Maiden Voyage

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

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

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

Here's what a good axle end looks like:



And the bad axle end:



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



And a closeupof the strapper:



And some pics of the finished product:









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