WHERE'S THE JUICE

Thursday night I finally figured out how to modify the brackets to get the J1772 plug to be positioned in the center of the opening in the side of the Fiero. With a little cutting and grinding, it was time to get out the mig and weld the bracket to flange on the back of the passenger compartment. After flashing myself a couple of times, because of the close quarters, I was finally able to get the bracket welded into position. The engine compartment side was fairly easy to get to but to weld the back side, I had to go through the vent hole in the side of the quarter panel. Finally I was able to get into position, and the angle iron bracket was welded firmly in place. With the play in the bolt holes, and maybe a couple of shims on the J1772 connector, I will be able to get the plug perfectly centered in the opening. The welds aren't very pretty but I got good penetration and the bracket is tucked back in the fender where no one will ever see it when the car is finished.

J1772 BRACKET WELDED IN

Friday I went to radio shack in search of a 2.74 ohm resister for the J1772, but unfortunately they did not have one. I was however, able to pick up some wire for the pilot signal and a plastic bushing for the 220 plug conduit. I was unable to find any lugs for the #10 wire, so I will need to stop by the hardware store before I get started tomorrow. There is a lot of wiring to do before I can put the motor cradle back in the car, and I noticed that the 12 volt wiring needs cleaned up. There was some rust where the 12 volt battery used to be, and I should probably cut all of the rust out so I can weld in a new piece of metal. The good news is, this is the only rust I have found on the whole car.

 RUST WHERE 12V BATTERY WAS

RUST IN 12V CONNECTIONS

When I got up Saturday I had a headache, and felt kind of rough. I headed out to find a terminal and some connectors for the #10 wire so I could get the charging circuit hooked up. My first stop was the hardware store to pick up some crimp connectors and new bolts to mount the J1772 plug. I thought maybe they would have a terminal strip but they did not. Millersport Hardware is located in close proximity to Buckeye Lake so I stopped at the marina hoping they would have the Blue Sea terminal block, but sadly they did not carry them. They did carry the Blue Sea 12V single terminal, but I required the one with multiple connections. Off to Buckeye Outdoors, who did have the terminal strip. Bingo, I was back in business.

The next step was drilling the mounting holes for the J1772, and painting all of the brackets.

J1772 BRACKET PAINTED & MOUNTED

Next was to decide how to mount the terminal strip. I had some electrical boxes and started sorting through them to try to find one that will work. I found a ledge that is out of the way and started test fitting different boxes and finally found on that that will work.

  ELECTRICAL BOX FOR TERMINAL

 .

The placement of the box will give me short runs for the cables coming from the J1772 and 220v plugs, and I can run the cable going to the charger through the opening where the computer used to be mounted. This will allow me to route it through the opening to where the charger will be mounted.

COMPUTER COMPARTMENT

Sunday was Mother's Day, so I went to my parents house for a cook out. I felt bad because my wife had work, and could not go. She works for a flower distributor that supplies Meijer with flowers, and the holiday is a reasonably big revenue day for them. Fortunately, my son took her to dinner after she got off work, so she ended up having a pretty good day anyway.

I didn't go out to work on the Fiero until later in the evening, but I was able to figure out how to mount the junction box for the J1772 and 220v plug. I wanted to be able to get the cover off of the box, so I am going to make a stand to hold it off the ledge a little and mount it to the firewall. The firewall is at an angle, making the process similar to forcing a round peg in a square hole. I ordered 2.74k ohm resisters off of ebay, and since I am going to wait until I get them to wire up the J1772 plug, I began wiring up the 220v plug. Using some rubber gasket material, I created a shim to go inside the conduit to minimize the clearance between the plug and the walls of the conduit. After wiring the plug and putting a piece of shrink tubing around the bottom of the wires, I put the gasket material in the conduit and inserted the plug - tightening down the set screws. The gasket shim was an excellent fit, and the set screws held the plug firmly in the conduit. I fished the wire through the hole, tightened up the conduit nut and installed a plastic bushing. Everything meshed well and the final product was nice and solid.

220 VOLT PLUG FINAL MOUNTING

 

BACK SIDE OF 220 VOLT PLUG

 

220 VOLT CONNECTION IN BOX

 The car is not going to be done in time for EVCCON, so when Jack ran a special, knocking $70 off the price - I decided to go ahead and purchase my pass. I considered not going this year and spending the money on the car, but I met so many great people the last two years that I decided to attend.

