Battery Box Update

I have been working hard on the metal welding and forming needed to complete the battery boxes. It is going a lot slower than I anticipated. I removed the two existing frame supports running directly under the bed and I am in the process of adding new supports that will provide for more battery room.
Under the truck bed before starting battery boxes. Note the two, looks like three, supports running directly under the bed. Those are the ones I removed and replaced with new supports.
Here is the oxy acetylene torch and cylinders I used for heating the metal to make my bends.
I created this low budget metal forming jig out of some cinder blocks.
Rear most battery box lateral supports (note stock supports have been cut out)
Middle battery boxes supportsOne of the middle battery boxes complete.Welding for both middle battery boxes is complete.

Fox 2 News Story Broadcast

The interview for Fox 2 aired today on the 9 pm news. It was exciting to see 30 seconds of my 15 minutes of fame. Overall I am happy with the piece. My wife sent a text message to my family and friends before it aired so some of them watched it as well. They jokingly said I should start a fan club.

You can watch it yourself off their site here. Ron did a great job talking about his truck.

A step in the wrong direction

When installing the new electric motor in the truck I made a mistake. I forgot to place the small foam piece that sits between the transmission, shifter, and the vehicle's interior. The mistake wasn't noticed until after the entire drive line was assembled. It probably isn't a critical component but I would imagine at a minimum it helps cut down on road noise.

Tonight I decided to rectify my blunder and disassemble the drive shaft and transmission mount so I could insert the missing foam part. All-in-all a fairly simple procedure but I would rather be making progress on something else rather than backtracking. Oh well.

Fox 2 Interviews Me

Paul Schankman and a vidiographer from our local Saint Louis Fox 2 station came to my home and interviewed me today about my EV conversion project. Ron Erb, fellow member of Gateway EV, was the one that actually setup the interview and will be in the final piece with me. Ron has his own custom Ford Ranger EV already completed so he thought it would be good if Paul could see a finished conversion and one in progress.

It was fun talking with him about my project and it will be cool to be on the news. I am not getting my hopes up too much though because Ron is much better at EV promotion so he will probably have most of the spot. I laid down a horindess weld bead on camera for them so I should at least have that. They will probably get calls at the station commenting about how I shouldn't be trusted with a welder.

Electric Motor is in

I spent the weekend mounting the Canadian EV adapter plate and adapter coupling to the electric motor and my transmission. It took me several attempts to get it together exactly right. My first few attempts I couldn't get the transmission shaft and the adapter coupling to mate properly. After a few hours of frustration I took a brake and searched the internet for ideas.

It ends up that I should have been using a clutch alignment tool to make sure the clutch plate was centered properly to accepts the flywheel and transmission shaft. I went to my local auto supply store (O'Reilly) and picked up the tool, it was cheap to purchase because it is just a small plastic thing but they just let me borrow one from a clutch kit they had (thanks guys!). With proper tools in hand I was able to finally get all the pieces together, although it still took a bit of work.

I then put the transmission and motor combination into the vehicle with my engine hoist. I also purchased the Canadian EV mounting kit to bolt directly into my existing frame's engine mount holes. The tricky part about this is that the holes the kit uses are actually the holes for the larger V6 ICE and not my inline 4. Chevy has all mounting holes for all engines already drilled in the frame but not all are threaded. So I had to use the kit's bolts, which are self tapping, to thread the mounting holes. You just place them in the hole and start to screw them in. The tapered end of the bolts digs into the frame and automatically thread the holes. This was not incredibly difficult to do but there was no documentation with my kit so had to figure it out on my own.
Closeup of the mounting brackets and the self tapping screws going into the frame.
Here is the top view of the engine mounted. whoopee!