Marks Story
Today I have a day off from work and I started putting that time to use by wiring Evie with the replacement harness I received in the mail on the day I had to go back to work… Ah life… As you can see there are a few wires. Fortunately I also received the schematic and have a pretty good idea how this works. So here is the first draft of the install.
Not real sexy but definitely on the right track. Tomorrow I connect the keyswitch! Getting real close.
It has been one year since the The California Air Resources Board Voted for me to build an electric car… Lets review. The big 3 auto industry was not helped by the decision as hoped. Tesla however is still on track in spite of the decision CARB made last year. We have voted out the money grubbing, war waging greed mongers. In desperation for an identity, Rush Limbaugh has become the voice of the Republican Party (Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha). We have voted in a man with a vision, intelligence, fortitude, and a realistic plan…Finally! As for the car, The chassis is 98% finished, The body is 50% finished, and I have all of the Parts to finish the entire unit. I have had some wonderful support from friends and family and would now like to thank them.
Thank You
Don and Dolores Bush
Belia Hawkins
Joel Hawkins
Tom Ceirante
Dave Haggland
Greg Hawkins of Bugformance of Stockton
Nancy
Mike and Sheri of Electro Automotive
Jim Cullen
Sean Ryan
Ken Henn
Bruce
Frank
All of the kids across the street
My dog Molly, and her cats, Manx, Tiger, El Sluggo, TC, and Sable
I truly value your love and, the support you have shown throughout this process so far. Thank You from the deepest of my feelings. “Keep On Pluggin”
Well after glassing the top on, I attempted to fit the doors. They wouldn’t line up properly. (They have never lined up properly) I went to Bugformance of Stockton and and asked Greg if I could use one of the doors off of the “Grey Beast” He agreed and I attempted to fit the door . It too wouldn’t fit The problem seems to be only on one side. The solution… I am going to use the top and door assy from the donor car. This should solve the problem. Just to remind you, here’s a photo of the donor car.
Today I disassembled the Bradley Body and made some discoveries. The first being, the Bradley has no roll cage to speak of. It has what looks like a roll bar, but it is actually just a brace to bolt the top to. The second thing is that the car was originally copper metalflake in color.
Today I had to remove the ball joints from the swing arms. To do this required the following: 1ea ¾” impact socket for the driver, 1ea 1 1/4” impact socket for the receiver, 1ea “Big ass C-Clamp”. For the “Big ass C-Clamp I chose the one attached to my bench, some folks refer to it as a vise but I’ve got plenty of those already so… this is my bench mounted “Big ass C-Clamp”. I also needed an extension handle. The photos tell the whole story except for the resounding “POP!” when that baby breaks free.
Once all of the ball joints were out, I started cleaning the swing arms. Thats Molly defending the swing arms, note; all of the ball joints are removed.
Today I had to order a slide hammer from Deepak at NAPA to assist in the removal of the front bearings and races. Yesterday sunday I spent the better part of the afternoon trying to remove the bearings from the axle beam and was only successful at removing one with a puller I have. My second attempt wasn’t quite so fruitful. In fact I succeeded at ripping the next one so that all of the little needles fell out of the bearing. The puller didn’t seem to be the right size and on my third and forth, fifth, sixth, seventh… try at “beating a dead horse” I decided to use a different approach. My slide hammer will be here tomorrow right before I have to go to work.
I bolted the front suspension to the chassis so I could tear down the front wheels. I got the entire steering system removed. I removed the knuckles, wheels and all, on both sides. I have decided not powder coat the front suspension. I will steam clean it strip it and paint it. Powder coating would require me to remove the front torsion bearings and assembly and is not worth the risk of damaging the system. So I will replace all tie rod ends, ball joints, both knuckles (with new disc brake spindles), rotors, and that ought to do it for the front suspension.
Mark and his assistant came by today at precisely 0900 to pick up the pan. He says I should be getting it back by Thur 5/1/08. in the meantime I am going to straighten out the shop and do domestic things around here.
I Found my powder coater. Mark Threep, He does work for Back Street Choppers and he gave me a quote of $450-$500 for sandblasting (depending on how dirty the chassis is), powder coat, pick-up and delivery. I bought some aircraft stripper today to remove some of paint, tar and glue. He will be here tomorrow at 0900
I started preparing the Chassis for sand blasting and powder coating. I needed to strip it down completely. I figured this was would take me 4 days. Boy was I wrong. I started at 0730 and finished removing front and rear suspension, pedals, all grommets, all rubber tubing and all bearings by 1400. This chassis is a dream to work on.
I highly recommend the Bently Bug Book. It has been invaluable.
