Hart's 1973 Porsche 914 Restoration / EV Conversion

Wiring Up Fuel Gauge Driver Plus

2011-11-06T18:24:00.009-05:00

Hi all, I know its been 2 months since my last blog. I guess apathy is setting in. Last week was Halloween and the 3rd anniversary of starting my restoration/conversion.

I have finally installed the Fuel Gauge Driver Plus from EVWorks in Australia. The Fuel Gauge Driver Plus or FGDP is a State of Charge device. SOC is the EV equivalent of a fuel gauge. What's really nice about this one is that it can actually drive the existing fuel gauge. It also has a couple of other nice features: 1) it can drive the tachometer as an ammeter and 2) it has a low State of Charge warning indicator.

Here's a picture of the Fuel Gauge Driver Plus from the EVWorks web site:

Here's a drawing of the device showing the inputs and outputs:

Here's the wiring diagram that I put together for the FGDP. The 914 fuel gauge has a low fuel warning light that I decided to use as the indicator for the low SOC warning indicator. The problem is that the FGDP only puts out a +5V 5mA output signal only capable of driving an LED. To drive the existing 12V lamp in the fuel gauge, I used the +5V 5mA output to drive a 2N2222 transistor and a 2.2KOhm resistor to switch on the lamp. I decided not to use the low SOC warning ind as a means to switch to a "limp-home" mode as I will be the only driver of this EV. I can also switch from the ammeter from the FGDP to a real tachometer of the motor speeed from a RechargeCar WarP Speed Sensor on the WarP 9 motor.

Here's the FDGP, low SOC warning ind circuit, and 12V power momentary switch in a plastic enclosure. The enclosure is located in the front trunk and the device is on the most positive leg of the traction pack cable just before it connects to the emergency breaker and positive contactor.

Here's a closeup of the fuel gauge. You can clearly see the low fuel light is lit up as the orange ind.

And another closeup of of both fuel gauge and tachometer:

Targa Top Vinyl and Front Trunk relay Wiring

2011-09-06T01:31:00.005-04:00

September 6, 2011 - It has been a busy week and I wanted to make sure I blogged about all of it. It took me a while to obtain most of the polished aluminum trim pieces for the targa sail but I finally got the last piece from AutoAtlanta last week.

I tried to obtain some better rear sail trim pieces but haven't been successful. These are the curved pieces that are very expensive at $200 or better a piece so I've ve decided to make do with the ones that I have. Apparently the previous owners of the two pair that I do have didn't know about the inner clip with a bolt that goes thru the wheel well and a nut that screws on from underneath. They used screws thru the aluminum into the frame. Ouch!

I also ordered the sail vinyl from 914 Appearance and Performance. They have the sail vinyl for $25. I received the vinyl a couple of weeks ago and the pieces fit perfectly.

Here's a very detailed writeup of how to install the vinyl sail on 914world.com forum.

I started with the sail top and used 3M spray glue and sprayed criss-cross both top and vinyl. My neighbor Gene helped me to hold the long vinyl piece while I slowly pressed it onto the sail top. It went on fairly easily.

I then went on to one of the sails. Sprayed it and the vinyl with glue and then slowly pressed on the vinyl. Like i said before, the cut vinyl fit perfectly. I only had to cut slits to get it to lay down flat in the curve.

Here's a shot of the right side sail. There are actually four trims pieces that outline the sail. The one on the left is the expensive curved piece. The one on the top is a short piece. The one on the right also holds the vertical targa to window seal. And finally the one on the bottom is a thin piece that can also be expensive.

Here's a shot of the sail top. The trim piece on the left runs the entire length of the sail or roll bar. Its held in place by three very unusual loking clips that I also had to purchase from AutoAtlantaut was very necessary.

Here's the left side sail. You can actually make out the texture of the vinyl in this shot. If you look closely enough, you can see the rust bubbling in the lower left part of the sail. It the same story on the right side sail too. Apparently, the previous owner did not kill the rust on the inside of the sails priot to painting them. In an effort to get the car on the road as soon as possible I have decided not to remediate this rust issue at this time.

Here's a better shot showing both left side sail and sail top. If the sails didn't have the rust, I wouldn't have covered them in vinyl.

Here's a nice shot of newly installed windshield and covered sail.

And a final shot of the rear showing how the curved trim pieces cover up the ends of the long rear trim piece.

Now onto the front trunk relay board wiring. The relay board consists of five relays, terminal block, and six fuse gang block. The relays consist of: 1) Off-board charger interlock, 2) On-board charger interlock, 3) Key Switch relay, 4) Windshield washer pump relay, and 5) Electric Antenna motor relay. The components were mounted onto a clear lucite panel that mounts onto the front battery box.

Here's a shot of the nearly completely wired:

Windshield Install

2011-09-05T21:19:00.009-04:00

September 5, 2011 - It's been a month since my last blog entry but not for lack of activity. Wednesday of last week, I had Frank Fountas of C Thru Glass and Security Films, a classic/custom car installation specialist referred by the Glass Doctor, come and install the teener's windshield and rear window.

I was quite anxious about the install due to great difficulty I incurred in acquiring the windshield. This was the fourth windshield that I had shipped. The first three were broken in transit. But Frank reassured me that the install would be routine given a fairly straight frame. It turned out the frame was about perfect.

Once Frank and his assistant arrived and introductions made, it was stricly business. They both went to work on the car. They started out by taping off the windshield frame:

Here's a shot of the rear window frame prior to installation.

Here's Frank cleaning up the windshield:

The windshield frame totally taped off:

Here they are applying the black urethane prep to the frame:

Continuing to apply the black urethane prep:

Installing the foam rubber seal:

Continuing to install the foam rubber seal:

More foam rubbber seal:

Close up of left top corner:

Closeup of left bottom corner; you can see the lower windshield to dash seal sitting on top of the foam rubber windshield seal:

Test fitting the windshield:

Checking for a good seating all the way around:

Plugging the holes from the plastic blocks that secured the original chrome trim in place:

Continuing to the plug the chrome trim plastic block holes:

Fitting the new windshield chrome replacement rubber seal:

Continuing to fit the new windshield chrome replacement rubber seal:

Cutting off the new windshield chrome replacement rubber seal excess:

Perfect fitment of the new windshield chrome replacement rubber seal:

Adding a fine bead of urethane to the rubber seal:

More fine beads of urethane to rubber seal:

Adding urethane to the windshield frame. Frank told me that urethane has an adhesive strength of 400 lbs/sq in. This is how the windshield frame of new cars is the part of the structural intregrity of the frame.

Finally mounting the windshield:

In she goes:

Light tapping to ensure a good seating:

More pressure to squeeze the urethane into places it ought to go:

Now a final inspection to ensure a tight seal:

Checking the inside for excess urethane. Looking pretty good.

Prepping the rear window frame:

Installing the rear window:

Pressing the window into the urethane for a good seal:

Cleanup work:

The front windshield looks awesome:

Rear window looks great too:

Closeup of rear window showing the engine deck lid seal. This was installed prior to the window install.

Isn't she awesome?

I am very glad I had a pro install the windshield and rear window. Not only did they come to me but their prices were more than reasonable, $95 for the first hour and $55 for every hour after that. The total install time was less than one and a half hours and under $120. Wow!!! Here's Frank's business card.

Plugging the Heater Tube Holes

2011-08-03T21:33:00.005-04:00

August 3, 2011 - It's been a few weeks since my last post and I have to admit, I have been rather lazy of late. I have been waiting on a couple of items to come in, like the somewhat expensive chrome trim for the windshield and windows from AutoAtlanta that hold the new rubber seals from 914rubber.com. Also, I just received the heater tube plugs from CAPlugs which is what this blog is about.

I had been searching for some CAPlugs which is what ElectroAutomotive suggested using to plug the 914 heater tube ends. I found some distributors but they all looked like they wanted to do high volume sales. I e-mailed the EVDL without much luck except getting the same list I had previously "Googled". After a couple of weeks, I received an e-mail from Stephen Kocsis of CAPlugs.com who kindly offered to send some samples of what I needed. The CAPug.com catalog is overwhelming to say the least; they must have over a thousand different plastic products to choose from. However, I did find the two different sizes CAPlugs that I needed and e-mailed them off to Stephen. About a week later, I received six of the CAPlugs that were exactly what I needed.

You're probably wondering why I need to plug the heater tube holes. I'm using the heater tubes to connect the front battery pack to the rear back battery pack via heavy 2/0 cables. I'm also routing wires from the distributed charger to the rear pack via the heater tube. The CAPlugs not only prevent the cables/wires from chaffing on the metal tube hole edge's and prevent any water from entering the tubes and causing rust corrosion, but also give a nice finishing touch as well.

There are a total of six heater tube holes: two in the engine compartment, two in the passenger compartment, and two in the front trunk compartment that leads to the passenger compartment.

Here are pics showing the left engine compartment heater tube CAPlugs:

The right heater tube is mostly covered by the controller and thereby can't show its use. Here are some pics of the passenger heater tube CAPlugs:

Only one of the right passenger heater tube:

And finally some pics of the front trunk heater holes. Theese holes were a liitle too large for the CAPlug that I thought would fit there. So, I used some 5/16" ID fuel hose split down the center and siliconed the hose around the opening so the CAPlug would fit nice and tight.

Here's the right side:

And the left side. Notice the distributed charger wires coming up from the rear pack. I have five 12V battery packs in the rear. Each 12V pack needs two wires to charge for a total of 10 wires. Also a large 10gauge black wire that will connect an on-board charger to the most negative point of the pack.

