area of the barn, waiting for the start of operations. (Kinda reminds me of a patient, dressed in hospital garb, waiting for the surgeon to begin the operation.)

First order of business is to remove the two front wheels and take them to Les Schwab Tires, in Pullman, to get a slow leak fixed. Both front tires gradually leak down over a month or so. I've taken them to Goodyear (In CA, where I bought the tires) twice to have them fixed, but to no avail. I suspect the wheels have a small defect in the material that allows the air loss. I'll probably put inner tubes in both wheels ... and that will solve the problem.

Follow along

Follow along, over the next few months, and watch a gas powered 1986 VW Cabriolet be converted to a 100% electric vehicle. The goal is to have the project completed by June 1, 2007.

Project starts Feb. 1, 2007 (Parts have been ordered)