This week I took off work on Thursday and with the Holiday, had four days to work on the EV Fiero. The weather was nice so I uncovered the engine cradle and began working on the front engine mount. Having already leveled everything and making up a template, it was just a matter of shaping the piece of metal from the old electronics tray, locating the holes, and drilling. The holes that go into the motor were off about a quarter of a hole but slotting them a little worked out fine. I already had one hole in the mounting plate on the cradle that was in the correct position so I marked it on the motor mount and drilled the hole. Then the mount was bolted to the motor and the one hole in the base, so now I could locate the last base bolt hole. This one had to be drilled from underneath the cradle and I had to move one of the jack stands to be able to get access. Finally all of the holes were drilled and the mount was bolted up.
FRONT MOTOR MOUNT
Next was to drain the remainder of the lubricant from the transaxle and refill with fresh oil. With everything back in place and bolted down I decided to hook the motor up to a battery and give it a spin. When making up the cable for the motor I removed the black heat shrink tubing on the terminals and put a piece of orange heat shrink the entire length of cable, also installing red terminal cover boots. The half shafts turned and everything was looking good until I noticed a puddle of oil on the driveway. Although I had installed new half shaft seals, the inboard seal was leaking. It was leaking when I removed it from the car because there was a build up of oil saturated with carbon dust from the motor brushes. There must be a gouge in the shaft so I will need to pop the drive shaft and try to work on it, to see if I can get it to seal.
OIL FROM LEAKING SEAL
On to working on the engine bay and getting the 12 volt terminals cleaned up. After working on the rust spot, from the lead acid battery, I gave the whole area a good coat of primer, then finished with a coat of truck bed liner. After that the wiring harness terminal and junction box were reinstalled. New split loom will be added and mounted to the firewall after those areas are painted.
12 VOLT TERMINALS CLEANED
Wire clamps were also added to the charger connection wires that will help hold everything in place and make everything look cleaner.
The J1772 AVC2 board form Modular EV Power will be installed next and the charging circuit will be done.
MODULAR EV AVC2 MODULE
The original Curtis 1231C controller bit the dust right when I started to work on the car and although I bought new MOSFITS and Diodes, decided if I was going to put LiFePo4 batteries in the car, I should also put in a decent controller. After shopping around I decided to go with a Synkromotive . Part of the reason was price but the main reason was the Synkromotive controller is air cooled and can also be used as a charger. Although I will use the charger that came with the car for now, it would be nice to have one device to do both motor control and charging. It also has a GUI for configuring and I loaded the drivers today for the USB dongle so I am ready to make another stab at communicating with the controller and turning the motor..
SYNKROMOTIVE CONTROLLER
The controller will be mounted on top of the motor so I went to the hardware store to get some aluminum strip and stainless steel bolts & nuts to make and install the brackets.
ALUMINUM STRAP & SS FASTNERS
My son came out to shoot a video on Memorial day but I didn't have enough prepared, so we will have to wait until another day. We want to show the controller operating the motor and installing the motor cradle back in the car. I got my MIG working again so there really isn't much to do to finish up the engine compartment.
Thanks for viewing,
Randy
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