Digital Dashboard Revisited

2011-07-17T17:29:00.015-04:00

July 17, 2011 - As I've had some idle time waiting on my wrist to get better, I've revisited the Digital Dashboard I blogged about back in Oct 2009. This time around I've reduced the scope and hopefully the cost of such a system.

Designing a digital dashboard can be a rather daunting experience, from designing the display to designing the circuits to sample the analog inputs. All in all, a lot of work for one person.

The previous design incorporated a small automotive computer or carputer and a 7in touch display running RideRunner running within a Windows environment. The analog inputs were sampled using a FusionBrain microcontroller.

The new design takes advantage of technological advancements of Google's Android OS and the number of inexpensive Android tablets. The analog sampling still uses a microcontroller but the less expensive Arduino.

The end goal of the display system is two-pronged: 1) Display state of charge information (how much of traction has been used/is available) and 2) display traction pack state of health information. SOH is what I'm using as my BMS.

The SOC information is displayed as a battery showing the percentage discharged in both grpahical and numerical form. The primary SOH informnation is displayed underneath the SOC image as two batteries, one representing the front traction pack half and another representing the rear traction pack half.

A brief word about my traction pack setup. My traction pack is comprised of 40 Thundersky 200AH LiFePO4 battery cells. I am packaging 4 cells into a single battery pack of 13.2V (3.3V/cell nominal). The front and rear halves will contain 5 battery packs each for a total of 132V or 66V each half. It is much easier to monitor 10 of something than 40. The trick is to set the threshold values such that you can determine when a singe cell is going low and thus the battery pack will change color.

Here is a snapshot of the primary display screen:

By simply touching one of the SOH batteries on screen, the secondary SOH screen can be displayed. This screen shows an array of five batteries for the front traction pack half and an array of five batteries for the rear traction pack half. Each battery shows it's voltage and is colored according to its threshold. Green means OK, orange means warning threshold met, and red means low voltage threshold has been reached. Both warning and low voltage thresholds are soft and can be altered via menu selection.

Here is a snapshot of a good secondary display screen:

Here's a shot of SOC at 20% (warning level) and the rear traction pack indicating warning threshold has been reached:

Here's a shot of SOC at 10% (near empty):

And a shot of the secondary display showing which batteries in the rear traction pack that have reached warning threshold:

Let's talk about analog sampling using the Arduino. The Arduino is a rather very elegant low-cost sampling solution. An Arduino Uno costs about $25 and its ethernet shield about $35.

Here's a shot of an Arduino Uno:

The sampling of the shunt millivoltage presented the most difficult challenge. This differential voltage needed to be amplified from 50mV to about 5V for the Arduino analog PIN to pick it up and the op amp required a very stable source voltage.

The sampling of the battery pack voltage was pretty straight forward. A simple voltage divider would suffice but I wanted to isolate the traction pack voltage too, so I opted for FusionBrain's opto isolator board previously mentioned in Oct 2009 blog. This board has four channels so I can sample four battery pack voltages with a single board.

Without going into a lot of schematic details here, I'm posting a flow diagram instead. I'll post the detail schematics later when I have finalized the design details.

One area of potential complexity is how the Arduino will communicate with the Android tablet. My current table, a $200 Chinese SuperPad, has a 10baseT connection at it's base but also supports WiFi. Unfortunately, it freezes on a daily basis and as such probably won't make a viable auto display solution. However, it will be suitable enough to resolve a number of connectivity issues as most of the newer tablets won't have a 10baseT connection but will be WiFi ready. The Arduino will communicate to the Android via UDP not TCP/IP as UDP is connectionless and if packets are dropped it really won't matter. I think the refresh rate will be somewhere about 10X a second which makes it useless for realtime RPM displays but ideal for what my goals are.

Here's my Superpad:

The state of charge gauge while on the surface looks rather simple; however, the concept can be quite complex. Do you count the amp-hours while you charge or do you simply reset to 100% after charging is complete? I'm tending to the latter as it will just be easier to implement. But the state information must be saved off when the android is powered down and the app stopped. The state information must then be restored when the Android is powered up and the app started. Thank goodness for an SQL lite implementation availble on Android; this will make saving and updating the SOC state information much simpler.

Learning how to program the Android OS has been a very steep learning curve. I attempted to learn it about 6 months when I bought the Superpad, got very frustrated, and quit. But when I sprained my wrist, I decided to give it another try and this time came away much more successful.

Sound Deadening and New Upholstery

2011-06-26T03:41:00.003-04:00

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

2011-06-04T18:29:00.009-04:00

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)

Front and Middle Battery Rack Installation

2011-05-17T00:16:00.007-04:00

May 17, 2011 - I've been quite the busy bee since posting last weekend. I have been able to accomplish the following tasks:

1 - Re-install the fresh air blower and control boxes
2 - Install the Front Battery Rack and Box
3 - Install the Middle Battery Rack and Box

Re-installing the fresh air blower and control boxes was a major PITA. Thanks to the kind contributors at 914world.com, I was able to figure out how to re-cable it all back together and actually make it work with the climate control assembly in the dash. Here's a pic of it all back together, minus of course, the hoses that I have yet to order that connect the blower to the control boxes and the control boxes to the dash vents. I can actually push the blower lever to the three positions and feel the air come out of the blower at the correct settings.

Here is a pic of the passenger side control box with the control cables correctly hooked up.

Driver's side control box:

And fresh air blower showing one of the exhaust vents with the new seal:

Now, onto the more interesting stuff. Here's the front trunk prior to battery rack install:

And a shot of the battery rack installed. Just need to drill four holes in the rear and four in the front. The rear used two bars with two bolts welded to each pushed up from the bottom and attached to the rack using nylock nuts. ElectroAutomotive only provided one bar in the kit they sent me and thus I had to fabricate the second one. The front used 1/4" bolts and nylock nuts to hold down the tabs of the rack.

And, of course, a gratutious shot of the front battery box installed.

Moving on to the middle battery rack. Here's a pic of the driver side rack mount. What's interesting here is that the rack mount uses the two top bolts of the stabilizer arm to attach to.

And a pic of the passenger side rack mount which also uses the two top bolts of the stabilizer arm to attach to.

And of course, ElectroAutomotive also failed to send me the two pieces of 1-1/2" x 29" angle iron cross beams. I only ordered three things from EA, 1) battery rack/box kit, 2) motor adaptor, and 3) motor mount. Not only did I not get a detailed itemized list so I could not check what I didn't get (very sneaky of them) but I failed to receive the exhaust kit which is included in the kit. Now, bare in mind I don't need it, but I paid for it and never got it. I did complain in e-mails and letters to no avail. Also, the motor mount was also incorrectly drilled for mounting to my Warp9 which I blogged about previously. Here's a pic of the entire middel rack assembly installed:

Another gratuitious shot of the middle battery box installed:

And yet another but showing both front and middle battery boxes installed:

Stay tuned for more exciting developments as we get closer to getting this EV on the road and experiencing the "grin".

Rear Battery Rack Installation

2011-05-08T22:54:00.004-04:00

May 8, 2011 - Another week has come and gone and forward progress continues. This week I successfully completed the following tasks:

1 - Restored the fresh air blower box
2 - Installed the windshield wiper
3 - Installed the Rear Battery Box

Since I was getting close to putting in the battery racks and boxes, I decided it was time to button up the front firewall area and reinstall the windshield wiper and fresh air box. Firstly, I had to refurbish the fresh air blower box. I ordered the fresh air blower seal kit from 914rubber.com for about $18. It contained seals for the blower, blower valves, and blower box to cowl. Here's a pic of the fresh air blower box with the blower seal installed:

Here's one of the refursbished blower valves:

Here's a shot of the top of the blower box with the new seal, this mates with bottom of the fresh air cowl:

And here's a shot of the screen wrapped in screen material ready to installed:

I can't install the fresh air blower until the windshield wiper is installed and then reinstall the climate control assembly. When I took out the windshield wiper, I didn't know about the rack mount in the back and broke it. Even though the rack mount is NLA, I was able to find a suitable replacement from Aircraft Spruce for about $6.

Unfortunately, the new rack mount is 5/16" but the old one was 6mm, so I had to take apart the windshield wiper assembly and grind off the old nut that was brazed to the assembly. I took a shot of the assembly to remember hwo it went back together.

I was then able to reinstall the windshield wiper assembly with new rack mount:

Next up, tackling the rear battery rack mount. What a major PITA that was. Once I was able to get the rack mount properly fitted, I was able to drill the holes for the mount plates. Here's a shot of the passenger compartment mount plates installed:

Had to cut and grind a slot into the top of the controller heat sink to allow the rack to set correctly on the passenger side:

The driver side mounting plate was a little more difficult to negotiate:

Here's a passenger side shot of the rack properly installed and ready to take the battery box:

And a driver side shot of the rack installed:

And finally a shot of one side of the battery box installed with five batteries:

Engine Compartment Cabling and Motor-Transaxle Mounting

2011-05-01T22:14:00.013-04:00

May 1, 2011 - I took off Friday so I'd have a three day weekend to work on the car and got quite a good bit accomplished as a result. To start with, I finished the low-voltage wiring and the high-voltage cabling completed to a point where I could mount the motor/transaxle. To finish up, with a little help from neighbor Tony, we were able to mount the Motor/Transaxle firmly to the body.

