04.10.08
Posted in Disasssembly at 11:00 pm by Administrator
This morning, I finished removing all of the wiring from under the dashboard, including the long control harness that snakes thru the left side of the car to the rear of the car. I also removed the radio. This is going to get trashed. It was an old Kenwood unit with a cassette tape player. I need to figure out my new dashboard layout. The converter box and fuse box came out easily. I’ll want to make a better panel to hold these in a convenient location. What does the converter box do? The plans don’t say!
Then, I removed the directional indicator control lever and steering shaft . The shaft was removed by unscrewing the mount from behind the dashboard and loosening the clamp on the extension tube. I had to remove the shaft by uncoupling the rubber coupling at the steering box and then pulling the shaft out from the front of the car. The firewall mount is still in the car and will require two people to remove it.
Next, I managed to undo all of the remaining body bolts by myself – OK, one of them sheared off – and this got the body loose from the chassis. The body is now ready for removal. All I need to do is make the saw horses to support the body and find a few friends to help me lift the thing off and flip it over.
I went to Lowe’s and picked up the materials that I need to make the saw horses. Then, I started cleaning up all of the parts that I had previously removed . That’ll take another day to complete.
I also picked up the four aluminum wheels from the media blaster this afternoon. They came out great but at $228.00 each to polish them, I think I’ll try polishing them myself. Eastwood makes a wheel polishing kit for just this purpose. Add Clear Powdercoating is $65.00 per wheel, so I may try an Eastwood clear coat for that.
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04.09.08
Posted in Disasssembly at 12:00 am by Administrator
Today, I started by removing the T-top and windshield from the car body. I began by pulling off the roof upholstery from the T-top. This came off mostly in one piece because it has a fiberglass shell supporting it. When the shell popped off, a bunch of hardware fell out where the door hinges mounted (back-up plates, mostly). This exposed some bolts that tie the T-top into a (flimsy and rusted-out) roll-over bar. I unscrewed all of the bolts from the door jams and this loosened the t-top from the roll-over bar. Then, I unscrewed all of the small Phillips head screws from the back end of the T-top. These screws fasten the T-top to the body of the car. The ones on the right side came out with a bit of grunting. The left ones required a bunch of drilling, chiseling and “colorful metaphors,” with some damage to the bottom left edge of the T-top (easily repairable.
Once the T-top was loose, it just lifted off – along with the front windshield. The windshield came out without a hitch and there was no damage to the rubber gasket.
I spent some time under the dashboard today, also. The glare shield just lifted off – nothing holding it in place except for gravity and some sun-rotted plastic defroster nozzles. Once the glare shield was off, the sheetmetal defroster tubes could be pulled out. Next, I unscrewed all of the defroster hoses and removed them from the car. Then, I unscrewed the wiper motor assembly and removed it. Then, the heater/defroster unit came out. I was surprised to see this in an electric car, but there it was – heater coils and all. I’ll need to decide if I want to reuse this (big energy consumer) or just use the blower for fresh air. By the way, there was a strip of rubber glued in at the front edge of the dashboard under the glare shield, where it butts against the bottom flange of the windshield. I suspect that this is some sort of cushion or waterproofing for the windshield?
I broke both speakers trying to remove them. Apparently, they were installed from the back side somehow. Anyway, they were trashed by the heat, so they got thrown out. This allowed me to remove the last of the side upholstery. The aft portions (behind the door posts) were just glued on with some thin (1/2”?) foam. The front portions were carpet and there was a metal tacking strip that held the aft edge of these pieces in place.
Once the upholstery was removed, I was able to remove the roll bar by undoing the two bolts from each side. The part was moderately rusted. We’ll have to see how it cleans up. I also unscrewed the angle brackets that secure the front pillars of the T-top. The bolts just fell out from underneath. These will have to be cleaned up as well.
Next, I started removing the body bolts. The ones near the doors weren’t too bad to undo because I could get to both sides of them but the two forward bolts and the aft-most bolts were harder to get at and I wound up not being able to remove them. I may need to get CJ’s help on this. A bunch of the bolts just sheared off. Eeewwww.
While crawling around the back of the car, I noticed that the diagonal braces that go from the outboard sides of the battery trays to the tops of the shock towers had broken off at the shock towers – both of them! Apparently, this is a poor design and I’ll have to rethink the idea.
