May 23, 2008

Getting nervous

I've a number of things left to do - install the motor and ensure it is supported properly, cut/crimp and hook up batteries cables to batteries, connect up contactors to system, hook up wires to auxiliary battery and dc-dc converter, and probably a few other things. I've done a lot of prep work, wiring up and thinking through safety considerations, but now I'm seeing a lot of the steps unfinished. Nothing big, and not sure how many, but the speed of this conversion has its up-sides - I haven't gotten bogged down and making everything perfect and have focused on driving this instead of infinite tinkering. But there are also down-sides - there are probably a few things I should have taken care of at the time and not said "I'll do this later, it will be no big deal to unhook all of this"...Such as: painting the underside of the car, installing springs on shocks, painting control board and battery boxes, cleaning, dealing w/ vehicle rust, etc. All this _can_ be done later, but probably would have been best to slow down and get things done at the time before all this complexity (and $) is in the vehicle. Nevertheless, I've four days left here before we move to Kansas City where I've no garage, not to mention much less time...The pressure is on!

4 comments:

onesojourner said...

Its looking good. What batteries are you running in there?

fungua mlango said...

Trojan T-1275s. There are 8 of these 12V batteries, 5 in the back and 3 up front.

onesojourner said...

I am considering the same batteries for a beetle conversion. When you say the motor does not need to be supported from the other end with that transmission does that apply to all air cooled VWs or is that just the type III?

fungua mlango said...

Not sure. If you read Wayne's response on the MAEAA list, you can see he implied that it would probably fit most rear-mounted engine types (thus, not just the type III). At least that is the sense I got, but I'm just going w/o a tail mount for this vehicle for now. I'll see if things are not bouncing around and well supported and if not, get one fashioned.