Step 15: Attaching the Engine/Flywheel/Clutch to the Transmission

Description: Attaching the clutch disc and pressure plate to the flywheel/engine.

Tools Needed: Wrenches, the two old bolts that connected the gas engine and transmission, starter block-off (from kit), Chain?

Estimated Time: 1 - 3 hours.

Caveats: None.

Purpose of this step: This is the fully connected engine/flywheel/clutch/transmission, similar to what was pulled out of the car. This all goes in in one piece, then will be mounted where the old engine/tranny was mounted under the car (Next Step).


I had the engine/flywheel/clutch assembly on one furniture cart and the tranny on the other. The ridged opening hole in the clutch has to match up in height with the shaft in the transmission and as you can see in the picture, I was off by a couple of inches. Figured that if the engine sat on some 2 by 4's on the cart, it would just about make up the difference. Also take note of the hole on the right side of the transmission where the starter used to be. That will be covered by a "starter blockoff" from the kit, since an electric starter is unnecessary with an electric engine.


This was pretty close (balanced out with some cardboard under the tranny and I tried to slide the clutch spline onto the transmission shaft. I had a lot of problems getting this on. The shaft from the transmission would only go in part way. I spent a long time trying to get this on and finally took a break, at which point my neighbor happened to come by and told me some things about the Island of Malta, that intrigued me and I made a mental note about looking at it for a possible vacation destination in the future. Then I had some lunch. By that time, I was feeling pretty good, so I headed back out to try again. I also sprayed a little WD40 on the transmission shaft. Then I tried to connect the two again and:

Voila!
Either that break reinvigorated my determination or the WD40 did the trick. I'll never know for sure. Anyway,there are 4 bolts for the attachment. The two top bolts are the ones used to hold the gas engine to the tranny and two new ones supplied in the kit. Note also the starter block-off attached and covering the hole where the starter used to sit. There really isn't much else to it. Now, the manual suggests that you first bolt on a chain to use to lift the transmission up onto its connections under the car, then take that off and rebolt. I am going to try to hook it up without doing that. I think that the two furniture carts should help me set everything up. I am still waiting for the mount that was supposedly sent out by ElectroAutomotive, so I'll let you know how it went without the chain once I get the chance to try and hook it up.



After finishing, I headed out to a ranch in beautiful Cayucos (the last of the surf towns 30 miles south of the Big Sur coast), to see Elizabeth Kucinich speak about her husband's run for president, impeachment and other subjects. She is an eloquent speaker (a Brit) and a beautiful woman. I hope her husband is successful with his current proposal in Congress.

Step 14: Attaching the Clutch (clutch disc and pressure plate) to the Flywheel

Description: Attaching the clutch disc and pressure plate to the flywheel/engine.

Tools Needed: Torque Wrench (13mm socket), Clutch pilot tool.

Estimated Time: 30 - 45 minutes.

Caveats: None to mention.

Purpose of this step: The clutch fits on the flywheel, which is already attached to the electric engine in the same way it was set up on the gas motor. This is the last step before hooking the engine/flywheel/clutch to the transmission.



This was actually fairly easy. The clutch pilot tool fits into the hub from the previous step to hold up the clutch disc until you have the pressure plate mounted to the flywheel.




The clutch disc is set with the hub facing out (I believe) as pictured here.







Next you put on the pressure plate. You use the same bolts (hopefully you saved them) to attach the pressure plate to the flywheel with the clutch disc between them. You might need to tighten the bolts a bit to get the pressure plate to pop over the dowels on the flywheel.





The bolts are tightened to 18 foot pounds. You need the flywheel lock on to effectively tighten them.







That's about it. Pull off the flywheel lock and take out the clutch pilot tool.









Next up is attaching the engine/flywheel/clutch assembly to the transmission. In preparation, they recommend taping over the "headbands" so that any particles from drilling will not get inside of the engine. I'll probably do the next step next weekend. Supposedly, my motor mount is going to be sent out next week, so I will hopefully have all of this installed under the car soon.

Step 13: Attaching the Hub and Flywheel

Description: Attaching the hub, bushing and flywheel to the electric engine.

Tools Needed: Allen ratchets, torque wrench, red loctite.

Estimated Time: 2-3 Hours (Once you have the parts).

Caveats: Could not do it as presented in EA manual, so I'll discuss what I had to do.

Purpose of this step: The flywheel attaches to the engine and will interface with the clutch as it did with the gas engine. The Serrated edge was only for the starter, so that is no longer necessary (Some people have had it lathed off to decrease overall flywheel weight and make the engine more efficient. I didn't bother).

As noted, the motor key was a bit too long, so I needed to hacksaw it down so it would be flush on the end of the motor shaft and not hanging over. This was imprecise on my part, but I don't think it needed to be perfect.
The motor key sits in the groove and I need to put the hub and bushing on over the motor key.