I spent a lot of time vacuuming up dirt and rust off the body and floor pans. All-in-all, the body doesn’t look all that bad and it’s almost ready to came off.
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04.08.08
Posted in Disasssembly at 12:00 am by Administrator
I started today by removing the last wheel and placing the car up on the jack stand that I bought yesterday. Next, I removed the two doors by popping the gas struts off their ball sockets and then unscrewing the hinges from both the doors and the T-top. There was a clanking sound from inside the car’s T-top and I suspect that some hardware fell off inside when the hinges were removed. The doors lifted off quite easily.
Next up was the hatchback. I popped the gas struts off their ball joints and removed the hinge hardware. Again, this came off quite easily.
I removed the hood next. This simply required me to slide the hinge rod to one side, pop that side of the hood out, and then slide the rod to the other side. It came off easily.
Next, I removed the headlight buckets. Working in the front wheel wells, I unscrewed the buckets from their brackets and slipped the buckets out of the car body. Then, I went under the hood and unwrapped about a mile of electrical tape that was insulating the headlight torque tube. The tape also held a torque spring against the torque tube. This spring, apparently, helps the headlight motor do its job. The electrical tape probably keeps the accessory battery from shorting out on the torque tube. I unfastened the headlight bracket/torque tube weldments from the center portion of the torque tube by driving out two roll pins from each end of the center tube. I also unscrewed the two bearing retainer plates from the ends of the torque tubes. Then, the weldments just pulled out of the center portion of the tube.
The headlight motor assembly came out without a hitch as did the limit switches and their mounting plate. Next, I removed the horn, the brake fluid reservoir and the windshield washer reservoir. Finally, I unscrewed the tray for the accessory battery. There was a rats nest of wires left in the front and I pulled these thru the firewall and into the area under the dashboard. Finally, I removed the hood latch and snaked the latch’s Bowden cable back under the dashboard.
I removed some aluminum trim strips from the door edges. These strips help hold the floor carpet in place at the bottoms of the doors. One was badly scratched where I had to grind out a screw and it will have to be polished.
The trunk lid came off next by undoing its hinges. The trunk latch was removed. I also removed the latch from the hatchback. Then, I unscrewed the mounting plate for the Bowden cables in the driver’s rear door post and removed the two cables.
The tail lights came out easily. I was surprised to see that there was only a single bulb in the assembly. I can’t tell if this is for The turn signal indicators, the brake lights, marker lights or all three?
I removed both bumpers next. They came out easily as did their mounting plates and the vertical mounting plates that tie the battery trays into the car’s fiberglass structure. All of this was badly rusted and will need to be bead blasted and powder coated.
Most of what appear to be marker lights on the car’s body are actually el-cheapo-reflectors. These will have to be replaced. There are two on the rear of the car (red — don’t re-install), two on the rear sides (make them red marker lights) and two on the front fenders (yellow – make these red marker lights. I wonder if i can find some nice LED marker lights to replace them?
I also pulled out all of the wires going from the front of the car to the rear. There were the two large cables for the front battery pack, a large cable for the accessory battery and a piece of flex tubing that contained the remaining wires.
Finally, I ran the four wheels over to Discount Tire (along with the orphan rim that had been installed on the right front drum) and they dismounted the tires (and threw out the orphan wheel) all for free!!!!!!!!! Guess where I’m going to buy the new tires? They said that there are no Load Range C tires for this particular rim. I was considering using a heavier tire to accoodate the extra weight of the batteries. Unfortunately, I’d have to buy new rims to go with a Load Range C tire and I don’t want to do this. I’d like to keep the original “turbine-style” rims. I ran the rims over to the media stripper and he recommended that I have him strip the rims, have one of his business partners polish them and then have them clear coated with a clear powder coat. Interesting idea. He’s going to get back to me with prices.
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04.04.08
Posted in Disasssembly at 12:00 am by Administrator
This was just a clean-up and disassembly day.
• Curtis Controller: This was given a gentle cleaning. It will be saved and reused.
• Seat belts: Photographed and discarded.