What was exciting is that cabling the engine compartment indicates that I am not far from the end. I can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel so to speak. I started with the emergency breaker and cabled from it to the contactor and rear positive terminal block. And then from the contactor to the controller positive battery terminal. I got to use my new Juli YYQ-120A hydraulic crimper that I ordered from EVWorks in Australia for about $80 but with shipping via boat it came to around $135. I think Harbor Freight has its little brother for about $50 but I wanted something a little bit stouter. My first two attempts failed until I realized that the die they indicated to use for 2/0 cables was way to big for my connectors. So I used the next size die down which is for #1 cable and got really nice crimps. Here's the a shot of the crimping tool:

Here's a shot of the contactor cabled:

It may seem intuitive or obvious to some but you only put the terminal connectors on one end of each cable. Install the cable into the vehicle and then mark the top of the cable at the unterminated end. Then take the cable out and crimp on the connector so that the top of the connector lines up with your mark on the cable. This is so that you won't have to twist the cable unnaturally and put undue torsion stress on any connection point. And a shot of the emergency breaker cabled:

And a shot of the rear positive terminal block cabled. A cable from the front pack will connect to this terminal block as well.

And then a shot of it all:

So here's the motor/transaxle getting ready to go in. I forgot to attach the engine cross-member to the motor-mount before I took the pic.

It took a little bit of wrangling but thanks to the tranmission scissor jack and regular jack, Tony and I were able to raise the motor/transaxle up high enough to firstly attach the transaxle to it's mounts.

Once the transaxle mount points were slightly tightened, we were able to raise the motor end so that the cross-member end-points touched the mounts points. We slipped the 3/8" bolts into the mount points and cross-member end-points and snugged them up.

The rest of these shots are of the motor sitting pretty in the engine compartment. Here's a shot from the left side of the car:

And a shot from the top of the car looking down into the engine compartment facing rearward:

And finally a shot from the right side of the car:

There are so many things to do next I won't begin to list them here but think about what next to attack during the upcoming week. Until then, Caio!

Wiring Diagrams

2011-04-27T01:47:00.012-04:00

April 27, 2011 - I thought that since I'm wiring up the car it would be a good idea to take my pencil diagrams and convert them to Visios and publish them. Its not so much for review as it is to share with others that may be struggling with their designs. I do have ElectroAuto's installation manual which helps a great deal but my design is different enough and the engineer in me needs to document it so that I don't make any mistakes when wiring it all up.

There are three basic diagrams:

1 - High Voltage Physical Wiring Diagram
2 - Engine Compartment Wiring Diagram
3 - Front Trunk Compartment Wiring Diagram

Here's the High Voltage Physical Wiring Diagram:

And the Engine Compartment Wiring Diagram:

And finally the Front Trunk Compartment Wiring Diagram:

Potbox Part Deaux

2011-04-24T23:26:00.005-04:00

April 24, 2011 - Another week has passed, and another 14-18 hours worth of work has been performed. On Fri, I received the Curtis PB-6 potbox which looks like it was shipped from KTA out of Ramona, CA. I have to say that this piece of gear is exceptionally well made. The construction of the box itself and the arm is of high quality material. The microswitch is definitely industrial grade and potentiometer looks to be of highgrade electronics as well.

Closer inspection revealed that there is very little difference between the potbox that Mark Hazen of EVHelp made for my controller and this Curtis PB-6. In fact, the only two differences were the potentiometer that was in the Curtis was a 0-5KOhm while the one in Mark's potbox was 0-2KOhm wired the opposite 2KOhm-0 and the diode to prevent the microswitch contacts from arcing from the opening of the contactor coil. So I replaced the potentiometer on the Curtis with a reverse wired 0-2KOhm and voila, it works just like the one Mark fabricated.

Here's a close up of the Curtis potbox mounted on an aluminum mount I fabricated with the help of two of my neighbors, Gene and Tony.

To mount the fabricated aluminum mount onto the firewall, I drilled four 3/8" holes and installed four 1/4" Rivnuts. Here's a shot of the installation site with the rivnuts freshly installed:

I then used 1/4" bolts to fasten the potbox mounts to the Rivnuts. I have to say, I am much happier with this arrangement than I was with the EVHelp's potbox mounted in the aluminum box.

Here's a great shot of the entire lower firewall showing the potbox on the left, emergency breaker in the center, and controller on the right. You can definitely see that the controller bottom is flush with the bottom of the firewall, thus the need to add a ramair scoop.

Next, I moved on to increase the offset between the firewall and the controller that will allow air to flow over and hopefully cool the heatsink fins. I will add a ramair scoop to the bottom of the controller that will extended below the firewall and redirect oncoming air into the new formed cooling cavity. I increased the offset from 1" to 2-1/2" which created a cooling channel of 1-1/2". Here's a shot from the left side of the controller:

Here's a shot from the bottom of the car looking up:

And finally a shot from the top of the controller looking down:

What's left is to wire up a few more things, probably a dozen wires or so and cable up the emergency breaker before I mount the motor and transaxle.

Pot box issue resolved

2011-04-21T00:04:00.010-04:00

April 20, 2011 - Last time I blogged about how the pot box from Mark Hazen at EVHelp wasn't working out with my throttle cable and how I had ordered a Curtis PB-6 to replace it. A couple of days ago Mark e-mailed me to see how things were going with the conversion and I relayed to him the problem I was having and how I was going to solve it. It's a good thing Mark and I had the mail exchange because I found out that the Curtis pot box won't work. Here is what Mark had to say about that: "The Curtis PB-6 throttle control will NOT work on my controller. It will cause the controller to start at full throttle with a huge surge in power that will jerk your head back and perhaps destroy the controller and cause an accident in your garage."

Hoo boy, what a catastrpohe waiting to happen. Mark pointed out that the Ohm range in his pot box was backward (2KOhm - 0Ohm) and different than the Curtis PB-6 (0Ohm - 5KOhm) and he does make reference to the range in his installation manual but does not note that his controller is incompatible with the Curtis pot box.

Anyhow, he recommended that I lower the position of the cable attach point on the pot box arm to accomodate the short throw of my throttle cable. It took two tries but I finally got it right. What didn't help was the fact that the throttle cable was also partially binding on the clutch cable assembly preventing full throw of the cable. Once I figured out where it was binding and freed it up, the cable travelled full distance and freely.

I also had to extend the offset on the pot box from 1-1/2" to 2-1/2" to allow this additional length. Once I had the new offset mounted and attached the cable, when I pressed the accelerator pedal fully, I got full deflection on the pot box. And yes, I plan to fabricate a thicker and stronger offset than the thin aluminum one shown. Whew!! Anyone wanna buy a brand new Curtis PB-6 when I get it? $80 plus shipping.

Here's the pot box at zero deflection:

And at full deflection:

April 21, 2011 - Update to resolution. OK, my boss Adam Kreuger and EVHelp's Mark Hazen must be smarter than me because when they saw my offset they both just kind of snickered and said "get rid off the offset and just cut the cable", independently of course. DOH!!!! Thank goodness for out of the box thinkers. Of course, I soldered the end of the cable so it won't fray. I'm worried that the cable may slip in barrel connector so I will also solder the cable area that is being clamped down on for extra hold strength.

So here's a pic of the zero offset zero deflection:

And another at full deflection:

Now just to mount the pot box on the firewall. Oh, and Mark also lamented that I should pull the controller off of the firewall to allow air flow. I'm guessing 1-2 inches should suffice plus the addition of a ram air scoop that dips below the firewall should force enough air over the cooling fins to keep it from over heating. He also mentioned that I may want to look at adding some sort of high volume blower that blows lengthwise over the heatsink fins.

Low-Voltage Wiring Installation

2011-04-18T01:17:00.010-04:00

April 17, 2011 - Believe it or not, I continue to make forward progress. I still haven't mounted the motor/transaxle but with good reason. For this blog entry, I have started wiring the low-voltage circuits in the engine compartment affectionately known as the "hell-hole".

Now, the reason I haven't mounted the motor/transaxle assembly into the engine compartment is that the original throttle cable I purchased from Pelican Parts became defective last weekend. From what I understand, these Gem cables are notorius for breaking. So I ordered another Gem and a higher-priced Terri cable from Pelican Parts. Pelican Parts is an awesome supplier. They keep you well-informed during the entire order processing flow via e-mail, and ship the merchandise ASAP.

So I received the new cables mid last week and immediately installed the Terri cable which I really like over the Gem cable. I hooked it up to the custom pot box from Mark Hazen at EVHelp.com (it came with the controller I purchased from him) but to my dismay, when the accelerator is pushed all the way to the floor, the pot box lever only defleected about 1/4 way. Mark's pot box doesn't start registering the pot changes until the final quarter or third of the defleection. Hmmm, this won't do. Here's a pic of the pot box enclosed in a nice aluminum box I purchased from MCM Electronics for $15.

Notice the aluminum extension on the left. I needed to extend the length of the enclosure as the cable was too long and no effective way to shorten it. Soooo, I've ordered a standard Curtis PB-6 from Electric Vehicles of Washington for $80, the cheapeast I could find without getting a knock-off from China. It looks the the deflection of a common Curtis PB-6 is about half or less than that of Mark's pot box.

Next up is the installation of the emergency breaker. I got this 120VDC Airpax breaker brand new off of eBay for a very nice price. It fits very nicely onto the firewall. Obviously, I haven't wired it up to the 2/0 cables yet but that part is coming soon enough. I may go ahead and start the 2/0 cabling before I mount the motor/transaxle assembly. It will be that much more difficult to do so after its mounted. Here's a closeup of the breaker. The wire attached to the breaker switch is the heater flap cable which is connected to a lever located very close to the stick shift. Easily accessible if motor ever attempts to runaway for whatever reason.