Also, there are a few of the Manzanita Micro PFC 50 chargers left for $1500. These are never used units purchased in 2010 that will be fully tested before shipped. If anyone is interested, shoot me an email at randy@cz-ev.com and I will hook you up with the guy who bought them.

-Randy

MEASURE TWICE AND INSTALL ONCE

After the pilot bearing was removed and noticing that the outside was worn more than the inside, I started measuring the distances from the transmission input shaft and the outside flange where the motor adapter bolts up. The end of the trans axle shaft sticks out .042" past the housing when measuring to a strait edge and the motor coupling protruded .080 past the motor adapter flange, giving only around 1/8" contact of the trans axle shaft in the pilot bearing.

Since the clutch did not seem to work that well last year when I was driving the car, I decided to pull the coupling and bring it out a little on the motor shaft, so  I measured the position of the coupling on the shaft, removed the 3 bolts connecting the two piece taper coupling, and hooked up a 3 jaw puller. I had been hoping there were jack bolt holes but I could not find any bolts that would thread the holes I thought were for that purpose, so I hooked up a 3 jaw puller and started tightening the center screw. The legs kept popping off the od of the coupling and I wasn't making any headway, so I tried heating the coupling and put hose clamps together to go around the legs to try and hold onto the od but this did not work either. There was a flange on the back of the inner tapered bushing and a space between the two halves, so I tried to drive wedges between the two halves. The gap seemed to increase and I thought the coupling finally was coming apart, only to hear a piece of the flange hit the floor. Oops! Since the flange was broken and the inner tapered bushing would need to replaced, I kept on going until finally the whole flange was gone. On to plan B. I went to Advance Auto and rented a bigger 3 jaw puller and with the flange gone, was able to get the jaws solidly onto the outside of the coupling. Finally, the two parts came apart and I was able to get the coupling off.

It was Friday and very nice out in central Ohio, so I took a 1/2 day of vacation. Randy's Auto Machine Shop called and let me know the pilot bushing was done so I stopped there to pick it up on the way home. Things were really looking up!

PILOT BUSHING INSTALLED

When I got home, I contacted Randy at Canadian EV and was told the inner tapered bushing used on the 2 piece coupling is a standard  SH 1-1/8" bushing and can be found at any power transmission store.. What a relief. I called the closest Motion Industries Branch and was told they had one in stock for $10, so off to pick up the tapered bushing. I fit tested the bushing and it was exactly what I need.

SH 1-1/8" TAPERED BUSHING

Friday night I test fitted the clutch to the trans axle spline shaft and it would not go on. The old one slid on just fine. After inspecting the shaft it appeared the clutch had been riding on the end of it and had burred it up. The new clutch with no wear just would not slide on. After filing the burrs and cleaning up the splines, it finally slid on just fine. I assembled the flywheel, clutch and pressure plate and slid it on the shaft. It went back until the outside of the pressure plate was flush with the trans axle flange but was hitting on the new pilot bushing. I had wrapped electrical tape around the instillation tool to go from the .594 of the instillation tool pilot bushing od, to the .750 size of the bushing needed to fit the coupling pilot bushing size but it must have thrown the alignment off by enough that the pilot bushing would not align. I removed the pilot bushing sleeve and the flywheel slid in over 1/4" more before the end of the pressure plate contacted the ribs in on the inside of the trans axle housing..

 TRANS AXLE SPLINES

OLD CLUTCH SPLINES

 I went to Millersport Hardware and bought 3, 1-1/8 id machine washers that measured .238 when stacked together. I put the original spacer on the motor shaft and added the 3 washers behind the tapered sleeve, then reassembled the coupling, installed the flywheel, clutch, and pressure plate. This should give me .383 shaft contact in the pilot bushing  and move the clutch splines in .238 onto unworn  shaft splines.

I rigged the motor on the engine lift and lowered it into position on the cradle, working it toward the trans axle and when the shaft had started to mate, put the two bolts in the dowel holes.Then I put a transmission jack under the motor and adjusted the height until every thing was level. With a couple wiggles and a couple turns on the half shaft, the motor popped in. I tightened the bolts pulling the dowels into position, and the motor and trans axle were mated. Everything turned smoothly when I turned the half shaft so it looks like my measurements were correct.

MOTOR MOUNTED

Now I have to make the front motor mount so I took some level readings to make sure the motor and trans axle are level in relation to the cradle.

 MOTOR LEVEL READING

 TRANS AXLE LEVEL READING

  CRADLE LEVEL READING

After leveling the cradle and adjusting the motor so it was level with the cradle I made a template of the bolt holes and distance to the motor mount pad.

