Saturday morning I put the wiring in plastic bags and taped them up water tight, then power washed the engine bay. While it was drying, I went to the new Advance Auto in Hebron, OH to pick up some primer and truck bed liner paint. I believe this will give me a nice rugged coating and the finish will help cover up any imperfections in the surface of the engine bay. I then removed some partially attached metal on the firewall, that was left from the original build. Some of the firewall metal pulled where the spot welds were made so after grinding the area, I applied some body filler to smooth out the area. Finally a coat of bed liner was applied to the inner fender walls, engine bay side of the wheel wells, J1772 bracket, and area around where the junction box will be mounted. After drying, the paint looks real good and proved to be a good choice for the engine bay coating.
With the 220 volt plug wired up last week, the next task is to wire the J1772 plug, so I started stripping wire and getting all of my soldering tools ready. I made up 2 pins before realizing that the piece holding the pins in place had to go over the wires first, so I proceeded to undo what I had done and started over. With the retainer slid over the wires, the pins were assembled again. When soldering, I had to be careful because the flux and solder tended to overflow the wire socket and flow down onto the outside that has to fit in the retainer. I kept a wire brush handy and kept the solder from building up by brushing it off before the pin cooled down and the solder hardened completely. When I tried to put the retainer over the pins, there were a couple of them that needed the solder filed and with a piece of fine sand paper, I was able to get the pins completely cleaned up and the retainer over them. Because of the 10 gauge wire, I had to do some modifications to the outside housing of the J1772 plug. I was finally able to get the cover over the wire, mated with the plug, and the plug assembly was bolted to the bracket.
220 Volt Terminal Box Installed
220 Volt Box with Cover Installed
There are some holes that need welded where the battery trays were mounted in the trunk on the original build so I got out the mig. After striking one arc, the wire ran out, so I will need to get more wire before I can get the remainder of the engine bay prepped and painted.
I have been looking for a piece of metal to use for the front motor mount and came across the table that the controller and contacts were mounted to. I got out the template I had made a couple weeks ago and cut out a section with the wafer disk. The picture below shows the open end but the other end has the edge bent at 90 degrees. I may bend a 90 degree edge on the open end also and weld the bolts to the bottom flange so the nuts can just be removed from the bottom. The bends on each end should give the mount plenty of strength.
METAL FOR MOTOR MOUNT
The motor cradle has been covered for the last 2 weeks while I have been getting the engine bay and 220 volt charger power ready, so now I will be able to get the motor mounting finished up and test run the motor finally.
I would have liked to have installed the motor mount but had to review a proposal for work Monday morning, so had to quit early.
Until next week,
Randy
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