• Reinforcing Straps for Seat Positioners and Seat Belts – Interior: There were four of these – mounted over the carpet on the inside of the car. They were made of steel but badly rusted, so I photographed them (see above) and threw them out. I had to cut thru one to remove the seatbelt bolt. There seems to be no pattern to the holes that were drilled – other than to say that two of the holes in each were for the seat positioner and the aft-most hole was for the seat-belt attach point. They measured 18-1/8-inches long, 1-1/2-inches wide and 3/16-inch thick. I could find no mention of these straps in the plans, so I assume that they were added as an afterthought.
• Reinforcing Straps for Seat Positioners – Exterior. There should have been four of these but I could only locate two under the car. They were mounted between the underside of the floor pans and the electric car’s sub-chassis. They weren’t as badly rusted as the interior ones, but I still want to find a better way to mount the (probably new) seat positioners, so I photographed them and discarded them. They were made of steel and holes were drilled to match the mounting studs on the seat positioners. They measured 10-inches long, 1-1/8-inches wide and 1/8-inch thick.
• Antenna: This was discarded.
• Seatbelt Attach Hardware: Two of the bolts had to be cut to remove the seatbelts and all of the hardware was badly rusted, so I photographed the hardware and discarded it.
• Motor Shunt: This was saved. It needs a thorough cleaning.
• Fuse Standoffs with Mounting Hardware: These were saved. They need to be cleaned.
• Mirrors and Associated Hardware: All of this was discarded, because the mirrors just didn’t fit the fenders very well. Fred Werkmeister’s car has a very nice set of mirrors. He believes that they came from a 1998 Oldsmobile Aurora. A sticker on my original mirrors said “TurboRacing”.
• Buss Fuse: This is an ALS-400 fuse. I need to get a couple of them. Their center-to-center dimension is 3-3/4”.
• High Current Connectors: These are made by Anderson Power Products. They are imprinted SB 350A-600V. I have 2 red sets for the battery packs and 1 grey set for the motor. I need to replace these with new ones. I photographed them and will keep the old ones.
• Other High-Current Cables: I have 3 of these which I photographed and kept. I’ll eventually discard these when I make some new ones.
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04.03.08
Posted in Disasssembly at 12:49 am by Administrator
The Bradley plans have you assemble the basic kit car in 18 “Operations.” There are additional Operations for the electric version of the car, including modifying the kit-car body, installing the sub-chassis (which holds the battery racks), installing the traction motor and its subsystems, and modifying the wiring to the car (mostly changes in instrumentation). As such, I’m going to disassemble the car pretty much the same way – except backwards.
Operation 18 — Windshield Wipers
To remove a windshield wiper arm, use a small screwdriver to bend out the small spring clip located at the end of the wiper arm. Then lift the wiper arm off the knurled adapter. The knurled adapter is held in place by a nut. Once the nut and adapter are off, you can pull the rubber boot off the shaft. I’ll need to get new boots and wiper blades. It wouldn’t hurt to get new wiper arms either. The adapters and nuts can be saved.
Exterior Mirrors
The rubber boot at the base of each mirror hides two screws. Once these screws are removed, the mirrors can be removed from their mounting brackets. The mounting brackets are screwed to the front fenders thru holes, with the bolt heads in the fender wells. A rubber gasket is positioned between the fender and the mounting bracket. These mirrors look out of place on the car. They mount in an awkward way on the fenders and look like they were just thrown on as a last-minute addition. I need to find new mirrors – preferably some that are electrically operated – and I need to make a pair of custom fiberglass pads to mount them on either the fenders or just ahead of the gull-wing doors.
Antenna
The radio antenna needs to be replaced. Let’s see if I can find a good spot for an electric powered one.
Cover Panels
These are located in the wheel wells and are held in place with 4 Phillips-head screws each.
Front Wheel Well Panels
These have not been removed yet, because the job will be easier to do once the wheels are removed. I need to get the car up on jack stands to do this.
Aim Headlights
Not required during disassembly.
Finishing Touches
I need to get two license plate frames. The kt car has you mount the license plates on fiberglass extensions that protrued from the bottoms of the bumpers. Mine were pretty badly cracked — as if they had been hit on numerous occasions. I think we can do better than that. I also need to illuminate the frames on a separate toggle switch. There is only one licence-plate light and it is contained within the rear bumper. I need to think about building some sort of fiberglass air dam — integral with the body and extending down about six inches below the front bumper — to conceal the bottom of the front battery tray. As is now sits, the front of the front tray protrudes about six inches below the front bumper and it looks ugly. Perhaps the front license plate frame could be mounted in the center of this air dam.
