04.15.08
Posted in Disasssembly at 12:00 am by Administrator
Today, I spoke with the folks at Electro Automotive and they recommended the same system that Mark is looking at – a 144 VAC system., using 18 8-volt wet cells (Trojan T-860, T-875 or T-890) for now and perhaps Lithium-Ion batteries in the future. I disassembled the entire front end of the car today – coil-over shock absorbers; tie rods & steering damper; steering box and trailing arms; spiders & brakes; front beam; shifter rod; master cylinder; pedal cluster and front and long brake lines. The only hitch in the giddy-up was the ball joints in the lower trailing arms. They wouldn’t release from the spiders, so they’re in the shop as assemblies. All that’s left now is the rear end. Then, I can get the VW chassis to the media blaster and measure and draft up the sub-chassis for Mark so that we can start designing the new sub-chassis.
I did note something odd about the front shock absorbers. These are standard EMPI adjustible coil-over shocks. However, someone put a ring of metal between the bottom of the adjuster and the two pins that index the adjuster on both shocks. This ring renders the adjustment feature useless and compresses the spring by about 2 inches. what I’m wondering is — how did he disassemble the shocks to install the ring?
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04.14.08
Posted in Disasssembly at 12:00 am by Administrator
Today, I had the help of a couple of landscapers (who had been hired to fix a leak in the main water supply to the house — sigh…), and we pulled the motor. Afterwards, I got the transaxle and two half shafts out, disassembled a part of the brake system, and removed the pot box.
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04.13.08
Posted in Disasssembly at 9:00 am by Administrator
Today, I removed the sub-chassis from the Volkswagen chassis. This was fairly easy to do, but required moving the jack stands around a bit. The sub-chassis is bolted to the main (Volkswagen) chassis in 6 places. There are 2 U-bolts around the lower beam tube at the front end, there are 2 U-bolts around the rear torque rod housings and there are two brackets that connect the sub-frame to the two lower mounting bolts for the transaxle. The frame is going to need to be redesigned as I was able to identify at least three structural flaws in the factory’s design.
First, The front battery box hangs cantilevered in front of the chassis and the rear battery trays hang cantilevered beyond the rear of the chassis. This made the frame bow up longitudinally (fore-to-aft) in the center — under the floor pans. As a result, the bottom flanges of the two main C-channels buckled slightly — not to the point of catastrophic failure but enough to warrant a redesign. I suspect that the buckling occurred as a result of dynamic loads (car bouncing along the road) and not static ones.
Second, there is a small cross member (angle iron) near the rear of the car that is bolted to the aft ends of the transaxle support forks via a pair of small 1/8-inch-thick metal brackets (see photo). The cross member bowed up in the center (between the transaxle forks) — probably because the aft battery racks were pulling down on the ends of the cross member.
Third, there are a pair of diagonal braces that support the aft ends of the rear battery racks (already removed when the photos were taken). They run from the aft outboard ends of the two battery racks up to the tops of the rear shock towers. Both of these braces were snapped off at the shock towers.
I’ll need to give the redesign some pretty good thinking. I may also want to see if I can incorporate mounts for the seatbelts and seat positioners into the frame instead of just bolting the belts and positioners to the floor pans. In the meantime, I’ve got all of the VW chassis parts to recondition.
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04.12.08
Posted in Disasssembly at 7:00 pm by Administrator
Fellow cyclist and Personal Trainer Ray Christian came over and helped me lift the body off the car and set it down on the concrete. That’s all we did today. I rode the Red Rock Loop Road for the first time this year with Ray and a friend of his. It was a great ride..
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04.11.08
Posted in Disasssembly at 12:00 am by Administrator
I stayed inside the shop for the entire day, cleaning up and disassembling parts and putting them into Banker’s Boxes. Here’s the list of what’s in where…
DISCARDED
• Lester Charger Hatchback Area Fiberglass Pan
• Radio
• Seatbelts
• Battery Cables
BOX 1
• Curtis Controller
• Anderson Connectors and Large Cables
• Shunt, Fuse, Fuse Standoffs
• Bare Instrument Panel
• (5) Instruments
• Terminal Block, Lights & Relay
• Turn Signal Arm
• Charger Outlets and Hardware
• Bradley S/N Tag & Hardware
• Reflectors (Bad)
• Bradley GT II Aluminum Badge for Trunk
• Headlights
• Headlight Trim Rings
• Headlight Retaining Rings
• Headlight Bucket Gaskets
• License Plate Light Fixture
• Defroster Compartment Lens
• Front Marker Light (1) – Hella TVK 18 SAE IP3 TVK 25 SAE 176 VW 171953155 A3EO
One was damaged and I need to find another.
• Front Bumper Hardware
• Heater Coils
• Heater Base Plate
• Fuse Box & Fuses
• Converter Box
• Pushbutton
BOX 2
• (16) Lug Nuts
• Gull Wing Door Hinges & Hardware
• (4) Door Struts
• (4) Vents and Hardware for Rear Deck
• Steering Wheel & Hardware
• Bradley Logo Horn Button
• Rubber Seal at Forward End of Glare Shield
• (2) Defroster Duct Hoses
• Hose for 96V Motor Blower
• (1) Gas Strut for Trunk
• Headlight Bucket Hardware
• Headlight Pans
• Rear Bumper Hardware
• Bumper Rubber
• Heater Diverter Sheet Metal Piece
• Heater Fan Motor & Electric Parts
• Hardware Bag (Especially for Steering Wheel)
• Miscellaneous Hardware Bag
BOX 3
• Heater Box
• Heater Hose Tee
• Heater Vent Tubes
• Horn
• Wire Looms
• Wire Plastic Conduits
• High Current Cables
• Hatchback Gas Springs
BOX 4
• Bags of Seals and Gaskets
• 48V/96V Bat Handle Switch
• Wiring Looms
• Fender Moldings
• Hurst Shifter & Ball Knob
• Bowden Cables to Rear of Car
• Brake Fluid Reservoir
• Speedometer Cable
• Hardware Bag
Of course, none of this has been restored as of yet. That’ll be a rainy day task while I’m waiting for parts to arrive. Then again, it almost never rains in las Vegas.
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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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