An electric vehicle (EV) enthusiast's blog about a conversion from gasoline to electric on a Geo Storm. This conversion will use a series, brushed DC motor and UPS batteries for a 20 mile minimum commuter car.
As you can see, I'm getting a tidy little collection of hazordous waste. One more to go! You see the engine oil and radiator fluid pictured here. Once the gas is out, I'll start yanking things out. After that, I'll change the oil in the transmission, and we'll be ready to take it to the hazordous waste dump, maybe as early as next weekend. This weekend I plan to try and get the gasoline out and to start removing internal combustion engine (ICE) bits, like the radiator, fuel pump, etc. We're making progress!
Well tonight I was able to get the radiator fluid out with suggestions of folks at diyelectriccar.com. I gave up on finding the radiator drain plug (I'm going to look for it again once the radiator is out, I swear that thing is no where to be found), but with the suggestion of one of the members at DIY, I pulled the bottom radiator hose and it drained nicely.
Anyone care to guess what this gross liquid is?
Is it:
a) horribly blackened oil?
b) horribly blackened transmission fluid?
c) horribly filthy brake fluid?
d) water?
If you picked D, you got it right! This nasty, vile liquid is what came out of my carpet shampooer after cleaning just the front seats, and the passenger's side still has tan stains! I'll take an after picture when I'm done cleaning, but it already looks 80% clean with just a quick going over.
Here's what's comming down the pipe, hopefully.
a) drain oil and fuel
b) remove fuel tank and lines
c) remove radiator and fuel pump
d) remove the engine!
Maybe in this upcomming week I can get some of those first things done, and be ready this weekend to remove the engine.
I took this video on Wednessday, but am just getting around to uploading it today. I've been very busy remodeling the bathroom.
Suffice to say, nothing went right, and while I planned to be done by now, I have succeeded in putting in the new floor. The painting can be done over the week after work, and the shower stall is just going to have to wait for a while, I'm pooped!
But enough about that, you're here for the car. I did finally get it up on jacks and should have at least most of the fluids out of it this weekend. I also did some vacuuming and cleaning on the inside of the car. It still needs a good shampoo and another wash, but it's starting to come along!
Sadly, as you can see at the end of the video, there is, yet another, complication. I'm not sure how I'm going to tackle that yet. Maybe I'll post about it on diyelectriccar.com and see if anyone has dealt with tracking down a leak like that before. Leave comments if you have!
Today we're tackling the rust problems on the car. There's still some more work to do, but overal, it came out pretty well. The video, which I thought would be short, turned out to be the longest yet! I had to break it up into 3 parts. They'll be video responsed together as usual.
Here's the first one:
The manual did come in, but I did not get time to work on it. Today I'm tackling the bathroom, so I'm not sure I'll be able to get to working on the EV again until later in the week, when the hard bits of the bathroom are done. I'll update when I can, but I suspect it will be Wednesday at earliest.
Well, as usual, nothing goes quite as planned. I did get the tarps hung up, though it took quite a bit more innovation than I realized. It turns out I didn't have any metal drilling bits, which is good to know now rather than during the mounting period. Failing that, I decided to try and run some string over the length of the overhang. A toy and a bottle of water stuck on the roof proved to me this wasn't going to work right.
I finally got the bright idea to just drill into the wood siding and the wood posts, and that worked pretty well. I need to get some fasteners to attach the corners together, but it's functional for now.
I got out there the other day to put it on jacks, and when I got down under the car (on the passenger side; I can't get under the car on the driver's side because the tires are too flat), I couldn't find the jackpoint! Usually there's a pretty obvious spot, but there's so little undercarraige down there, I'm affraid of twisting or crushing something important. I've ordered the Chilton's Geo Storm repair manual, which I was probably going to need for the clutch/engine anyway, but am now stuck waiting on it. This is exactly what I wanted to avoid by ordering parts ahead. Oh well! Sometimes you just have to roll with the punches.
That should be here tomorrow, so hopefully this weekend I can start removing bits. At the very least I want to get the fluid drained, but I have a home renovation project going on too, which has to come first (only one bathroom, so leaving it half done is not an option).
I'll get some more pictures and maybe a video later this weekend back up. I did at least get the stuff I'll need to repair the rust whole, so maybe I can get that done and posted if nothing else.
Well, I didn't get as much done today as I wanted, but it was a start. I spent about two hours washing the car today. It still doesn't shine like a diamond, but at least it's clean enough to be crawling around. I still need to vacuum and shampoo the inside before I start driving off, but that's a ways off yet anyway.
Let's start with the video and go from there!
You can see some of the grime, but the video camera is not exactly super crisp. Here are some stills I took:
Before:
After:
You saw the hood in the video as before. Here's after:
And one last shot, while I was cleaning the roof, I took a shot while I had cleaned one side and not the other:
Yuck!
So what's on the agenda now that it's basically clean?
1) Get the tarp up (tomorrow) 2) Get it on stands (tomrrow) 3) Get the tires off and get them inflated (this week) 4) Get the various fluids out and disposed of (this week) 5) Start removing bits! (Hopefully, this weekend).
In particular for step 5, I need to get the clutch plate out so I can get it to EV America for the adapter, along with some other parts.
All the tools and work needed to tow the car with U-Haul set me back on the budget quite a bit, but next week I'll get the second payment on my car, so that'll perk things up. I ended up having to pay to have the hitch receive installed because the leaf springs had to be supported to do it. Then they had to wire the trailer lights, and I bought the wrong sized ball hitch the first time. While none of it was very expensive, the whole thing ended up being about $420! Plus, to really take the cake, I backed into the fence like an idiot and cracked one of the tail light covers on the van. No real harm done, but it'll probably take another $80 to get that fixed. I'm looking for ways to cust costs where I can but there's not a whole lot to be done. I think I may come in just a hair over budget, unless I can get a deal on the batteries. It won't kill me to go over, but I'm trying to keep it as low as possible and still have a vehicle that meets my specs.