Some final items to attend to — all during the reassembly…
• Balance the Wheels
• Front End Alignment
• Brakes Checked
Operation 17 — Seat Pans and Seat Positioners
Apparently, the seat positioners that came with this car are very different from the ones shown in the plans. Perhaps someone replaced the original seat positioners in the past. The ones in the plans mount to the seats with four brackets on the sides of the seats. The ones that I got mount to the seats with four straps on the fronts and backs of the seats. The ones that I got are better (they’re less likely to jam by racking) but they are still woefully inadequate and are rusted tight. For this reason, some of the parts shown in the parts list aren’t going to be found on this car. I need to get a new pair of low profile positioners – preferably electric.
On my car, the seat positioners are bolted thru the floor pans. A pair of 1-inch-wide straps (1/8-inch thick), running side-to-side under the car, reinforce the four attachment points for each seat positioner. A second pair of straps (similar dimensions), running fore-to-aft inside the car, also reinforce the four attachment points. The seatbelts are mounted with hex head bolts and are positioned at the aft ends of the inside straps, between the straps and the carpet. Very large fender washers reinforce the seat-belt attach points under the floor pans. The plans don’t describe any of this. It looks like a kluge-job that someone added later.
Removing the seat positioners and seat belts was easy on the passenger’s side of the car but it was a pain in the butt on the driver’s side. I had to get out the grinder and cut off two bolts to remove the driver’s side seat belts. Also, when mounting the positioner for the driver’s seat, some idiot had drilled the holes for the positioner in such a way that the aft inboard hole interfered with a frame member under the car. To correct this, he bolted the positioner to one of the fore-to-aft reinforcing straps inside the car. I had to cut off the seatbelt bolt to remove the reinforcing strap. Only then did I discover that the positioner was improperly mounted. What a mess, to say nothing about it being unsafe! The floor pan has been so compromised on this car (it has more holes than a Swiss cheese) that I will probably have to replace the pans.
Lester Charger
At this point, I opened up the hatchback and removed the Lester Charger. This is one heavy sucker — weighing more than 100 pounds! I’m going to set the charger aside, in case Gail wants it, and replace it with something more modern.
Seat Belts
The ones that came with the car need to be replaced, along with the mounting hardware. Perhaps I can gin up a mounting system that mounts them directly to the frame instead of to the floor pans. The original ones had black webbing and each of the four parts (2 male and 2 female) had roughly a 36-inch-long piece of webbing.
Instrument Panel (Pictures Above)
I needed to remove the instrument panel in order to get to two screws that held the center console in place, so I did that next. There was a lot of evidence that someone had been mucking around with the wiring. Eeewwwww…….. I had suspected that I’d need to rewire the entire car. Now, I know why.
Center Console:
The center console was held in place by a set of sheet metal screws and trim washers located along the bottom of the console and screwed into the Volkswagen’s chassis tunnel. There were also two large lag screws that held the console to the dashboard, behind the instrument panel. The center console was not attached at the rear. The handle for the brake lever needed to be removed in order to remove the console so, right now, the car has no emergency brakes.
Floor Carpets
The floor carpets come in two sections:
The aft section covers the aft panel of the hatchback area, the floor of the hatchback area and the vertical surface behind the seats. It was underlain by 1” foam (contrary to the plans) and had a cutout that fit into a recess where the Lester battery charger was mounted. The foam and carpet were just glued in place with one exception. At the aft-most edge of the carpet (at the top of the vertical panel on the aft end of the hatchback area), there was a thin strip of metal that held the carpet in place. The strip was located UNDER the carpet (i.e., the carpet was folded over the strip) and was screwed to the fiberglass with a set of small Phillips head sheet metal screws.
The front section of carpeting was one continuous piece, joined over the tunnel aft of the center console. There was a cutout in the area of the pedal cluster. It was also mounted over some 1” foam, contrary to plans. All of this stuff was bagged up for storage. Later, I’ll draw up a pattern so that I can discard the old carpet.
The floor pans were painted with some kind of silver paint (Heat resistant? Rust resistant?) and showed a lot of corrosion pitting. I definitely want to have new floor pans installed.
