The front rack is in!

After the last post I promised the steering rack and motor would be in, which is easy if you wait long enough between posts. The manual steering rack went in without too much of a fight and works great now.

About a month ago the local PBS station KLRU asked to come film an EV conversion in progress for a show they were working on which dealt with global warming and alternative energy and transportation options. That episode of Austin Now is available here. It just turned out the Cabriolet was ready to have the motor dropped in. Much grunting and lifting later it was in! Kudos to the Electroauto folks for the motor mount design, it fit really well.

The KLRU crew also got a lot of film of Mark Farver's MR2 cruising around, and got to share a bit of the EV grin when one of the crew got to drive.

The crew left before we got the drive axles attached, but at the end of the night we hooked a battery up to the motor terminals and the wheels spun, even in the right direction! Last week I sat in the driver's seat and powered the motor from my old starter battery hoping to be able to pull forward in the driveway. Grand total of progress: 4 inches! But there was real movement and battery powered. I just need a few more volts to make things happen.

I got the battery rack in place today, I need to make a few pieces that I can't find as part of the kit. Kudos again to ElectroAuto fitting the battery rack in. It was tight in a lot of spots but fit fantastically.