And another shot showing the breaker in geographical relation to the controller.

At last, I spent a lot of time on a mechanic's crawler getting in and out the the hellhole. What a PITA. But I was able to get most of the low-voltage wiring completed. I just need to hookup less than a dozen wires or so to complete the task. You can also see the fuse block at the bottom left that will contain a Ferraz Shawmut fast-acting amp-trap fuse. I haven't figured out where to mount it yet but am leaning toward the shelf that is at a 45 degree angle to where it currently sits. The negative end of the front pack will connect to one end of the fuse and the positive end of the rear pack will connect to the other end.

In this picture you can see the relay (left of the main contactor) I've added for the Motor Temp switch that comes with the Warp9 and is normally closed but opens when over temp is reached. I'm using the relay to complete the circuit to ground to the Oil Pressure indicator (red) on the Fuel Gauge. It hasn't been wired up yet.

Here's a closeup of the control box from EVHelp which has 3 relays built into it to prevent an improper startup sequence, mainly, 1) parking break off, 2) foot off accelerator, and 3) foot on brake.

Here's a closeup of terminal block #2. The in-line fuse that is resting on one of the contactor high-voltage terminals comes from the control box and will be wired up to pack side with a ring connector.

Mounting Issue Resolved

2011-04-06T00:06:00.005-04:00

April 6, 2011 - I was able to resolve the motor mounting issue by having additional holes drilled. Apparently, whoever EletricAutomotive used to fabricate the motor mount, they drilled the holes backwards or in a mirrored state. I measured and marked mirrored bolt holes into the motor mount and took it to Dick Warren's Machine Works here in Tampa where they drilled the new holes for $5. As you can see, the holes aligned perfectly.

I purschased new tranmission mounts from Pelican Parts for $23/each, 2 required along with new angled speedometer drive for $97 and new backup light switch for $85. I also ordered a new transmission ground strap for $14 and a gallon of Swepco transmission fluid for $54. Altogther, the order amount was about $300. Ouch, ouch, and did I say ouch?

So, only things left to do before mounting the motor/transaxle assembly is to mount the pot box and emergency breaker and wire up the control circuits. A little more work but hopefully something I can do over the next several days so I can mount the assembly this weekend.

Motor Mounting Issue

2011-03-29T17:30:00.012-04:00

March 29, 2011 - I meant to post this on my Sunday's blog but just as well to have a separate post for the myriad of people that will be just be looking at this issue for me.

The problem is that the mounting holes on the front side (non-transmission) of the motor for the motor mount are not parallel to the horizontal (ground). I ordered this motor mount from EA about 2 yrs ago and will just assume that its a total waste of time to even bother contacting them about it.

Here's a shot of the entire assembly. Note the top of the transmission profile plate in the background.

Here's a close up of the front of the motor:

Now bare in mind that the transmission profile plate can only be mounted in four distinct positions in relation to where the terminal posts are located. As you can see above, they are located on the left and down as to be closest to where the controller will be mounted.

So the motor mount holes are off about 30 degrees. I can think off several options here to resolve this issue but would like any/all to weigh in.

Can the front cap plate be rotated to the correct position? Or can it be locked in at only the two distinct angles? I probably need to talk to either Netgain or Jon at Grassroots EV from whom I purchased the motor.

Fabricate a new motor mount that will fit the existing holes. Another PITA.

Drill two new holes and tap them on the motor end cap. Ughhh!!

And the resolution, drill the motor mount with new holes that line up on the end cap. Doh!

So if any of you can tell me what the best approach is, I'd really appreciate an e-mail at hartpenn@verizon.net

Thanks,
Hart

Mounting Adaptor to Motor and Mating to Transaxle

2011-03-27T20:18:00.015-04:00

March 27, 2011 - I felt so pumped up after Monday's blog that I decided to do some heavy lifting, and I mean heavy lifting as in 200 lbs of Netgain Warp9 Electric Motor. It took two of us to get it out of the box and up onto the workbench. They say its really about 140-150 lbs but my buddy Gene and I guessed it's more like 180-200 lbs. Here's a shot of this beast just out of the box:

And a side view of just how big this thing is:

And finally, a close up end view with ruler for scale. This hulk is 9in in diameter, and 16in long.

Sooooo, the next step in completing the conversion is to actually mount the motor and transaxle in the vehicle. But first, we must mount the adaptor to the motor. The adaptor is comprised of four components which are CNC machined out of aluminum except for the hub and bushing which are steel.

Spacer Ring

Transmission Profile Plate

Bushing

The Spacer Ring is 2 1/2 in thick and bolts directly on the the transmssion end of the motor. Here's a three-quarter shot of the spacer ring attached to the motor. You can see the slotted end of the motor shaft with the motor key already in place. The large hole in the spacer ring will accommodate the hub/bushing when it is installed.

The Adaptor Spacer Ring is the first component to be mounted to the motor. Here is side view of the spacer ring mounted to the motor. This is a solid piece of aluminum that weighs about 12-15 lbs and effectively extends the length of the motor and houses the hub/bushing component.

Here is a close up view of the Adaptor Spacer Ring mounted to the motor. You can clearly see the aramature spline with the motor key fitted into the slot on the shaft.

The second piece to be mounted is the Transmission Adaptor Profile Plate. This component mates perfectally to the trasnaxle housing. This piece is obviously manufactured just for the 914 transaxle. Note the countersunk holes in the plate to accommodate the flathead bolts.

Here's a shot of the transmission profile plate mounted to the spacer ring. Note the flathead bolts are countersunk into the plate.

Here's a close up of the transmission profile plate mounted to the spacer ring. You can also see the hub and bushing components mounted onto the armature spline.

And here's a closeup of the hub and bushing component mounted onto the motor shaft. The hub is mounted onto the shaft by tightening the hex key screws which pulls in the bushing which clamps onto the shaft.

The next piece to be mounted is the flywheel which bolts onto the hub and bushing component already slightly tightened onto the motor shaft.

Here's a close up view of the flywheel mounted onto the hub and bushing component.

And finally a side view of the flywheel mounted to the hub and bushing component. The distance from the outside flat edge of the flywheel to the surface on the Transmission Profile Plate where it mates with the transmission is 1.77" plus or minus .010". I purchased a Cen-Tech 4 in digital caliper from Harbor Freight for $19.99 and was meticulously able to achieve this clearance within a few tries.

Unfortunately, I was unable to take pics of the clutch disc and pressure plate before we mated the motor assembly to the transaxle. I was able to raise the transaxle almost up perfectly to mate the motor assembly to it but still needed the assitance of my neighbors Gene and Sam to successfully guide the transaxle spline into the pilot bearing which we previously pressed into the hub.

Here's a close up of the Motor / Adaptor Spacer Ring / Transmission Profile Plate / Flywheel / Clutch / Pressure Plate mated to the Transaxle.

And finally, a side view of the Complete view of the Motor / AdaptorSpacer Ring / Transmission Profile Plate / Flywheel / Clutch / Pressure Plate mated to the Transaxle.

Even though I was not successful in actually mounting the motor/transaxle assembly into the vehicle , I feel this mating procedure was great progress. What remains prior to the mounting the motor/transaxle is the installation of the control box and pot box wiring and a few other wiring items. Hopefully, I can complete that during the week in time to install the motor assembly this next weekend.

New Thundersky Batteries and New Tires / Wheels

2011-03-21T23:52:00.017-04:00

March 21, 2011 - Wow, it's been a whole 5 months since my last post and I am so ashamed. But I do have a lot to blog about now. First and foremost, I have 45 brand new Thundersky 200AH batteries. Woo hoo!!! And they are a thing of beauty. But boy are they big and heavy too.

Apparently, I ordered them at just the right time as now I understand that there is a backlog of shipping orders. I ordered my batteries from Dave Kois at CurrentEVTech. Dave was very communicative during the entire process and used Google CheckOut to ensure my purchase. I was very pleased with the overall transaction.

A big FedEx semi tractor trailer pulled up in front of my house way back in January and delivered these bad boys. I tried to tip the driver but he said he'd get fired if he accepted it. So we packed him up with bottles of water and cookies. Here's a pic of the crates. They were dropped off on a single pallet.

Here's a closer view of one of the crates. I've already taken them out and thrown them away but they were very well packed with styrofoam sheets all the way around, sides, bottom and top. As you can see with some difficulty, they are strapped five together with steel bands and aluminum ends. The steel bands are attached to the aluminum ends with nuts and bolts. It was a real pain in the a** getting each group of five out their respective crates. The steel banding of one set kept binding with the banding of the one next to it and had to be brute forced out.

Here's a closeup of four I pulled out of their bindings to inspect more closely:

These batteries are 11in tall, 2 3/4in thick, and 7 1/8in wide. Each one weighs approximately 13 pounds. I've measured a few of them and they all seem to have about 3.3V.

Here's another closeup of a battery with a coke can for scale.

While having the batteries is a good thing, having a complete glider is another. The restoration process is almost complete. I just need to have a windshield installed (have purchased two off of eBay and received both damaged, thru no fault of seller but shipper, definitely buy the insurance). And buy the $1k worth of rubber seals. Ouch.

But I have had the brand new mag wheels that I traded the engine for mounted on the new Classic All Season 165/80/15 tires I purchased from Tire Kingdom today for $369.28 thank you. I was so excited, I could hardly wait to get them home and mounted on the vehicle and boy do they make the car look good especially after sitting atop the sawhorses for almost two years.