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03.31.08
Posted in Disasssembly at 2:50 pm by Administrator
Monday, March 31, 2008
After lunch, I started work on disassembling the vehicle. I began under the hood and removed the 8 Model 2200 U.S. Battery 6 VDC flooded lead-acid cells. They came out very easily. All of the cables will have to be replaced as they are badly corroded. There was a piece of wood installed at the back of the front battery tray – apparently a space filler to help hold the batteries in place. There were no hold-downs for any of the batteries – they just sat in the vehicle under their own weight. The batteries were bone dry – not that I expected anything else after having sat for so long in the Las Vegas heat without any attention.
I used the Shop Vac to vacuum up all of the cob webs and had a black widow surprise me. She got sucked into the Shop Vac along with everything else. There seems to be a large piece of plastic that was placed in the bottom of the battery tray to help minimize corrosion. This appears to have worked nicely. I’ll have to remove the tray to see what condition it is in but, for now, it cleaned up quite nicely. The two high-current wires from this battery pack just seem to go aft, to the motor compartment. Once the batteries were out, I cleaned off all of the schmutz with the Shop Vac and loaded the 8 batteries into my truck, to be carted off to the recycler.
I also disconnected the linkage to the headlight motor, hoping that this would allow the headlights to close. (When I got the car, they were jammed in the open position.) They mostly closed — but they seem to be sprung somewhere, so they’re open just a tad.
Next up was the removal of the batteries in the trunk. It quickly became obvious that, to get these out, I would have to remove the large aluminum mounting plate that holds the controller and the contactor. There were two bolts near the aft end of the plate that held it in position – the front end just slid into a groove in a forward mounting bracket that was bolted to the front of the traction motor. Once the plate was free, a bunch of wires had to be disconnected. Some of these were high-current wires and some were control and signal wires. I cut what I had to and made notes as to what got disconnected from what. However, most of these notes won’t be needed because the plans are pretty specific on how to hook everything back up (at least I hope they are!) I need to make sure that this mounting plate (and all of the associated wiring) is very easy to remove when I rebuild the car.
The controller is a Curtis unit — not the original GE EV-1 controller. The motor appears to be the original GE unit and it is a whopper – especially when compared to my Prestolite. I removed the current shunt from the motor – it’s on the workbench now, waiting to be cleaned up.
I also needed to take out the fan assembly and fan mounting bracket on the rear of the motor. This fan provides cooling air to the motor. The connecting hose needs to be replaced – maybe the fan, too. We’ll have to see if we’re going to re-use the motor or replace it with a more modern one.
Once the controller, contactor and fan were removed, I was able to get the remaining 8 batteries out. These were also cleaned up with the Shop Vac and loaded into the back of the truck. I cleaned out the cobwebs from the rear of the car and found that the battery trays had faired a bit worse – probably because of the extra heat. The left one looks OK but the right one has a hole in it and may need to be repaired or replaced. Both trays have a sheet of plastic to protect them – similar to the front tray. As before, all of the battery cables will have to be replaced. I may also want to see if I can improve the flow of cooling air to the controller — perhaps by adding some NACA scoops to the fiberglass body.
This pretty much concluded removal of the high-current wiring from the car. I need to remove the charger (which sits inside the car, in the hatchback area) and the two cables that run from the front battery pack to the rear one. Other than that, most of the drive train (except for the motor) has been removed. The motor will probably have to wait until the car’s body has been removed from the chassis. At 107 pounds, I want lots of room to maneuver the motor.
The last item of the day was to take the 16 batteries down to the battery shop (Battery Systems on South Arville, between Flamingo & Tropicana). These folks were very knowledgeable, helpful and, as you might expect, had some experience in dealing with we ‘electric car’ enthusiasts. They took the batteries off my hand and wrote me a credit memo for 16 core charges. That way, I won’t have to pay for the cores when I buy the new batteries. They also gave me some information on the Trojan T-105 battery, which competes nicely with the U.S. Battery 2200. U.S. Battery also sells the Flow-Rite On-Board Battery Watering System – which I really need to look in to.
NV DMV told me to have the Title of the vehicle transferred now but not to register it until I am ready to drive it, because it needs to be insured when it is registered (or shortly thereafter).
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