MOTOR MOUNT TEMPLATE

Once the motor mount is installed, the charge connectors finished, and the engine bay is painted, it will be time to install the cradle back into the car. Oh, if I forget, someone remind me I need to put lubricant in the trans axle as most of it spilled out when I lifted the cradle to paint the bottom of it.

Randy    

CHASING MY TAIL

Upon closer inspection the pilot bearing in the coupler from Canadian EV had grooves in it and was badly worn on the outboard side of the bushing. The only way to get the old bushing out was to use a burr grinder to cut a groove in the bushing down to the steel id of the bore and then use a half round chisel to peel out the bushing.

 BUSHING REMOVED

I contacted Randy at Canadian EV and he thought the pilot bearing in the coupling was the same as the OEM bushing. When the clutch and pressure plate arrived from Rock Auto the pilot bearing was completely different. The bushing that will fit has a 3/4 in id bore and needs a 0.826 in od to allow for a .001 shrink fit, leaving only about 0.076 in wall thickness in the bushing.

On Saturday, I drove to NAPA and was told that no one carried pilot bushings anymore; Then to Jeggs, AutoZone, Advance Auto, and finally to a hardware store to see if there were any bushings available that could be machined. They had a sintered bronze bushing that was 1 in od with a 3/4 in bore and 2 inches long, so I am getting real excited; All I had to do was take it to a machine shop, have the od machined down to 0.826, parted to 3/4 in length, put in the freezer for a couple hours, and press into the coupling. So I purchased the bushing and went to an CarQuest down the road that has a machine shop. They told me that they didn't have a lathe but if I drove 10 miles to the CarQuest in Newark, Ohio, they could machine it for me. I arrived at the CarQuest in Newark and showed the counter guy what needed done. After giving me all of the reasons why it would not work he told me they had a lathe but it was not precision enough to cut an od to 0.001 tolerance. It was obvious to me that they could do it but just did not want to mess with it. I was a machinist for 18 years and know that not only will this work, it is not that hard and shouldn't take over a half hour to do. He told me that there was a machine shop down the road that could do it but they were not in on Saturdays. Since nothing that this clown had told me had been true so far, I drove down the street to the machine shop and found three older gentlemen sitting on lawn chairs and telling war stories or something. I showed them the bushing and told them what I needed only to be told that they did not have the ability to cut the od and part the bushing. By now I am scratching my head wondering what kind of shop with a sign out front with the word "MACHINE" in plain english, would not have a lathe that could cut the od of a bushing and part it to the proper length.

BUSHINGS

Ok, back to the original converter's blog to see if I could find out any information on the pilot bearing. As it turns out, he had the same problem. The transaxle adapter and coupling was actually for an S10 but would fit a Fiero, (sort of) the pilot bushings were different. There were no blog entries on how he solved the problem, but there was a pilot bearing in the coupling, so he must have figured it out. I spent a little time on his blog and am really surprised  that he did the original build in 3 months. He drove the car 30 some miles round trip to work everyday when the weather was warm enough for the lead acid batteries. I have been working over 3 months just upgrading it to LiFePo4 so I really am impressed by Larry's original build.

Because of spending Saturday chasing my tail trying to find a bushing and then a machine shop to do a simple job, I spent Sunday just cleaning up the garage, putting all of my tools back in the tool box so I can find them and messing with the charger connections. I am close to having the J1772 plug mounting in place and just have some positioning and welding. Then on to how to make the vent cover open and close.I found a 2 inch conduit slip coupling with male threads on one end and lock down screws. I will put a shim between the coupling and plug to fill the gap before tightening the screws but it will mount in the gas fill cavity real solid.

 

 220 VOLT PLUG IN CONDUIT

J1772 BRACKET

 J1772 PLUG IN BRACKET

 VENT COVER HENGE EXPERMENT
 

When I went to get some cable to hook up the plugs to the charger I told the counter guy the voltage and amps I would be using and was told I needed 3 conductor #10 cable. When he brought it out it was much larger that the cable currently running to the charger. When I got home I found the cable in the car was #12. I ccarged the car all last summer and fall with no problems but want to make sure I get everything wired correctly while doing the rebuild.

#10 VS #12 - 3 CONDUCTOR CABLE

I got an email this weekend from another converter who ran across some used Manzanita Micro PFC 50, 50 amp chargers and is asking $1500 per charger for them. That is about half price so if anyone is interested, let me know and I will pass it along to Brian.