Here's a side view. It almost looks like the rear end is jacked up off the ground but I assure you it is not. It's the new 180lb springs over the new Boge shock absorbers that make it look that way.

The aluminum mag wheels sat for so long in the garage that a couple of them pitted a little. But they still look good. I know the lug nuts look rusted but come on, they are the original 35 year old lugs. I'll splurge and buy some new chrome lugs once I get closer to getting on the road.

I'm not going to promise but I will seriously try to mount the transmission and motor this weekend. It may be all I can do to just mount the clutch and adaptor plate to the motor. I'll need to rent an engine hoist so I can mate the motor/adaptor/clutch assembly to the transmission. And then using a jack with a transmssion mount, jack the entire assembly up under the rear of the car and bolt it in place. Ooh boy, lots of work. More in my next blog. Caio.

Contactor and Control Box Installation

2010-10-24T19:45:00.016-04:00

October 24, 2010 - It's been 12 weeks since my last post, way too long if I'm to finish this project by 1st quarter 2011. I've been waiting on ordered parts like the contactor from EVSource which had been back ordered.

But I finally took the opportunity to install the contactor and control box in the engine compartment affectionately known as the "hellhole". The contactor is an Albright SW200 knock-off by Chinese manufacturer Nanfeng cost $88 from EVSource. According to the EVSource web site: "This contactor is rated at 250 amps continuous and 96VDC. It has a 12V coil, and comes with magnetic blowouts. A bracket and screws are included with the contactor. It has almost the identical size, dimensions, coil current draw, and internal spring force as the Albright SW-200 contactor." This contactor is pretty big at almost 7" in height and weighs about 3 lbs.

Here's a side view of the contactor:

And front view:

The control box from EVHelp is a basic logic circuit that takes as input: 1) switched power, 2) parking brake ground, and 3) common terminal of potbox microswitch (result of brake being pressed). This ensures that the contactor won't close unless the key switch is on, parking is off, and brake has been pressed.

Here's the control box:

I'm using two 8-position European style terminal blocks, one for 12-volt connections, and one for high-voltage (120V) connections. Here's the terminal block:

I pressed 1/4" rivnuts into the interior wall and used 1/4" bolts to attach the contactor into place. I also used 6-32X rivnuts and 1/2" machine screws to anchor the control box into place. Here's some shots of the contactor and control box installed:

I'll mount the terminal blocks where the red circles are and hopefully wire-up the 12-volt control circuit some time this week or next weekend.

Brake Calipers Installed

2010-08-01T20:46:00.010-04:00

August 1, 2010 - It's been three weeks since my last post. Been kind of lazy lately. However, I have been designing the mid-engine compartment wiring over the last couple of weeks. As I have been following ElectroAutomotive's VoltsPorsche installation manual, my design is beginning to differ somewhat as I am going to incorporate Metric Mind's EVision metering system, see my June 17th post.

Today, though, I have been able to install both front and rear calipers. I have updated the front calipers with 1981 BMW 320i calipers which supply almost 50% more brake pad surface area. The BMW calipers are a good bit larger but fit almost perfectly. I purchased a pair from someone on 914world.com for about $200 over a year ago. They had already performed the slight machining required and refurbished them too.

Here's the left front:

And the right front:

And of course, don't forget the brake hoses.

Here's the new left front brake hose:

And the new right front brake hose:

I refusrbished the rear brake calipers myself with a kit from Automotion or Pelican Parts can't remember. I did use the tech notes from Pelican Parts though and it was extremely helpful. I used a copper colored high-temperature spray paint from Lowe's for about $8/can, brake caliper paint was quite expensive about $30-40 if I remember correctly. Oh yeah, forgot to mention I installed the rear rotors too. Believe it or not, they're held in place by two machines screws each.

Here's the right rear caliper:

And the new right rear brake hose:

Here's the left rear caliper:

And the new left rear brake hose:

I have also refurbished the rear swaybar. I wirebrushed it, rust encapsulated it, and then spray painted it with black enamel. I did the same to the swaybar links too.

Here's the rear swaybar and right link:

And the rear swaybar and left link:

Closeup of left rear swaybar link and new link bushings:

And right rear swaybar link and new link bushings:

Here's a brand new rear swaybar bushing:

And a full view of the rear swaybar and links:

I just need to find the rear caliper brake fittings to the brake hose and install them. Also need to install the front fittings from the master cylinder along with the brake reservoir and fittings to the master cylinder. More next weekend. Caio!

EV Controller Installed

2010-07-11T22:37:00.018-04:00

July 11, 2010 - I've installed the first EV Component, the controller. Woohoo!! This is a major milestone as I've been in restoration mode for almost two years. The controller is a proprietary design by Mark Hazen of EVHelp.com. Mark has a patent-pending on his design where instead of a straight bus of MOSFETs, they are arranged in a circle he calls the "Power Wheel". This arrangement allows the power to flow uniformly and heat to be transferred in the same way.

Due to the size of the controller, mounting plate, and heatsink, I had to alter the firewall by cutting out a piece of the shelf. I drilled a couple of holes at the bottom of the firewall and installed 1/4" rivnuts.

I had never heard of a rivnut before but I'm doing the majority of my install from ElectroAutomotive's VoltsPorsche installation manual and Mike Brown uses them whenever he can't get access to both sides of a mount point. I got my Rivnut kit from Harbor Freight for about $15.

Here's one of the bottom mount points with rivnut installed, both of them required rivnuts as I couldn't get access to the other side of the firewall.

Here's a shot of the controller installed, nicely snuggled into the lower right portion of the hellhole firewall. You can clearly see the controller terminals (B+, B-, and M-) and the control terminal which accepts connections from the Control Box. Mark's controller comes with a control box of his design which ensures that the parking brake is off, foot is off the accelerator, and foot is on the brake pedal before power is supplied to the controller.

Here's a closeup shot of the left lower mount point with standoff. I may have to use longer standoffs and bolts to allow enough room for air to flow between the firewall and heatsink. But I remember Mark saying he added the heatsink to ensure adequate cooling of the MOSFETs.

And a shot of the top of the controller showing the upper mount points and standoffs. I was able to install the bolts from the cockpit and use nylock nuts to fasten the controller's mount plate.

Another shot of the top of the controller but looking down into the hellhole from the outside.

And finally, a great shot of the entire firewall showing the nestled controller. You can also see the rear battery rack suspension mount posts mounted onto the control arm pivots aka suspension ears. I test fit the battery rack onto the mount posts to make sure that the controller would not interfere with the rack installation later. It's a tight fit but it works.

I'm going to try and mount the potbox assembly to the lower left portion of the firewall next weekend. Caio!

Mounting the rear wheel hubs

2010-07-05T23:20:00.020-04:00

July 5, 2010 - It's been a nice long 3-day weekend, mostly rainy here in FL, and sad to say but I don't have a lot of progress to show for it. I have been able to mount the rear wheel hubs back into the trailing arms. As the wheel bearings have already been pressed into the trailing arms and the trailing arms have already been mounted onto the frame, pressing the hubs into the wheel bearings posed somewhat of a problem. Alas, the solution was documented on a 914world.com forum, the Garage.

The solution was a straight forward and low-tech. Use an allthread of appropriate length and width, and washers and nuts that fit the allthread. Sandwich the trailing arm/bearing and wheel hub with the nuts and washers, and then slowly draw the hub into the bearing by tightening the nut/washers on the outside of the hub. Upon inspection of the setup, it was obvious that I would need a couple of pieces of 2x4, one inside the inner bearing well, and one outside the hub.

So here's a pic of the required components. The block in the foreground was cut to fit into the inner trailing arm bearing well where the driveshaft connected to the cv joint is usually located. The vertical 2x4 acts as a stabilizer because the allthread is approximately 3ft long. The allthread is 1/2in x 3ft.

I needed 2 1/2in nuts, 2 1/2in washers, and 2 3/4in washers.

Here's the allthread and inner block located just inside the trailing arm bearing well. The vertical 2x4 stabilizer keeps the allthread centered and from damaging the bearing.

Now here's the setup with the hub already seated into the bearing. A couple of things the forum recommeded was to freeze the hubs and coat the inside of the bearings and the outside of the hub race with grease. The frozen hub is then just pushed onto the bearing and the outer block, washers, and nut mounted. The nut is tightened relatively easily with a wrench and the hub drawn into the bearing due to the hub metal having contracted with the cold.

Here's a three-quarter view of the hub fully seated into the bearing. The hub really was easily pressed into the bearing after being frozen. I was quite surprised at how easy it went in considering nothing has been easy on this car.

And finally, the hub fully seated inside the bearing.

Next step is to mount the rear rotors. Then mount the calipers and brake pads on both front and rear rotors. Then bleed the brake system and ensure that the brakes actually work.

Front Suspension Installed

2010-06-18T21:06:00.010-04:00

June 18, 2010 - After most of last weekend 6/12-6/13 and this evening, I was able to wrap up re-installing the front suspension. Whew! What a job that was.

About a year ago, I spent about 2 weekends wirebrushing and sanding the control arms, auxillary support carrier, and shock aborber struts. I sprayed them with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator and then spray painted them with black enamel paint.

Of course, the really hard part was getting the old rubber bushings off of the control arms. With the aid of my neighbor Gene aka the Gas Doctor, we heated the control arms with a propane torch just enough to get the rubber soft and was then able to pry the control arm bushing sleeves off of the control arms.

