Got my donor car! MR2 mk2 G Limited

Do you own or use a EV. Then this is a good place to discuss things.
User avatar
ChrisB
Posts: 4657
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2006 11:33 am
Location: Hampshire on the Southcoast
Contact:

Postby ChrisB » Sat Aug 29, 2009 8:29 am

Night Train wrote:Ahhh, I see.

I guess that is more of a problem for the 48 volt fork truck motors run at 144 volts.


Yes, doing that you will quite likely to be able to well exceed the motors actual rpm and it will spit its toys out :lol: :lol: generally in quite a spectacular way as well 8)


ChrisB
I reject reality and substitute my own !!!!!!

User avatar
Night Train
Posts: 350
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:55 pm
Location: Manchester

Postby Night Train » Sat Aug 29, 2009 2:00 pm

I suppose the other thing is with PM motors they act a little like shunt motors and so have the starting torque of a series wound but also will maintain a given speed, relative to voltage, regardless of load.

User avatar
ChrisB
Posts: 4657
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2006 11:33 am
Location: Hampshire on the Southcoast
Contact:

Postby ChrisB » Sun Aug 30, 2009 12:01 am

Yeah think its along those line

ChrisB
I reject reality and substitute my own !!!!!!

User avatar
Night Train
Posts: 350
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:55 pm
Location: Manchester

Postby Night Train » Sun Aug 30, 2009 5:01 pm

Last night I very carefully measured the bell housing bolts and then did it all again today and adjusted for some errors.
I then made a template from hardboard to check that the bolt holes all lined up properly. The most important ones were the dowel holes at 10mm. They had to be accurate relative to the primary shaft. I figured all the rest of the holes are 1mm oversize for clearance so I had some leaway.

I drilled a 5mm hole in the centre in the board so I could drop a drill onto the centre hole of the primary shaft and found that the vertical y axis was -2mm off. With that sorted I adjusted all the X axis figures by -2mm and it was done.

Here are the final coordinates and hole sizes:

Image
The other useful figures are:
34mm. - That is the distance from the mating face of the bell housing to the face of the flywheel.
25mm. - The distance from the flywheel boss to the flywheel face.

User avatar
PHEV
Posts: 123
Joined: Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:50 pm
Location: Peacehaven/Brighton

Postby PHEV » Wed Sep 02, 2009 11:00 pm

Good work.
Any idea of the exact weight of the shell with all ICE components removed?
Was the 1250KG figure you mentioned the original weight of the car?
*Mazda MX-5, 300KW peak, 300v 20KW/h lipo pack, Soliton 1000A controller. 1100KG.
*Ducati SS twin Agni 80HP peak.
*Aprilia RS motorcycle, 500A controller, Cedric's AgniMotor, 96v 6kw/h LiPo pack, 130kg, 90mph.
www.jozztek.com

User avatar
Night Train
Posts: 350
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:55 pm
Location: Manchester

Postby Night Train » Thu Sep 03, 2009 1:21 pm

Hi PHEV,

The 1250kg is the maximum weight of the car. I have found the kerb weight is supposed to be 950kg. I'm not sure of the component weight atthe moment as I don't have anything to weigh it all with.

I am thinking of getting a 100kg fishing scale to weigh stuff with, I should be able to weigh 200kg with it if I use a pulley.

It is just a pain having to think about doing that for all the little bits and pieces as they come off.

User avatar
Night Train
Posts: 350
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:55 pm
Location: Manchester

Postby Night Train » Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:55 pm

I have been messing a little with the car but not a lot due to work and time.

The exhaust system is sold and returned back half the cost of the car.

I have now dismantled the engine block to sort out saleable parts and also so I can weigh in the aluminium and steel clean for a better price. I removed the crank shaft and with a lot of noise and sparks I managed to disc cut the end off and then clean it up. I will use the end to form the flywheel end of the coupler depending on what the motor shaft looks like. I will need to get the flywheel turned to lighten it eventually but for now I have taken off the ring gear.

The radiator is also out and I am thinking of what to do for heating and cooling. I could keep the aircon pump and power it off the drive motor or I can just abandon and remove the aircon entirely to save weight and power.
I have thought about keeping the wet heating by using a small 9kw inline electric water heater. It could just circulate hot water to the heater core controlled by a thermostat.

