03.31.08
Starting the Disassembly
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).