I ordered new polygraphite front control arm bushings from Pelican Parts (a set of 4 for $20) and then proceeded to install them. That was no easy task in itself but my neighbor Tony helped me to brute force them on and into position. Did I say that it's really good to have helping neighbors? I couldn't do all of these things without my neighbors' help. Here's the bushings:

And here's how they fit on:

I purchased a brand new pair of Bilstein front struts from PartsGeek for about $230 over a year ago. I also purchased a set of turbo tie rods from PartsGeek for about $150 a little later. I really don't have a lot of money but if you purchase these items on a monthly basis over a year's period or more, it really is a lot less of a strain on your budget. Oh yeah, I almost forgot the 23mm SwayAway torsion bars from Don's Sport Vehicle for about $230 but it took them 3-4 months to get them to me.

Here's the left turbo tie rod installed:

And the right turbo tie rod:

The ball joints were about $70/piece for a total of $140 from PartsGeek; again, another monthly expense from over a year ago. I had to lower the control arm/carrier assembly after bolting it in place in order to install the ball joints. Once I got the ball joints in place at the bottom of the struts, I also had to lower the struts and slowly raised the control arm/carrier assembly to fit the ball joints into the control arm and then tighten the grooved nuts over the bottom of the ball joints afixing them and the struts to the control arms. Here's the left ball joint:

And right ball joint:

After I got the ball joints installed, I had to slowly raise the control arm/carrier/strut assembly until the top strut bolts fit thru the front shock tower holes. I added the tab washers and locking nuts to the top of the struts and tightened them down.

Both turbo tie rod and ball joint attached to the right strut:

And the left strut:

Here's the right control arm front bushing and torsion bar:

And the left control arm front bushing and torsion bar:

I just need to glue the torsion bar caps back into place and bolt the bushing sleeves to the bottom of the frame.

Evision and LiFePO4 in my future

2010-06-17T00:31:00.015-04:00

June 17, 2010 - I've finally made the mental decision to go with LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate) batteries instead of lead acid. The decision was a long and difficult one but after carefully weighing the facts, it was obvious that lithium was the intelligent way to go.

The cost of 20 US Battery US-2200 232AH batteries is approx $2600, would weigh 1240 lbs, provide 120V traction pack, may last 3-5 years, and would probably only get a range of perhaps 40-50 miles on a single charge with moderate driving.

The cost of 40 Thundersky TS-LFP200AHA batteries is approx $10000, would weigh 640 lbs, provide a 128V traction pack, may last 8-13 years, and would probably get a range of 80-100 miles on a single charge with moderate driving. Thundersky specs >= 3000 charge cycles for 80% DOD and >= 5000 charge cycles for 70% DOD.

What's amazing about the lithium batteries is that they have an energy density of almost 5 times that of lead acid batteries. That means that a lithium battery stores 5 times the power per kilogram of weight than lead acid and 2 times as much as NiMH.

There are two different form factor 200AH batteries from Thundersky. 4 cells will constitute a 12.8 battery pack with 10 batteries supplying 128V. The Type A packs will fit into the polypropylene battery boxes quite nicely. 5 packs will fit into the front box and 5 will also fit into the engine box both boxes will have room to spare. The Type B packs are a good bit larger than the Type A but will fit into the racks for the front and engine compartments.

Thundersky TS-LFP200AHA Type A is 11in H x 7-1/4in W x 2-3/4in L

Thundersky TS-LFP200AHA Type B is much larger at 10" H x 14-1/4" W x 2-1/4" L

Considering the overall cost of the restoration and conversion, even though the lithium batteries are 4 times the cost of lead acid batteries, the lithium batteries will provide the conversion with a quality traction pack that will make it comparable in range to that of the new Nissan Leaf. The lithium pack will also allow me the opportunity to drive a round-trip work commute without having to charge at work. The addtional power will allow me to install an air-conditioning system that is much needed here in FL.

To ensure that extra precaution is taken to protect my significant investment in lithium technology, I have decided to purchase an EVision system from Metric Mind. The main purpose of the EVision is to monitor the State of Charge and ensure that I don't exceed an 80% DOD.

Here's the EVision displayed in both color schemes. I like the blue and white display.

The EVision should barely fit into the Porsche's fuel gauge housing. The housing is about 95mm in diameter whereas the Evision is about 73mm in diameter and PC board is 86mm wide. Here's the fuel gauge:

And the EVision In-dash display:

I'm still trying to find out what the cost of the EVision is. The Metric Mind website currently says price is TBD but I seem to remember looking at the site about a year ago and thought it said $600-700 plus you need $100 worth of shunts, so, I'm going to budget about $1000.

Finally got a response from Victor Tikhonov of Metric Mind but he replied saying that pricing was still not available but that it shouldn't be more than $900. So my budget estimate was right on the mark.

Rear Suspension Installed

2010-06-06T19:56:00.011-04:00

June 6, 2010 - Didn't get a enough accomplished over Memorial Day weekend that warranted a new post but this past weekend, I definitely did. After pouring over numerous threads on 914world.com about working with the polygraphite bushings that go into the trailing arms, I finally decided to operate on mine. I had previously ordered the bushings from PelicanParts.com for $70; a set of 4, 2 on each trailing arm. One positive thing I can say about Pelican Parts, is that they ship really fast.

The polygraphite bushings are notorious for squeeking so I made sure that I did what most of the threads advised. I took a wrasp and filed off enough inside of each bushing so that the large pin that fits in them does not bind very much. I initially had to press one in and then read that this was way too tight. Once I was able to push the pin into place, I was able to determine that I needed to file off about 1/8" off each bushing end so that the pin protrudes enough to make contact with the susepnsion ear and the control arm bearing; metal on metal, not bushing on metal. I then cut 4 small grease channels into each bushing with a hack saw blade and painted the inside and channels with Permatex anit-seize lubricant.

Here's how the bushings fit into the traing arm and the pin fits into the bushings:

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that earlier in the week I had new $50 bearings per trailing arm pressed in at my favorite Tire Kingdom store. I also had the guy take out and press in new races into the front brake rotors. All total, the guy charged me $25 for labor; all things considered, money well spent.

Finally after prepping the bushings and inserting the pins, I was ready to install the trailing arms. After multiple trial installations, I was able to mount the trailing arms into the suspension ears and control arm bearings. The control arm bearing is also where the shims are added if you need to add camber. I also installed the strut assemblies too which had been previously assembled with new 180 lb springs from Pelican Parts $136/pair and new Boge heavy duty shock absorbers $98/shock previously purchased some time ago.

And here they are, left trailing arm and strut assembly:

And right trailing arm and strut assembly:

I'm going to tackle the front suspension next weekend.

Instrument Panel, Side Markers, and Turn Signals

2010-05-23T19:12:00.014-04:00

May 23, 2010 - Lots of small things installed. Mainly but not so small is the instrument panel assembly. Whew!! What a PITA that was. All three gauges, Tachometer, Speedometer, and Fuel Gauge had to taken apart, glass cleaned, and retaining rings rust remediated (rust killer, rust encapsulator, and painted flat black). Also treated the instrument panel as well.

Headlights almost finished along with turn signals:

Installed the side markers and turn signals with new seals from Mark Whitesell in Hillsboro, OR. His eBay merchant name is 914rubber.

Left turn signal:

Right side marker:

Right turn signal:

Gauges looking pretty good, added dashboard to see how it would look. My neighbor Freddie helped to hook up all of the gauge connectors and indicator bulbs. Another PITA. I replaced the illuminating incandescent bulbs with blue LEDs from Mike Whitesell aka eBay merchant autoleds4you. He sells 8 for $20. There are 5 illumninating bulbs and 8 indicator bulbs for a total of 13.

Another view of the instrument panel and dashboard:

Check out the new rear trunk seals. The previous owner sold me these along with his other eBay auction items he had procured along the way:

I was able to win a windshield via eBay for $120 but the shipping was $200. It was packaged and shipped by UPS in Auburn, WA. They did a really nice job of packaging to ensure it was received intact, which it was. A lot better than the AutoAtlanta price of $500 plus $200 shipping. I'll try to have it installed when I have all of the seals and installation kit. More on that later.

Painting Finished - Headlights Installed

2010-05-02T20:43:00.017-04:00

May 2, 2010 - I have finally finished painting the vehicle. Woohoo! I had to buy more paint from Sherwin Williams Automotive and was able to put another coat on the interior and two coats on the hellhole/transaxle area. She really looks great now, inside and underneath.

Here's the hellhole firewall; looking very clean:

Here's the ceiling of the transaxle area:

Here's a left view of the hellhole area:

And a right view of the hellhole area:

I went thru two bad headlight motors and two relays, luckily I had six, and it took 4 hours in total to get the right headlight and motor installed correctly but it definitely works. I had to buy another headlight assembly off eBay to get the actuator lever and couple other related parts to install the left headlight assembly but finally got it intalled. The assemblies are black from coating with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator. They were terribly rusty but with a lot of painstaking labor, I was able to restore them. You can also see the almost new chrome headlight rings that I got off eBay for $10 with shipping.

I also ordered new taillight housing seals from eBay vendor 914rubber and installed both assemblies.

Painting the Interior

2010-04-11T15:46:00.002-04:00

April 11, 2010 - I was able to wrap up priming with Rust Encapsulator on Friday, thus enabling me to start painting the interior on Saturday. Had to take my son Woody car viewing first part of the day to see what kind of vehicle he'd be happy with. He's starting USF in the fall and will need a dependable car to commute to school and back every day. So I started rather late in the day, about 4:00PM, but with plenty of time to get a first coat on.

