Sound Deadening and New Upholstery

June 26, 2011 - It's been three weeks since the maiden road test and I've incurred a minor setback. In the push for the maiden voyage, I sprained/strained my left wrist which I broke previously 4 years ago. The doc said to cool it for a while and so I really haven't accomplished much since then. However, yesterday I did start back up.

I ordered some sound deadening material called Fatmat. After researching sound deadening material, I decided on Fatmat (36sq ft for $67) as it was fairly inexpensive compared to it's major competitor Dynamat (36 sq ft for $300). Both are almost identical in their composition and I'm not sure why Dynamat demands so much for their product.

I realized that with only a thin sheet of metal between me and the road, road noise would be fairly amplified especially with the car being virtually silent. So I decided some sound deadening would be the right way to go.

I received nine pieces of 18"x32" and used four of them on the car. Here's what was left:



It was really easy to install but time consuming. As the instructions suggested, I cut cardboard templates and fit them before cutting the Fatmat. I just hope all of the work installing it pays off.

Here's a few pics after installed.






I've had the seats and the back padding reupholstered and boy do they look great. It wasn't cheap but I guess anything worth doing is worth doing well. I had the back padding upholstered first. The backing material itself needed some repair and the upholster did a fantastic job. Instead of using vinyl where the seat backs fit in, he used carpet which was his idea. Cost for the back padding re-upholstery: $550.



The seats were upholstered last with the same vinyl that was used on the back padding. Again, the upholsterer did a fantastic job. When he showed them to me I couldn't believe it. They looked as though they had just come from the factory. Cost for the two seats: $600.

Maiden Voyage

June 4, 2011 - It's been a couple weeks since my last blog but trust me, I have been quite busy. Since last blog, I have accomplished the following:

1. Refurbished the cv joints and axles
2. Strapped 20 of the Thundersky batteries together to form 5 4-cell packs
3. Wired her up and took her out for her maiden road test

I didn't take any pics of the cv joint refurb but it was a very tedious process. I discovered that the end of one of the axles was badly battered to the point where I couldn't slip or drive off the spider. I do have some shots of the good and bad axle ends though. Luckily, I was able to get a single axle off of eBay for $10.

Here's what a good axle end looks like:



And the bad axle end:



In preparation for the road test, I needed to strap 20 of the 40 cells together into 5 4-cell packs. I bought a polyester strapping kit off of eBay for $120 and with some practice got to where I could do some pretty good straps. I reused the ends that came with the batteries but not the metal strap bands. I could have reused them but I would of have to cut them down from the 5 battery length to 4 battery length and redrill the ends. It would have been cheaper but I like the polyester straps better. Here's a pic of the strapping in progress:



And a closeupof the strapper:



And some pics of the finished product:









And what we have all been waiting for, the Maiden Voyage (well maybe 3rd or 4th)