One of Wayland's Datsuns actually has an entire rear tray that slides in and out of the trunk area electrically.

That parallelogram hinge idea is nice. But truth be told, I'm going to stick with plan A just to keep things moving along. I already work slow enough - don't need to be re-engineering things on top of that!

...way to fend off creature feap.

Nice to see you back, SW. Any Healey news? :)

No rack progress to report

Sorry to be coming in late.
Did you keep the tranny or what did you do for power transmission between the engine and the wheels?

I'd be OK with a reference to an earlier post #.
TIA.

No prob.

Kept the stock tranny...

Well, the car isn't moving any more until I get to work on the cabling tidy-up & connector-making. I cut one of the battery cables this evening to plan my approach - and I don't have any extras.

It's just GOTTA be more efficient, huh? But I don't have any ideas what revs you would be shooting for...

I've read in several EVDL threads that around 3000 rpm is a good target for e-motor max efficiency. But the only way to know for sure is to test it. Fortunately, it's not too hard to do.

Futzed around some with the DIY cable lug idea

Hmm, you probably have a lot of those cables to make. Do they all need to be flexibe?

One of my first thoughts was to bend up a bunch of copper tubing and make buss bars for the interconnects for the batts that are grouped close together. But the impression I get from the EVDL is that solid buss bars are failure prone / loose prone, and that steered me off that path.

Can you tin the cable before you put it into the lug? Might keep it from wicking up so much of the solder in the lug.

Might be a multi-step process to let things cool down in between.

You might try using a damp rag around the cable, to help keep the cable from getting hot enough to wick the solder up. You should also be careful to not use any more heat than just enough to get the solder to flow at the joint of the wire and the pipe. Any more heat than that and it seems to create a oxidation on the copper which is resistant to the solder sticking.

Gary - good ideas. Can't use the cooling rag though, since the wire has heavy insulation above where it's stripped.

Heard back from the forklift place. $7 CAD per lug - yikes!

I found similar ones on evparts.com for $3.60 US each, however there's shipping and currency exchange on top of that.

Can you solder the heck out of the end of the cable then hammer it flat and drill it? (or pre-flatten then solder then flatten and drill?)

We have a winner! I suggested exactly that to Ivan this evening. :D

PS - Ivan wasn't too happy with my home-made lugs (I will post some pics). He rightly pointed out that while the mechanical connection may be good, the flattened end of the copper pipe was much thinner than the lugs we have. So it wouldn't have had the same current capacity. Whether it would actually have been a problem or not in our application is another question...

DIY vs OEM...

OK, so directly flattening / soldering / flattening the cable end

Those cables look used. Where'd you get them? 20ft of 2/0 AWG welding cable is expensive :-(

I'm not sure what the common method is, but I was thinking of doing the conduit method as well. Seems to be a safe way to pull it off. Safer than running through the car at least. I look forward to seeing the pics of your lug-less cable ends.

Rear flattened/soldered/flattened batt interconnects turned out well and are installed. Picked up 2 lengths of plastic 1 inch ID conduit as well. Continuing to plug away this afternoon...

Conduit is probably better than what I was going to suggest :p

Large garden hose :thumbup: It's flexible and you know it's water tight :thumbup:

Ooooh. Garden hose is a good idea if you're using 2/0 gauge. It would be a little more saggy than the conduit, but you could work around that.

Duh, I was worried about the exhaust pipe when you mentioned conduit under the car. LOL :)

Cool Cables, lets hope they don't melt :)

I know... I kept firing up the torches at the back of the car this afternoon, and every time I did I thought, "wait! gas fumes!" :)

I don't think the cables will melt. Unless I really misunderstand what's going on, the 4/0 is WAAY overkill. The internal wiring inside the motor itself is more like 2/0 size. That's what I'm more concerned about melting...

In further "misunderstanding what's going on" news, today was the first time since the start of the project I mistakenly shorted out pack voltage. Freshly charged, too. !!!ZORCH!!! I vapourized the end of a 2/0 lug. :O

That soldered cable end that turns into a lug is fantastic! Really, really good. Could you post up a tutorial so we don't all have to go through the learning curve please? :)

I second this request!

Will do. I'll take some pics of the process when I make another one, sometime this week.

I didn't realize how expensive that cabling and lugs could be. I have 10 1ft lengths of 2/0 welding cable that was in the garage I got from a garage sale. I will have to see if I can list and sell them for a bit of extra cash :).

When you say vapourized the end of the lug, did it actually go away? That's some impressive power, glad you weren't hurt.

Looking good Darin - I'm really impressed with the way you made terminal lugs. :)

Thanks DaX.

Field tested the new cables/lugs today.

Should I ask for range/speed predictions?

We've already got a pretty good idea: around

Why do I get the feeling that you'll throw a portable gas-powered electrical generator on it just to see how many MPG you can get that way?

Petrol-powered would sound so much better. We fill up most of our cars with a liquid we call gas. Ouch we must sound bad to foreigners.

Even on the new batteries you got from that pick up truck fella?

2ton: I was snooping around generator websites just the other day.. :D But no serious plans.

Ben: yup, that's on our "good" batteries. Keep in mind he had already used them daily for 2 [edit - actually 3] years, and was essentially ready to recycle them.

Also, using 5.25 as the lower limit effectively extends the car's range. Time for another range test!