As fate would have it, I was about 90% complete when the spray gun quit working and thus had to quit for the day and give it a good cleaning. I restarted on Sunday and was able to finalize the first coat. At this point, I ran out of the blue metallic paint and I'm debating whether or not buy more to give it a second coat. If I do decide to buy more, I'll get enough to paint the hell hole/transaxle area too. The price of the paint will be the decision point for sure.

I'm really pleased as to how well the blue paint sprayed on. Here are some pictures of the finalized first coat:

Passenger view of seat and foot well:

Passenger view of foot well:

Passenger view of seat back area:

View of driver and passenger seat back area:

Driver view of seat back area:

Driver view of seat well:

Driver view of foot well:

Driver view of console center tunnel:

Driver view of seat back firewall area:

Driver view of rocker panel:

Passenger view of rocker panel:

Passenger side gas tank area; you can clearly see the area above the driver foot well has been bashed in to accommodate the battery box that will hold three LA batteries:

Driver side gas tank area:

Priming with Rust Encapsulator

2010-04-10T02:05:00.008-04:00

April 9, 2010 - Finally the weather has warmed up and the live oaks have just about quit spewing their pollen granules. I was able to tape up the car last weekend and attempted to start priming the car with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator. The Rust Encapsulator is a great product and puts down a great coat but I don't think the creators intended for it to be used in a spray gun even though they do sell spray cans.

My first attempt at using thinned down Rust encapsulator ended in frustration as it just kept stopping up the gun. I used lacquer thinner like they suggested but it would just not spray. I eventually had to buy paint strainers and strain it extremely well before the gun would spray it. But once well-strained, it sprayed on like a champ. I have no doubt that the paint will lay down and adhere nicely to the coat of Rust Encapsulator. I intended to spray on two coats but I went thru 1 & 1/2 quart cans mixing up and straining enough for one good coat.

I should add that last Sunday after getting frustrated with the spray gun stopping up, I went to manual mode and used a 1" brush to paint the outer firewall in the hell hole. So when I figured out the straining trick, the hell hole got a second sprayed-on coat.

I'll paint the interior with the same blue paint as the exterior. I only have about 1/5 of the original gallon left. If I run out before I'm finished, I'll have to buy more. I'm pretty sure this paint is not cheap. For the hell hole/transaxle area, I'm going to use Eastwood's Rubberized Undercoating in spray cans. I used the undercoating after repairing the rust in the the passenger side front wheel well and it turned out extremely well.

Here's the car after taping it up:

Hell hole view from rear looking up forward after being primed:

Hell hole view, firewall closeup:

Hell hole view, left side:

Hell hole view, right side:

Transaxle compartment view, looking up from ground:

Interior view, driver side; passenger side not primed yet:

Interior view, driver side footwell:

Interior view, seat back firewall; passenger side not primed yet:

Interior view, driver seat well:

Interior view, driver side seatback; passenger side not primed yet:

Interior view, driver side seat well:

Interior view, driver side foot well:

Interior view, driver side footwell closeup:

Interior view, passenger side primed:

Interior view, passenger side seat back view:

Interior view, passenger side foot well:

Interior view, fully primed:

Interior view, both foot wells primed:

Emergency Brake Cable Tube Installation

2010-03-21T19:46:00.010-04:00

March 21, 2010 - It's been almost 4 months since my last blog entry. The weather here in Tampa, FL has been way too cold for us thin-blooded FL dwellers to do any serious work outside. However, the first day of Spring was quite warm ~80F and allowed me to continue making forward progress.

I had to fabricate new emergency brake cable tubes. The right tube held the biggest challenge as it was required about a 60 degeree bend while the left tube was about a 4" straight section. I used 1/2" electrical conduit to make the new tubes.

Below is the the left inner firewall piece from AutoAtlanta which I previously welded into place. As you can see, my welding is not great but the tack welds should be sufficient to hold them in place.

Here are a couple more pics of the inner firewall tubes.

Here's a shot of the outer firewall showing both tubes.

Here's a closeup shot of the left inner firewall tube:

Here's a closeup of the right inner firewall tube. You can see I also had to fabricate a standoff from the firewall to anchor the tube.

I hope to finish metal filling all of the little holes and such with All-Metal Filler from Eastwood that abound in the doorsills, floorboards, and outer firewall this week in preparation for priming both interior and hell-hole/tranny area with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator this coming weekend given the weather co-operates.

If weather co-operates and the primer is applied, the following weekend will be spent painting the interior with the leftover body paint. I'll use Eastwood's Rubberized Undercoating to paint the hell-hole/tranny area.

Mobile Sawhorses and Continuing Interior Prep

2009-11-08T21:08:00.016-05:00

November 8, 2009 - It's been 3 weeks since my last blog entry and forward progress continues to be made. I decided that I need to be able to move the car in and out of the garage onto the driveway to give me more elbow room and sunlight. I just can't say enough about having direct sunlight to work by.

So the mobile sawhorses came about when a neighbor commented on how I should put castors or wheels on the bottom of the jackstands. The castors sort of defeat the purspose of the jackstand but the concept was workable. So I put pencil to paper and came up with the following: sawhorses using 300lb brackets and 360-wheels capable of supporting 250lbs.

Since the overall weight of the frame at this point is between 600-700 lbs, the sawhorses should be plenty strong enough. One person can easily albeit slowly move the vehicle in or out of the garage. After moving the vehicle in and out of the garage a few times, I have to say, the sawhorses are really the "bee's knees"; I'd only wish I'd thought of it sooner. Here's a side view:

Here's a front-on view:

And a three-quarter view:

As you can see, the construction is really quite simple. The sawhorse brackets were purchased from Ace Hardware for about $5/pair. They are screwed into the 2x4s with 1-1/2 in wood screws. The 360-wheels came from Harbor Freight and cost about $30. Yes, half of the wheels are lockable. I used almost 8 2x4s at $2/piece from Lowes and the hardware to bolt the wheels to the lower 2x4s ran about $15. The entire cost of both assemblies was about $75. While the sawhorses are more than strong enough for the task, I have to be leary of the sawhorses moving and constantly checking of their position. And finally, a three-quarter view of the entire vehicle and sawhorses:

Now back to the interior prep. I think I'm 90% finished with the interior. I've stripped all of the paint, tar, seam sealer, etc down to bare metal. Here's what's left to do:

Fill in all of the small rust holes with All-Metal Filler.
Weld the parking brake pivot into place.
Weld the left inner firewall piece into place.
Thoroughly clean entire surface area.
Prime with Rust Encapsulator.
Paint.

The center console tunnel was a real pain in the a**. It was covered with floor pan tar and had to be air-hammer chiseled out. Here's a forward three-quarter view from the driver's side:

Here's a forward three-quarter view from the passeneger's side:

Here's a three-quarter view of the rear firewall from the driver's side:

Here's a shot of the upper rear firewall driver's side:

And finally a shot of both rear firewall and driver's seat area:

As you can see in the immediate above picture, the bottom right hand corner had some serious rust issues. It is black because it has been "rust converted" and "rust encapsulated". I will prime the entire interior with Rust Encapsulator as I believe it will be the best rust inhibitor for the rest of the car's life.

Designing a Digital Dashboard using RideRunner

2009-10-17T21:01:00.034-04:00

October 2009 - I have been spending a considerable amount of time engineering a new digital dash solution for my 914 EV. While analog gauges are readily available, I believe that an EV should be a show piece and take advantage of the latest technologies including carputers and touch screen video displays.

Here is a shot of a standard 914 center console with clock, temperature and voltage gauges. While these gauges are OK for an ICE vehicle, they will not suffice for an EV.

An EV needs the following instrumentation: pack voltage, utility voltage, motor current, and state of charge. These four meters are available in 2 1/2" meters from ElectroAuto for about $250. They would probably fit in a new console board with the gauges staggared diagonally but wouldn't give it that new technology look.

Obviously, a carputer will be necessary to implement my digitial dash solution and is not the topic for discussion at this time but in a later blog. Here is a shot of the MIT EVTeam's solution for a center console video display. I suspect my solution will be similar.

As you can see above, the bezel is too large for my liking. I will be using a Lilliput 7" Touchscreen display as shown below. While it is 7" diagonally, the width is 6" and will only cause the existing console to be widened minimally. I will also be using Microsoft's Windows Embedded technology as the carputer's operating system due to its very fast boot-time (15 secs) and its ability to be very secure. I estimate the OS' footprint at about 400MB including all of the executables for the front end, music player, digital dash interface, etc. Funny, all of my MP3s at ~20GB will dwarf the OS image.

I looked at a number of front ends for the carputer including RideRunner (formerly RoadRunner) and Centrafuse. I finally decided on RideRunner as it is currently free and has wide support from mp3car.com forums. Here's a shot of the RideRunner main menu screen with the Simplistique skin shown. As you can see, I've already altered the menu skin to incorporate my new dash component.

Here's a shot of the Music screen. I plan to have all of my mp3s on the carputer's 60GB hard drive (a Seagate ruggedized version) and a randomized playlist.

And here's the money shot of my digital dash. It includes a pack voltage meter, a utility voltage meter, a motor current meter, and a state of charge meter. The SOC meter is an interesting animal because you can implement it in one of 3 different ways: 1) voltage-based - least accurate, 2) specific-gravity-based - most accurate but unfeasable, and 3) direct-measurement - counting amp-hours. I decided to use direct measurement. As I will already be sampling the motor current, it will be simple to track the amp-hours used and count down from a known full charge level (resetting the meter after charging). The meters shown here are based on the "AGauge" .NET control currently available as open-source.