I have also been looking a the brake servo and have bought a brake vacuum pump from ebay. It is one off a Saab 9000 auto. I will use an empty fire extinguisher bottle as a reserviour. This is only because I have four old ones from 1988. They are full of dry powder but empied and cleaned up the bottle weighs about the same as an aluminium 1 litre water bottle. A vacuum pressure switch will be on its way over from Ireland on Monday.

As for tooling I have bought a lathe but it was a bit small and then I found another lathe slightly bigger and with a stand and taper cutting and, I think, screw cutting. so I bought that too. The first one is back for sale. I will pick up the new lathe on Sunday. I also picked up some dial gauges tonight. I bought 6 for £10 but the seller decided to put 2 more in the box and then gave me another two and a mag stand all free.

Anyway, that's it for now. I am hoping to have a look at some ex fork lift motors next week, not given up on the Agni motor option but weighing up costs. I will need to think carefully about power and range and performance.

One last thing. Work has moved to a new building and having been driving various routes I think my one way commute will consist of:
1/4 mile at 25mph
31 miles at 60-70mph
3/4 mile at 30mph

Getting a return trip on one charge will be testing and costly on LiFePO4s.

User avatar
Night Train
Posts: 350
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:55 pm
Location: Manchester

Postby Night Train » Sat Oct 17, 2009 8:10 pm

I've been encouraged to update this thread with some more stuff.

Since my last post I have been concentrating on stripping out the rest of the ICE parts and unneeded components.
This has been 'fun' and simple things like removing the fuel tank was a little bit of a pain.

The fuel tank in an MR2 is in the transmission tunnel. I had the car as high as I could on stands on one side on the basis of sliding the tank out. To access it I needed to remove all the under floor panels which meant the loss of a number of small M6 screws to rust. I will need to drill out and retap these for replacement at some point.
The tank itself is trapped in the tunnel by the aircon plumbing, vacuum line, speedo cable, clutch pipe and hand brake assembly It is also long, tall and mis-shapen mass which just adds to the fiddliness. The fuel lines were numerous but at least, unlike the heater pipes, easy to undo.

Image

I have also been working on ideas for the vacuum pump for the brake servo.
I began with a Saab pump I bought on Ebay.
Image

I did try it on the car but found that it made little difference to the servo. With or without the pedal felt the same.

I needed another option and decided to look at what I had available.
I decided to try the AC compressor as I hve heard of these being used as engine driven air compressors on Land Rovers. So to check if it would pull a vacuum I bought a vacuum gauge and tried it.
It managed to pull 10"hg just by turning the pulley by hand.
Image

To determine if it would work when driven I set up a test rig using a 1ph motor and belt to drive it in the workshop.
Image

I also needed a reserviour for the vacuum so looking around for something else free I decided to use an old dry power fire extinguisher.
I cut the handle and nozzle off on it and poured out all the powder.
Image
Image

I then added the reserviour to the vacuum rig and tried it again. I used a ball point pen tube taped to the pipework and it leaked a little but was enough to see the effect of the vacuum.
Image

The AC compressor was able to very quickly pull 11"hg and maintain quickly as it was lost. The electric clutch was also working well for a resonable hysterises on the vacuum level.

I set up the rig to test it on the car
Image

It worked! The 11"hg was fine giving good pedal and the compressor was ble to make up the lost vacuum very quickly, within a couple of seconds. I was also able to get 3-4 pumps of the pedal on the vacuum within the pipes alone so the reserviour will be ample.

For a vacuum switch a kindly EV converter from the DIY Electric Car forum sent me a spare switch he had removed from a commercial heating system. he had two and was using one on his brake setup. The switch will allow me to control the elelctric clutch on the AC compressor.

I had my working compressor, gauge and reservior so I then needed to work out how it would be installed. I decided that the AC compressor could be driven by the drive motor. The assumption is that it could pull a vacuum so quickly that I would have full assistance by the time I was off my driveway. It would save me having a second motor, it was quiet, it was designed to have a 100% duty cycle, it could be electrically controlled, the plumbing was already in place.
With the compressor attached to the drive motor I would use the existing vacuum side of the AC plumbing that lead to the front of the car. It would then pull from the reserviour and also from the servo and gauge in the instrument panel. The switch could be located near the compressor as I could reuse the original vacuum pipe from the engine.
For the additional plumbing I would use plumbing pipe.
Image

To make the reserviour useable, the plastic top of the reserviour was then turned on the lathe to 22mm. This allowed me to use plumbing fittings on it.
Image
Image


This is the set up I decided on laid out in the car.
Image
Image

The vacuum gauge was then installed in the dash instrument panel.
I decided to remove the fuel gauge and modify the panel to take the new gauge.
It was the first bit of really fiddly work. The original fuel gauge is fitted on a slant to fit the curve of the panel face and the back of the panel is full of moulded shapes and lighting channels.

