Monday, March 2, 2009

On to Phase 3...

Well, the project is now officially in Phase 3.
Back when I started this project, the activities were part of three phases.
  • Phase 1 was to design and build the car.
  • Phase 2 was to test and drive the car
  • Phase 3 was to document the conversion so that a kit could be made
The third phase was originally just to promote car conversion at shows, but making the kits became more important...

At any rate, after I pulled out #2 battery to have it tested, I thought it was a good idea to start getting the battery racks drawn up so they could be duplicated. Pretty soon, all three racks were out of the car and it was nearly completely disassembled. I had intended on testing the range and 0-60 times first, but that will have to wait.

While I'm waiting on the drawings to be finalized I've been working on the installation manual. This is no easy task, but it's coming along.

Next is to find someone to test the kit in order to make sure the shop-made parts fit properly and the instructions are right. The plan is to offer the racks and brackets at cost and provide support for someone local to convert their car.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you actually drive this thing? How about some details -- miles driven, range, performance, living with an EV conversion, daily driving, etc....? All I see is one trip up and down the block and a run to the hardware store. Why bother?

pmackey said...

Okay, fair enough. I sometimes forget that the blog is sometimes kind of cryptic.

I had 2 bad batteries which substantially limited the car's range. Removing the second one required a bit of disassembly. While part of the car was disassembled, I started the process of getting the racks and brackets drawn up for producing a kit.

I had to disassemble the car to have the complete set of drawings done and take pictures for the installation manual.

The good news is I have a replacement battery, the drawing are nearly complete and I'm in the process of reassembling the car.

Once reassembled I'll start driving the car again and get some data on 0-60 times and range estimates.