I'm putting a lot of effort into the digital dash as I really don't want to murder my first lead acid battery pack, a cost of anywhere from $1.2K - $2K. If you know your pack voltage, how many amps you are pulling from it, and how much power you have left in it, then almost anyone can keep from killing a pack unless you just totally ignore it. I'm hoping that my first SLA pack will be my last; I should be able to replace it with a Li-Ion pack for about $3K in about 3 years. And that should double or triple my range.

Here's a nice shot of another neat application available with RideRunner. Its a weather module using the Weather Channel's information available for any city, in this case Tampa, FL. Using the carputer's wireless network adaptor, I'll be able to access it while still in the garage.

Of course, many of you out there are wondering how I've engineered the interface. I discovered Fusion Control Centre's Fusion Brain; its a wonderful device that allows digital inputs and outputs. Fusion Control Centre offers a number of sensors that interface directly with the Fusion Brain. Here's a shot of the Fusion Brain version 4 which I'm using; it runs about $60. It's literally the size of a credit card. BTW, the fusion brain connects to the carputer via a USB cable which also supplies power to the device.

I'm also using one of Fusion Control Centre's 4-Channel Opto Isolator and Voltage Divider boards to take the pack and utility voltages and convert them into 0-5 volt signals for the Fusion Brain. I really like the board because it is relatively inexpensive compared to the Fusion Brain and it optically isolates the input voltages from the output voltages, so if any of the input voltages spike, they won't take out the Fusion Brain. The opto isolator board sells for about $18. It also has places on the board to mount addtional resistors if you have a voltage other than 7V or 15V which are their defaults. In the case of the 120V input, I'll need to add a 5K resistor.

As the feed for the motor current gauge is taken from the 500 amp shunt built into the EVHelp 144 volt dc controller, its 0-50mV output will need to be amplified about 100X by an op-amp circuit board. This is a relatively simple circuit that is easily "googled" and breadboarded. The 100X amplification should give me a nice 5-volt signal for direct feed to the Fusion Brain. Here is a logical connection diagram for all of the components thus far discussed.

Prepping the interior

2009-10-17T19:36:00.013-04:00

October 17, 2009 - It's been over 4 months since my last blog but I have not been idle. I've decided to strip the interior down to the metal and then prime and paint.

Here's the right inner firewall behind the passenger seat that's been thoroughly grinded with a wire-brush attachment. You can see a bunch of rust holes that were under the seam sealer. I will use All-Metal filler on these instead of welding in small sheet metal patches.

Here's the right floor pan under the seat area that's been prepped using a grinder and steel wire-brush wheel. I have yet to use paint thinner and thoroughly clean as that will be the last step after all the paint has been removed and prior to painting.

Here's the right floor pan leg area. You can still see that the foot area has not been completely prepped yet. You can also see the rust repair work I had to perform. It was rusted all the way through to the gas tank compartment. Good grief!

OK, those were all after shots. Here are some before shots of the left side. Here's the left inner firewall behind the driver's seat. As you can see, it has not been prepped yet. You can also see some of the rust repair work that I had to perform. If you'll look at the bottom of the firewall, you'll see two small holes for the new parking brake cable conduits that I have to weld in but not until I finish prepping the interior and weld the lower inner firewall piece in place. See below.

Here's a shot of the lower inner firewall piece from AutoAtlanta.

Here's the left floor pan seat area unprepped. Kind of nasty, eh? I removed the lower inner firewall piece for the shot.

Here's the left floor pan leg area including the restored pedal assembly that I was test fitting.

Here's a three-quarter view of the left floor pan area unprepped in contrast to the prepped right floor pan.

And finally, here's a shot of the right door sill I welded back in place on Monday over the recently installed clamshell. I also did the left side but it was too close to the garage wall to get a decent picture of it. I didn't want to spend $16.50 on the sill triangles (2) for a total of $33, so I fabricated my own using one of the old one's' as a template. My boss let me use his plasma cutter. Boy, those things are awesome. Thanks Adam!!!

I should be finishing the interior prep job within the next few days. I'll probably post some more shots showing the entire interior as prepped. I'll then wheel the "teener" outside to degrease and pressure wash the hell hole/transmission area before I prime and paint the interior and hell hole/transmission area.

Since I'm going to be moving the vehicle in and out of the garage onto the driveway numerous times, I'm going to build some special sawhorses on casters and then move the frame onto those. The frame can't weigh anymore than 600-800 pounds at this time. I've already taken the trailing arms off and reconditioned them. Need to take some pictures of those too and post. Later.

Both Clamshells Welded In Place

2009-06-05T20:22:00.012-04:00

June 5, 2009 - It took a couple of nights but I finally got the right and left clamshells welded into place. I didn't get very good penetration on the right clamshell top spot welds and as a result, they didn't take very well so I had to weld the top and bottom seams to get a nice solid bead. The overall result feels very strong. As you can see, I added the center welds to give additional strength. Can't be too sure when adding an additional 1000 lbs of battery weight to the frame.

I took a little more care on the left clamshell and ground all the weld spots clean. As a result the spot welds held very well. I've ground the welds down for apperance and will coat both of the clamshells with Eastwood's Rust Enacapsulator. Can't photo the left side as its close to the garage wall.

Right Longitude Clam Shell Prep

2009-05-31T22:07:00.011-04:00

May 31, 2009 - It's been 3 months since my last post but I haven't been idle. I have finally killed and encapsulated the rust on the inside of the longs. Wheww!!! What a job that was. I had to remove the door sills (what a chore too!!). I drilled about 6 holes in each long evenly spaced; if you look hard enough you can see them. Through these holes and the rusted metal holes I cut away front and over each jack mount, I used a spray bottle with wand and sprayed Eastwood's Rust Converter inside. I then used a compressed air blower and blew air into the drip openeings in the bottom of the longs to coat the entire inside of each long. After two coats of the Rust Converter and a week, I then repeated the operation but with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator and waited another week for it all to dry.

I then welded two pieces of sheet metal, one over the front long hole and one over the jack mount as I won't be using it due to not having enough room to carry a spare. I painted the both sides of the sheet metal pieces with Rust Encapsulator as well to keep them from rusting.

Finally, I fit the clam shell over the long. This was very time consuming and took about 2-3 weeks but as you will see it fits very tight. I currently have it mounted with Vise-grips in anticipation of welding it in. I drilled holes every 4 inces along the top and bottom seams for spot welds. I'll probably drill additional weld spot holes along the middle of the clam shell for strength.

I should have both completed by next weekend but only time and the next blog will tell.

Inside Left Inner Firewall

2009-02-15T17:31:00.013-05:00

February 15, 2009, Cut out the rightmost portion of the left inner firewall to see what kind of rust damage was caused by a presumed leaky window. As you can see, major rust damage to emergency brake cable tubes as they come in from the outer firewall and where the left heat exchanger tube comes in from the firewall into the long.

Had an experienced 914 buddy come over and look at the longs. They are apparently in good shape. I will remediate the rust on the inner longs with Eastwood's Rust Converter and Encapsultor using a sprayer with wand. I will then add the frame stiffeners which overlay the longs from AutoAtlanta.

Above is the frame stiffener from AutoAtlanta.

Below is where its resides in the frame.

Front end suspension removal

2008-12-17T23:50:00.009-05:00

December 7, 2008, Spent about 5 hours dropping the entire front end suspension: brake calipers, rotors, struts, control arms w/ torsion bars, auxillary carrier, and tie-rods.

Right Outer Rocker Panel Removal

2008-11-27T00:06:00.004-05:00

November 23, 2008, Removed the right outer rocker panel and to my dismay found some major rust deterioration at the jack mount and the most forward area. I also found some rust in the right front wheel well. Additional grinding under the forward forewall revealed rust deterioration left of the master cylinder.

Brake Master Cylinder Removal

2008-11-22T19:53:00.001-05:00

November 16, 2008, Removing the master cylinder took about two hours to remove due to the rusty condition of the brake line connectors. There were three connectors: one from each front wheel and a single line from the rear wheels. The master cylinder (shown) is very rusted and will need to be replaced.

Pedal Assembly Removal

2008-11-21T00:43:00.001-05:00

November 9, 2008, Took a couple of hours to remove the pedal board and then the pedal assembly. Thirty years of gunk built up on the pedal assembly along with some rust. Will definitely have to rebuild with new brass bushings, brake and clutch springs, and pedal pads. Will have to perform some rust remediation on the interior pedal assembly area as well as the exterior master cylinder area as shown in the photos. The pictures shown here were taken after the master cylinder was removed on November 16th.

Seats, console, and fuel line removal

2008-11-21T00:25:00.001-05:00

November 5-6, 2008, Took an hour or so to remove the seats and console. Lots of reading and finally an hour to remove the fuel lines, pulling from the engine compartment underneath the car.

Gas Tank Removal

2008-11-20T23:52:00.001-05:00

November 4, 2008, Spent an hour or so removing the gas tank and discovering what lay beneath, a circa 1980 Texaco road map of Mexico City.

Initial Vehicle

2008-11-09T00:44:00.005-05:00

October 31, 2008, (Halloween) OK folks, here's the vehicle as is when I purchased it. The previous owner had already spent the bucks on the paint job. Not only did he remove the ICE and exhaust system but delivered the vehicle too.