Maybe Going for Lithium (LiFePO4) Batteries

The battery decision has been an extremely difficult one.
While SLA (Sealed Lead Acid) is the most inexpensive option, about AU$2000 to $2500, all the research tends to indicate that they will only last between 400 and 600 cycles (discharge, recharge cycles). Charging once per day, that's 16 to 24 months. In addition the "pack" will weigh around 320kg. Not only does that put the car over original weight - a problem for road approval, but it will have lower performance.

170kg in a 1000 kg car is important. Why 170kg - because that's how much less a Lithium Iron Phoshate battery pack would weigh. The LiFePO4 pack would also have almost twice the range as it does not suffer nearly as much from "peukert effect" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peukert's_law. Finally, Lithium should last 2000 to 3000 cycles, that's around 6 to 10 years with my expected driving distances. A LOT more expensive though!


My Lithium batteries of choice are 10 of these 60V 20AH packs from Headway in China. (The blue cylinders are what is in the big white box - 40 of them. I earlier had this at 20 - there are actually 40 cells per box.)

Weighing 15kg each, using these bring the theoretical weight of the car in under it's original weight by about 40kg.

The house mortgage is down since we sold our caravan (temporary situation), so finance is possible...

Dashpad Woes

The dashpad (padded bit on top of the dashboard) has occupied a fair bit of my planning time and looks like it is going to be expensive ($550).
We mucked around a bit with some padded vinyl and finally came to the conclusion that it would look OK but would be a pain to get it to extend out as far as the old dashpad - necessary to prevent sunlight from obscuring the LCD backlit displays. I found some 'D' shaped rubber foam molding from Clark Rubber and got a sample to see how it would go extending the bulkhead under the vinyl forward (about 20cm). I reckon it is "doable", but my better half thinks I have enough to do. So Dashboard Restorations (highly recommended from the Hillman yahoo group) get the job of fixing the old one. It seems they have a Singer Vogue mold...

This is what we have to cover.