New powertrain and new skills

HPEV AC-50 Motor, adapter
plate (red thing), & clutch

The Electric Drive Train

It was a pretty good weekend on the EV conversion front.  I got a bunch more of my parts this last week including my electric motor!  The motor was built by High Performance Electric Vehicle Systems (HPEV) just 15 minutes down the road from me, in Pomona.  I got to visit their shop and meet one of the owners, Brian Seymour. Besides looking at their production line and learning about the history of the company (they've been winding motors for nearly 50 year) I got to drive Brian EV Porsche 911--pretty cool.  They've also done a really nice Jetta conversion. 

Motor bolted to the original, but
rebuilt manual transmission

Back to my conversion, the motor I'm using is an HPEV AC-50 which is an AC motor which can draw up to 650 amps at 115 volts. The motor bolts on to the original manual transmission using an adapter that mimics the end of the old gasoline engine.  My adapter was manufactured by Canadian Electric Vehicles. The adapter includes a plate that bolts on to the motor and the transmission and a hub that attaches to the motor shaft and bolts on to the original fly wheel.  Since I had the transmission out I replaced the clutch and throwout bearing at the same time. 

Motor and transmission going in

After bolting up the motor and transmission I enlisted the help of my friend, Chris, to put it all back in the truck.  We made a second trip to our local tool rental guy to get an engine hoist and drop that baby right in.  It was all going without a hitch until I found that I should have ground out a section of the adapter plate to make room for the clutch piston. Since we already had the rear of the transmission bolted in place I ground out the notch with the motor and transmission in place. It was a pretty ugly job, but it worked--a lesson in thinking ahead.  Anyway, we got the new motor and transmission in place.  Chris also replaced all four shocks for me.  I still need to fabricate a bracket to bolt the electric motor to the existing motor mounts on the chassis.

The notch I should have ground out
before dropping the motor in place

New skills
Speaking of fabricating metal stuff, I solved my problem of getting welding done by learning to do it myself today.  I had originally planned to purchase my welding services from a buddy by trading homebrew lessons and beer for welding but my welder is about to head off to Burning Man next week just when I needed his help.  Not to worry, he introduced me to another friend of his who taught me how to use his wire feed MIG welder and loaned me the equipment!

I learned gas welding years ago and tried, unsuccessfully, several time to learn arc welding.  Arc welding is a skill that required more time and patience than I had to learn properly.  Thankfully, in the intervening years two breakthroughs have made welding way easier:  wire feed machines, and auto darkening lenses.  With these new (to me) tools and my previous gas welding experience, I was off and welding in 30 minutes!  I worked on a couple parts of the the battery boxes.  My welds are still a little ugly, but they'll get better. I can't wait to spend some time this week welding up my battery boxes and a bracket for the motor.  I think I'll have to play hooky for a day--wait, it's still summer vacation, and I'm not getting paid--I don't have to play hooky, I just need to stay home and enjoy working on my EV project!

My supplier

A big shout out to Wistar Rhodes at KTA Services.  I've purchased all of my EV parts from KTA with the exception of the batteries.  I wanted the help of a knowledgeable EV vendor to help me select the right parts since I could easy ruin a $4,000 motor or $8,000 of batteries with the wrong parts.  I contacted several vendors and found Wistar at KTA to be both knowledgeable and helpful.  He's already spent several hours on the phone with me discussing the pros and cons of various components.  I found KTA prices to be very competitive. I recommend KTA to those that want help selecting components.