I took the vacuum gauge apart to figure out how best to fit it thinking that without its case it would be easier. Not good. I managed to bend the bourdon tube as there was nothing else to hold. I bent it back though and then spent ages trying to zero the gauge again.

In the end I cut the back off the original gauge housing and refitted it to that before trying to fit it to the instrument panel. It was difficult to line it up with the round opening in the panel front due to it being on a slant What looked right didn't end up right once the panel was snapped shut so it needed to be popped open a few times.

The flexible circuit board also clashed with the vacuum connector and I had to cut the circuit board and reconnect the cut circuits with soldered wires.

It eventually was as right as I could be bothered with and I refitted it to the car.

This is what it looks like fitted with and without lights on. I was getting too frustrated to remember to take photos of the process.

Image
Image

The new vacuum gauge is electroluminescent and so doesn't match the rest of the instruments. I wasn't happy about this as I would have to look at it every time I drove the car so I decided on an extravagence. I am buying a set of Speedhut EL dials so the instruments will look like this
Image
I joined a group buy on the MR2 forum and it meant that it was 20% discounted and with free postage.

My next task was the removal of the heating system.
To get at the heater I needed to remove the whole dash board. This was a real pain as it is not an easy task.

This is the process.
The dash bolts are well hidden.

Taking out the glove box and the steering column surrounds is fairly easy. as is removing the centre console and all the stereo and heater controls.

There are two bolts, one at each side of the dash at the bottom corners near the door check straps.
Then there is one bolt behind the centre of the instrument pod which also has to come out.
From the instrument pod hole there is another bolt tucked well inside the dash towards the corner of the wind screen.
It's twin can be accessed by popping off the corner heater vent on top of the dash on the passenger side.

Remove the heater vent pipe that goes under the steering column.

The dash would be loose now except that you also have to remove the door surround trim. You can carefuly pop it off on the driver's side and unhook it from the rear quarter trim to save removing the seat belt and the rear window surround. Yes, to remove the dash the rear window trim should come off!

The passenger side door surround needs the grap handle removing. Be careful with the bolts from that as there is a spring plate, a square washer, the end of the handle and the back part of the end cover and they have a habit of just pinging off across the car. The spring plate has a squigilly tab at one end, that bit points towards the middle of the handle.

The door surrounds are very long. They start at the top back corner of the door opening at the B pillar and go all the way down the side of the wind screen where they hook into the dash, preventing the dash from coming out, and then a long thin strip continues down the A pillar to the bottom.

Now the dash is ready to be pulled away from the base of the wind screen.
However, you may not be able to remove it without removing the steering wheel and the top half of the steering column and the stalks.

I managed because I have a really small steering wheel and I managed to lower and extend the column while wiggling the various bits of the dash over the stalks, steering column, hand brake lever (needs to be up and down at various points), and the gear stick. The gear stick on mine is not attached to the gearbox and so has a wider range of movement to make this easier. If the steering column is removed then this may not matter.

The dash is heavy and unbalanced so careful of the seat fabric as it comes out.

To get the heater out there are a couple of 10mm AF nuts at the top to the bulk head.
Then remove the funnel to the windscreen demister.
Then remove the steel support that joins the passenger side of the tunnel to the round rusty tube across the bulkhead (Why do they never paint or galvanise this part? Every car I've seen with one it is unprotected and rusty!).
Disconnect the cabling.
Disconnect the hoses in the frunk and also the short cable to the heater valve.
Pull the heater from the passenger side and also push the pipes through the bulkhead sort of at the same time and wiggle it. It won't fit under the rusty tube but does flex enough to pop under it.
Then mop up the rusty water that is now pouring into the passenger foot well!

To remove the heater core DO NOT dismantle the heater box as I did.
On one of the heater core pipes there is a metal bracket screwed to the plastic heater case. Undo the screw and the core pulls out.