Thanks for visiting,

Randy

THE RETURN OF WINTER

Last weekend the temperature was in the high 60s but by this Saturday had dipped into the 40s and 50s, so it was a struggle giving the motor a second coat of paint.After warming up the garage a little the motor was heated up enough to spray again so I rolled it out onto the driveway and added another coat.

FRESHLY PAINTED MOTOR

While the paint was drying, I started fabricating a mount for the RPM Sensor. I had purchased a reluctance ring that was originally used in a Jeep distributor and mounted it on the end of the Warp 9 shaft. 

ARCING, SPARKING, STUBORN BRAKES AND WATCHING PAINT DRY

This week I took Thursday and Friday off of work to get a couple extra days to work on the Fiero. 

Thursday was spent welding the solid transaxle mounts, welding a plate to attach the front motor mount and continue cleaning and painting the cradle. After new axle seals were installed in the transaxle it was time to get out the hoist and put everything together.  I had to quit early on Thursday to take my wife to see Fleetwood Mac that evening so I would mount the transaxle Friday morning.

FRONT TRANSAXLE MOUNT

 REAR TRANSAXLE MOUNT

MOTOR MOUNT PLATE

Friday morning I picked up the cradle, painted the underside and gave the top side another coat. After a trip to the hardware store for grade 8 bolts and nuts for the solid transaxle mounts, it was rigged and bolted to the cradle, fitting nicely in the new mounts. There was enough time before dark to remove the drivers side brake.

 

TRANSAXLE MOUNTED

Saturday was on to the brakes. The calipers came off easily and as there is a parking brake actuator in the rear brakes, the piston has to be rotated to allow the piston to compress. After working for an hour trying to get something to fit into the indents on the cylinder, I was off to Autozone to rent a brake took kit. Just my luck, they had every pin spacing except the one I needed. I had to slightly modify one of the disks and was finally able to get the piston to turn. Once it turned about a half turn I was able to compress the cylinder all the way in with the regular compression tool that was in the kit. I decided to paint the brakes red to match the Warp 9 motor and after putting on a coat, the paint bubbled up in several places and looked pretty bad. I took a rag and brake cleaner and wiped all of the wet paint off of the rotor, cleaned some more with brake cleaner, dried with compressed air, and tried again. This coat was a little better but not much. I put the caliper aside to dry and started working on the other caliper. The notches in the piston were different than the drivers side piston and the tool would not work at all. I removed the nut from the parking brake actuator and turned the shaft. It threaded in and allowed me to compress the piston with the regular compression tool that was in the kit. This time I really cleaned the caliper with brake cleaner and went over all the surfaces with a wire brush, again drying with compressed air. After the first coat was applied, almost the same result as the other side. After drying for about 10 minutes the surface did smooth out a little, so I put on a second coat and put it aside to dry overnight. I had to run the rented brake kit back to Autozone and decided to call it a day. One of my co-workers owns a J. Gumbos so I headed over there to have dinner and down a few well deserved drafts.

Sunday I went out to install the pads and put the calipers back on the rotors but found the notches in the piston were not indexed correctly to allow the pad to snap into place. Again, I could not get the piston to rotate. I removed the nut from the parking brake actuator again and after turning a couple turns, the whole piston popped out; not exactly what I wanted. The good news is I was able to get the piston back in and the piston indexed to the correct position; The bad news was after 24 hours, the paint was still tacky and I had red paint all over me, not to mention the caliper looked like crap. After wiping it all down with brake cleaner again, it got another coat. It didn't look bad now but would need to dry for who knows how long before I can install it back on the rotor. So again, I am waiting for paint to dry.

PAINTED BRAKE TOP VIEW

PAINTED BRAKE SIDE VIEW 

 After the brakes are installed on the rotors and the parking brake cables attached I will start on the motor. I had considered getting a set of Helwig H60 Red Top split brushes but after emailing Tom Brunka at Helwig Carbon and describing the condition of the brushes,  I may just go with the existing ones. I will do a better inspection but there was close to 1/2 inch of brush sticking out of the holder and the commutator had a light brown coating with no signs of dark spots that would indicate arcing. I will blow out the motor, check for ground leaks, and inspect the clutch before attaching it back to the transaxle. Of course, with a new coat of paint on both the motor and adapter.

Didn't get as far along as I would have liked but did make some pretty good progress.

