Front Trays Trial Fit

A real pack and my cardboard one.

The battery packs look like they will clear the bonnet easily (heater blower is out again until this stuff is finalised).

The black tray mounts are made from 6mm steel. I haven't bolted the upper tray front mounts down yet - I'll use 10mm high tensile bolts/nuts.

This is the Front Battery tray right hand rear mount bolted to where the clutch master cylinder would have been in a manual. There is a strong plate on the cabin side of the firewall (shown in earlier posts about the refurbished brake pedal).

Front Battery tray front left hand mount.

The other side is a mirror image copy of this as the Vogue was shipped ready for left/right hand drive.

Left hand side in the engine bay.















Left hand side in the cabin - view of the firewall showing the 5mm steel reinforcing plate.

The four top battery packs (with tray) will weigh a total of 52kg so the tray (by law) must be able to stay in the car with a 20g forward force  - over 1000kg.

10g in all other directions.

The battery packs sit on and are surrounded by 5mm neoprene strips and strapped in with 300kg rated camlock straps.

You can just see the radiator hole blocking 2mm aluminium plate on the left in this photo (the grey vertical slab) - it will be flat black so you won't know it hasn't got a radiator behind the grill.

The controller tray is the lower one and isn't bolted in yet.

I'll have to pull it all out again to finish the motor and battery wiring - kind of chicken and egg.

This weekend we will put the bonnet back on (I hope) and see if the AC controller on the lower tray will clear.
(Two pictures added 26/08/2011 to show left hand side reinforcing of battery mounting on firewall.)

Motor Coupler and Unicorns

I took this picture at the same time as the ones with the coupler on the motor.
When someone at work saw it they said I should post it. The Unicorn sheet is covering the floor of the car while we mess with the headlining (to ensure it stays clean - the headlining, not the floor).
Remarks about magical Unicorns and Electric Cars were rife when it was spotted
You might notice it looks slightly shorter than the other photo. It is - by about 5mm. The 38mm bore was the same length as the protruding end of the motor shaft and it would have hit the bearing casing. Better safe...

Motor Coupler and Driveshaft

Back at the start of this year I sought out a few companies that did drive shafts (tail shafts) in my area of Melbourne. I kind of knew what I wanted to do, but not really how to go about it. Basically I knew I needed a sliding spline on the motor end of the drive shaft and I would have to get my old one extended by about 200mm.

The third company I rang didn't balk at all at the mention of a 3 phase motor in a car (the others did!) and were amazing helpful straight away in that they could make the coupler (38mm motor shaft to flange) and the drive shaft to match. I have found Jeff, Russell (now left) and Graeme a delight to deal with at Precision Balancing in Ferntree Gully.
Anyway - to the point. I contacted them again at the start of September and dropped my old tail drive shaft in mid September.
The coupler was ready last week.

I finally got to remove that blue insulation tape from the motor shaft. I cleaned it with enamel thinners to de-sticky it.

After some minor tweeks the coupler slid smoothly onto the motor shaft.

I have measured the motor flange to differential flange dimension and given it to the guys. Drive shaft next.
It will look something like this one.
The left hand end connects to the motor coupler flange.

Meanwhile, I pulled the headliner out again last night for some slight changes - nothing major. We should get it back in (for good) on the weekend.

Headlining basically in

We installed the headlining (at least with clips) during the weekend.
It has to come out again as we have a problem that the roof insulation is too thick to allow the lining to hang correctly without intervention. The trouble is you can't get at the way the lining hangs off the bows once you have installed the next bow. We also may have cut one back a little bit too far. Anyway - it pretty much fits and will look good once the sides are tensioned up.

The Rag Stealer strikes again

This time it's my cork sanding block. Super duper mild steel front battery tray mounts (painted black) near the scene of the crime.

The getaway!

Sunvisor Rebuild

The vinyl on the sunvisors was sticky and deformed.
Upon removing the vinyl, the foam underneath was old and falling apart. I also wanted something a bit firmer.

Battery packing stuff again! Cut to shape and glued to the wire frame (sorry, forgot to show the wire frame before making new ones). Once glued, I tapered the edges with scissors to get a rounded shape (edge not shown).

They will be finished in the same velour as the headlining. Oh, and no vanity mirror - sorry, too difficult. If necessary I'll carry one in the glove box and will look at mounting one in there as well.

Caught Pretending to be a Motor

My daughter caught this a few weeks ago while I was installing the steering box.
I thought I'd better post it.
The caption could read "No really - it's going to be electric powered".

Underside of Bonnet Treatment

The underside of the bonnet wasn't painted with the rest of the car so something had to be done. The original had some quilt like construction for sound/heat proofing held in place by a wire contraption - none of it was usable.
Here is the before photo with the insulation gone.

There are 8 of these shipped as packaging with every battery pack. So I have over 90 of them. They are about 10mm thick and 200 x 400mm. We slapped one of them in the heat oven at work and ran it up to 80 degrees C. It handled it quite well with only a slight amount of curling.

So I glued ten of them together along the edges.

I then stuck the left over foil insulation from when the garage was restored to the panel. I used the contact adhesive (brushable) bought from the auto-upholstery place. It was then cut to shape so some of it tucked in around the edges and finally glued into the bonnet with 3M Hi-tack #76 spray adhesive (you can see the can on the lower left).
Home made dynamat!
Prior to gluing the insulation on I painted the frame part of the underside with the same enamel paint I had mixed up for the engine bay (after cleaning it with thinners).
The intention is to help stop radiant heat from the bonnet heating up the engine bay battery packs on hot summer days.

Headlining Replacement - Making the Headlining

At the start of the Vogue project we (wife and I) had decided to totally strip the Red Vinyl interior and replace it with a light grey and dark blue velour trim. The job we were (and still are) least looking forward to was replacing the headlining. The headlining is the bit of Vinyl or fabric above your head that lines the inside of the roof. Older cars have what is called a "suspended" or bowed headlining.

The headlining is held in place by bowed pieces of metal that clip to the sides of the inside of the roof.

Here the vinyl headlining is peeled back showing one of five bows.

The headlining was carefully removed and layed out.

The new headlining fabric. This isn't the same grey as we will be using for the two-tone interior. This is a little darker and was recommended for the headlining.

Marked up with dressmaking chalk ready to cut.

The other half does her bit.

The bows are threaded through a loop of fabric the runs the width of the headlining. The old lining used a kind of calico. We are using satin because we could get it in the correct width.

The headlining isn't in yet but we did find a 15mm thick acoustic foam to replace the old horsehair (or something) insulation in the roof. Here is it glued in with the bows holding it in temporarily.

Actually installing the headlining... well soon.

Brake Pedal Assembly

The brake pedal assembly has spare bolts for the clutch which I don't have (a clutch that is). The bolts form part of my battery tray mounting so I thought it would be more impressive if I cleaned it up somewhat.

Before.

The firewall under the assembly. The rust was surface and easy to treat.

 
After. I forgot to take photos before fitting it.

There was no undue wear in the main pivot but it took the better part of 45 minutes to re-assemble it once it was greased and ready to assemble. I had a lot of trouble getting the anti-rattle washers back in. The pedal rubber came back to life with some scrubbing and Glycerin treatment. (Later addition. I also swapped the rubber sleeve on the return limit bar with the one from the other side - for the non-existant clutch pedal. Interesting that it's exactly the same mounting for a manual but the actual pedal must be narrower.)