Here is the heater core
Image

I decided to look for a free method of converting it to electric so I dug out some old fan heaters and tried the elements from them.
Image

I couldn't find a matching pair that fitted so I decided to put the car back together while I though about it.
That would give me a problem, I though, as I would need to dismantle it all again to try an electric heater when I found one.
To get around this I decided I could cut a hole in the bulkhead where the heater was.
Image
Image
Image

I will cover the hole with a nicely panel beaten plate.

As I was reassmbling the heating system I noticed that the old aircon core was covered in rotting leaves, dead flies, greasy gunk, etc and I didn't want that lot ending up on my electric heating element. I decide to put a filter in the aircon box. To do this I used some aluminum mesh for car body repairs. It is fixed with double sided tape.
Image
Image

The filter could be changed, cleaned and better fixed quite eaily as the aircon box comes out without the dash removal.
Image

As I completed the reassemble heating ssytem and patted myself on the back over the bulkhead hole and the removable aircon box filter I then realised that I could have left the bulkhead intact and just put the heater in the aircon box. Doh!

Anyway, I still needed a heating element on the cheap and this is what I finally came up with.
It is three cooker rings. Each element is 1.5kw at 250vac. Measuring the resistance of one gave 43ohms. At 144v that gives 482 Watts.
I decided to put three together. The fun part was trying to 'weave' three elements together to make one compact unit with a good air gap between the elements.
It was like one of those annoying puzzles made up of some bent nails that need to be linked together or separated.
Image
Image

To switch it I would either need a very big relay or something solid state.

A chap in New Zealand who is also building an EV on an MR2 like mine suggested a PWM device to control the element. So I have decided that a cheap motor controller from Ebay will do. It can be controlled by the temperature slider on the heater control panel.

Anyway, that is where I am up to now. I hope you have found it interesting. :)

User avatar
Night Train
Posts: 350
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:55 pm
Location: Manchester

Postby Night Train » Sat Nov 07, 2009 10:17 pm

I haven't had time to do much with the car recently, mainly due to being on stage.

Something that I need to sort out is wht my heater system doesn't work anymore. It worked before I took it apart but now it is back together again only the fresh air/recycled air flap works. No fan, no heat control, no ducting flaps, nothing. Probably a connector I have missed and sods law says that I will have to take the dash out again.

In the meantime I am also investigating a hot water heating system based around a 9.5kW electric water heating system I have. It would mean that I won't have a glowing hot element in the heater box and the resulting fire risk as the water can not get above 100degC without the element cut out tripping the supply.

I will need to switch around about 24 amps at 144v dc though and that got me thinking....

How difficult/costly would it be to have a dc/ac inverter that converts pack voltage at 120-160v up to 110vac or 240vac at 50hz? That means that dc switching will be at much lower current when the inverter is off load and the high current swithcing will be on ac and can be made with cheap domestic/industrial switch gear.


I went to look at a small forklift truck for £450 that is less then a mile from my house. It was a nice old truck but it was a small sideways ride on type. The price with charger was right and the truck seemed good as a truck but the motors were small.

Drive motor, 8" diameter:
Image
Image
Image

Pump motor 8 1/2" diameter:
Image
Image
Image

Had the motors been bigger then I would have bought it and then tried to figure out how to get it home. I reckon the strip down would have produced enough saleable parts to make most of the money back.

User avatar
Jeremy
Posts: 472
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:35 pm
Location: Salisbury

Postby Jeremy » Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:33 pm

Thanks for the updates, they make interesting reading.

On the subject of heaters, have you thought about getting hold of an old truck heater? These are often diesel fired, and completely independent of the engine. Here's one on eBay that I found via a very cursory search, there may well be better bargains to be had: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/WEBASTO-AIR-TOP-2 ... 03fffdff2a

I believe that this unit is quite similar to the unit fitted to the Berlingo Electrique. The big advantage is that it would use all the existing heater plumbing.

An alternative might be to look at the Kenlowe Hot Start. I have one that I fitted to my old Shogun diesel years ago. It has a built in water pump and heating element, rated at about 3kW on 220 volts. They might make a 115 volt unit, which might just run on your battery voltage. It might be worth asking them.

Jeremy

Edited to add:

If you're quick, you might get this one for a good price. It's only got 6 hours to go as I type this and is still only at £21

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mikuni-MY30CFD-2- ... 3a5481955f


Return to “Cars,Vans and other road vehicles”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 29 guests