A STORY FOR NEXT TIME 

Thanks for visiting,

Randy

TRANSAXLE CRADLE DISASSEMBLY

This week I was able to spend all day Friday and Saturday removing the motor and trans-axle from the cradle and received the new aluminum anodized solid mounts.The red will match the color of the Warp 9 and the solid mounts should take any play out of the cradle. (Ain't they purdy) I heard Pontiac started doing this in 1988 on all Fieros, so the looseness must have been a common problem in the earlier models.

SOLID CRADLE MOUNTS

 

The motor was removed and the commutator and brushes were ok, so I am going to blow out the motor and stay with the original brushes for now. The orientation of the motor needs changed so the terminals are on the top; I don't want to have to get under the car every time I need to check or make up the motor connections. This will also give me a chance to check the clutch disk and the flywheel coupling.

 

WARP 9 MOTOR REMOVED

 

The trans-axle was power washed, primed and painted. Additionally, the axle seals are going to be replaced and new grease put in it. It looked like the passenger side seal was leaking a little and collecting carbon dust from the motor brushes.

CLEANED & PAINTED TRANS-AXLE

Saturday I went to the local hardware store and picked up some metal to fabricate the solid trans-axle mounts. The base of the original mounts are going to be used and I found out that using a cut-off wheel is not the best way to remove the rubber from the mounts. I spent an hour that evening getting all of the rubber off of my hands and arms, not to mention how long it took to clean the bathroom sink before my wife got home. 

Pieces of square tubing were cut to the length of the old rubber mounts and end caps were welded to cover one side of the tubing. I used some flat metal with holes already in it and put a bolt through the mount to line everything up, then tacked the tubing to the original mount base. Once the mounts are trial fitted, any necessary adjustments will be made, then the tubing will be welded solid. I am going to add triangular gussets to all 4 sides to give the square tubing a little more strength. I will also pick up some grade 8 bolts for the final instillation.

SOLID TRANS-AXLE MOUNTS

 

 My next project is going to be priming and painting the trans-axle cradle, then test mounting the trans-axle with the new solid mounts. Once the motor is cleaned I will put it on the trans-axle and make a solid mount for it also. This should take all of the movement out of the drive system that sounded like a jack hammer when the car accelerated.

Hoping for more good weather next week.

Randy

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED

Last week I started the process of removing the Fiero engine cradle. Because of a belly pan that the original converter had installed, there was no access to the jack points on the car so I tried to pick up the rear with an engine hoist. With the cradle still attached to the car, there was just too much weight and the hydraulic cylinder just bypassed before the rear wheels would come off the ground.

BELLY PAN

As luck would have it, without the lead acid batteries, the car was high enough off the ground to allow me to remove the rear belly pan panel and I was able to get a jack under the rear cross member. With the car lifted as high as the jack would go I was able to get jack stands under the middle frame rails but could not get it as high as I would have liked. Because of this, I decided to disconnect the struts from the rear A arms and leave the struts suspended from the towers. After measuring the clearance, I was close so I rigged the engine puller and put some jacks under the firewall side cradle mounts and a transmission jack under the rear cross member as back up protection. The engine lift would not reach all the way to the center of the engine cradle so I would need to roll back a little on the transmission jack before transferring the load all the way to the engine hoist. After removing all of the bolts, I lowered the front jack I had supporting the firewall side of the cradle and the transmission jack allowing the cradle to slowly roll toward the rear of the car. My side to side rigging was a little off and the passenger side was quite a bit lower, so I rigged up a cable hoist to level the load. When lowered,  the cradle set firmly on the legs of the engine hoist but I was about 3 inches short of being able to clear the trunk protrusion which was the lowest point. Each side had to be jacked up, the jack stands extended and finally there was enough clearance to roll the cradle out. Success!

MOTOR TRANSMISSION CRADLE

There was movement in the rear of the car when I drove it last summer, so solid cradle mounts have been ordered and I will make solid transmission and engine mounts to sure everything up. This will also be a good time to clean, paint, install Helwig Redtop brushes, check the clutch, and bring the motor connections up to the top instead of down on the bottom.

 

 

 EMPTY MOTOR COMPARTMENT

With the car jacked up, With access the motor compartment, I will remove the firewall insulation (as there is no heat generating ICE engine anymore), clean, paint, install the J1772 plug and clean up the wiring runs before reinstalling the motor cradle.

 

This week I received an email from another converter in the Columbus, OH area telling me that there was going to be a get together with all of the builders who were planning on attending  EVCCON. I am pretty excited to see some of the other local builds and hope I can get the Fiero done in time to bring to the show.

 

Randy