Well, it was tough, but I have the car under the car port now! U-Haul messed up my reservation plans, so instead of leaving at 5:00 AM to get it and be back before work, I didn't leave until almost 11:00. We got back at about 9:00 PM and it was too late to make the video then. I made one today but the lighting was poor and the video didn't come out well. I'll do it again tomorrow and show off the Geo.
Right now, it's in need of a little love. The dash is quite cracked and there is a small rust hole on one side, a bit of rust on the wipers, but not too bad. The main problem is that it is filthy. I hope to get it washed tomorrow and maybe drain some of the fluids, but I also have a home renovation project I have to get done as well, so we'll have to wait and see.
As you can see, I've added a new column on the right for helpful resources to an EV conversion. If you have a site that you'd like to see added, leave me a comment or drop me an e-mail (e-mail address is in the welcome text on the right).
Things are starting to pick up the pace now, and soon we'll be ready to start the full blown conversion. I got the trailer hitch reciever I'll be installing to tow the Geo Storm yesterday, and I got the electric motor!
I got the hitch from etrailer.com. I checked all the auto parts stores in town, and none had a hitch that would work with the Stow and Go seating, so I ordered it through here. I used 5 day shipping, it got here in three. They processed my order on the same day - can't beat that! They even sent me a personalized e-mail to let me know it was processed and sent out.
The electric motor was even faster; I ordered it from cloudelectric.com. Because the Apple Store sent out three pre-authsorizations the day before, the sudden charge tripped the fraud filter. I called them to make sure everything was okay, and I didn't even have to tell them the order. I just said "Hi, this is Phil," explained the fraud trip, and they found my order and got it packed up and shipped to me. I ordered at 8:50. By 10:30 the next day, it was already here! I didn't pay anything extra for shipping, mind. I couldn't be more impressed with their support.
I'm also in contact with a fellow from EVAmerica.com, and as soon as I get the clutch plate out of the Storm, I can have my adapter made. IT's even going to be about $50 cheaper than I had initially expected.
So far, things are going great. Next video installment will be this weekend, and hopefull by next weekend we'll be making some real headway on the conversion!
Well, it's not much, but you can at least see who I am and hear me talk about the state of things right now. This shows my old Honda and why I'm looking for a new ride.
Future updates will be video responses to make it easier, or you can subscribe to my channel and really make my day!
Now I did forget to mention during the video why the Honda wouldn't be a good conversion project even if it was new. I'll cover that in the next installment, but there are a couple of reasons.
1) It's an automatic. Remember in my donor car specs that I was only looking at manual transmissions. There are several reasons for this.
a) Converting an automatic requires additional work and expense. My general laziness will become apparent in no time, so I might as well introduce it here. To make an automatic transmission work requires a more complicated setup, as the automatic transmission is under constant movement from the engine idling. In an electric vehicle, the motor does not idle, however. This means you have to either get an additional motor, or every time you stop you have to put it in nuetral and continue to give it pressure on the throttle, wasting a lot of energy. It also adds significant weight, having the fluid there, the heavier gear box, an additional motor if you choose that route, etc.
b) It's significantly less efficient. Part of that is because of the weight, but also, the more complicated automatic gearbox introduces increased resistance. That is why manual transmissions are given better gas mileage on dealer stickers. On a sticker for a gasoline car, it's only a few MPG, not that big a deal, but in an EV where range is already a limited resource, cutting into it further should be avoided where possible.
2) The car is too heavy. Now I'm sure you've seen people create heavier electric vehicles; the S-10 pickup conversion is very popular right now, so let me qualify that a bit. The gross restricted vehicle weight is not high enough for it's weight. The curb weight (what the vehicle weights with a full tank when it's devoid of passengers and cargo, i.e. parked) is around 2,822 lbs. I forgot to write it down off the door, but the gross weight (the total weight it can cary, car, cargo, passengers and all) is only about 3,600 lbs. In other words, it can only cary 800 lbs. of passenger and crew. When doing a conversion, depending on how many/what type of batteries you are using, it's not unusual to add 800 lbs. of batteries. For example, some 12v batteries I looked at the other day were 82 lbs. each. For a 96 volt system I need 8, making the weight of the batteries alone 656 lbs. The motor is then about 150 lbs. The weight of the other bits, like the controller and charger, etc. come to about 50 lbs. I would esitmate, making the total weight added 856 lbs. That leaves me -56 lbs. of passenger and cargo room! While the engine and exhaust system and tank are taken out, that only makes about 200-400 lbs. weight, depending on the size of the engine. Taking an easy average, 300 lbs. leaves me with 244 lbs. of stuff. Since I was recently up to 200 (I've lost some weight since thankfully) that gives me 44 lbs. of stuff to move around.
Now this would probably be fine for my usage. But if you forget about it and break a strut or axle because you had a buddy hop in one day, you'd sure be upset!
With the Geo Storm, the GRVW is around 3,200, or about 1,000 lbs more than the curb weight. It also has a larger engine, which gives me more weight to play with. I don't think I'd want to haul my mother-and-law around in it, but you can reasonably haul two people.
In the next installment we'll pick up the car, ready the work area, and if we get ambitious, drain some fluids! I'm very excited and can't wait to pick up the car this Saturday.
Hello, and welcome! If you have any questions, please feel free to drop my a line at eatheringtonp 'at' yahoo.com or leave a coment. I do my best to chefck each post and read every comment. Videos of the process comming soon!
Here are some resources that have been very helpful for me in my conversion process. If you have a site you'd like considered, send me an e-mail (address is in the welcome letter).
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