First, here is the hub. This baby is one of the reasons that ElectroAutomotive has a bit of a monopoly on the electric car conversion set up. You need a specially designed hub to mimic the old interface between the engine and transmission. It is different for every car and EA has a "library" full of different designs for different cars that Mike designs with a CAD and a digital camera.

This "bushing" fits inside the hub and then both fit around the engine shaft, then the flywheel attaches to that. Note the groove in the hub where the motor key fits.

The next part required me to stray from the EA instructions. They tell you to put the hub and bushing on just tight enough to allow it to slide on the motor shaft and temporarily place on the flywheel so you can set the proper length, then pull the flywheel back off and tighten the hub/bushing fully on the shaft, before putting the flywheel back on. At least in my case, this couldn't be done. The hub fits too snug in the flywheel and if I try to slide out the flywheel, the semiattached hub/bushing come right out with it (WD40 was no help). I thought this was going to be too much of an obstacle, but I believe I found a way around it. I figured out how far into the the hub the flywheel goes, then I added that distance (in my case it was .230 inches) to the 1.790" recommended. I tightened the hub/bushing loosely onto the shaft so that it could still slide and held the flywheel just flush with the hub (not inserted). Then I slid the the hub until the total distance was 1.790 + .230 = 2.020".
At that point, I tightened the hub/bushing all the way (this is an allen wrench procedure on five provided little bolts) so it wouldn't move on the shaft. For the record, tightening the hub pulls it back in from 1.790" to 1.769" according to EA. Then it's time to add the flywheel. But before that, I took the time for a little prayer to the flywheel gods.
As far as I can determine (and I'm willing to be corrected on this), it is good enough.
Of course, make sure when you put the flywheel on that the bolt holes line up with the ones on the hub. In order to get the flywheel all the way in, I had to screw all the flywheel bolts in tight, so I needed to use the flywheel lock. Again, this is different from the instructions, because I couldn't just slide the flywheel all the way in (also, don't forget the little washer plate that fits in the flywheel before you put on the bolts. Once I determined that the measurements were adequate (by my standards), I pulled each bolt out, one at a time, put red loctite on them and screwed them back in, then pulled the next bolt, etc.. The EA manual recommends tightenting the bolts to 80 foot pounds. I can't say that I was exact on that. I screwed them in about as tight as I could without rolling the engine off the crate. I think this is about as precise as an amateur like myself will be able to do this, so I hope it's good enough. Next up is the Clutch.

I posted a picture of my dog Whitman here in the past and my other dog, Finny got a little jealous, so here's Finny enjoying some girl talk:


Finny is a Westhighland White Terrier (Westie). We got him when we were living in Seattle (much to the dismay of his brother). Finny is the quintessential terrier, in that he is a pain in the ass. I love the little guy, though.

Step 12: Attaching Heavy-Duty Rear Shocks

Description: Replacing the old shock and strut springs with a heavy-duty variety.

Tools Needed: Strut Spring Compressor (If you're game - see caveat), Wratchet and torque wrenches. Two 10 inch plus adjustable wrenches. Rubber spacers (or homemade varieties). New heavy duty strut springs and shocks.

Estimated Time: 3 hours.

Caveats: Electro Automotive warns against doing the struts yourself, instructing you to bring them to someone with the right tools - skip past this part if you take their advice. I did it myself, so I'll go through how I did it, but accept no liability either. Also, make sure you jack the control arm up before removing the shock, as it is the only thing holding the control arm up.

Purpose of this step: Since the addition of the 20 lead acid batteries will add well over 1,000 pounds to the car, heavy duty shocks are needed to handle that extra weight. The same is true for the front shocks, which I will add later.

This is probably a good time to do this step, although the manual has it later on. It allows you more breathing room under the car. Here is a picture of the old shocks and strut springs still in the car:

The whole shock and strut unit can be removed in one piece. The first thing to do is jack up the car and remove the tire.
The reason for this is to give you access to the nut holding the spring in. You can then turn that nut while holding the bolt head on the other side. You need two good size adjustble wrenches (or the right size regular ones if you got 'em).
You can unscrew and remove the nut and washer, but do not remove the bolt UNTIL YOU'VE JACKED UP THE CONTROL ARM. Otherwise the control arm will just drop when the shock is not attached. I would also stray slightly from the instructions here and suggest loosening top bolt before removing the lower bolt if you are doing this by yourself, as you will need to remove the shock from below. The top screw is under the rubber bumper in the rear trunk:

Once you have the top screw and the bottom bolt out, you have the whole strut and shock in one piece.

You will then need some nuts, washers and rubber bushings from it for your new shocks, along with the top and bottom spring retainer. Here is where it gets a little tricky. You can't just remove them from the old shock, because the compressed strut spring would fly off, potentially causing serious harm to person or property. You can take it to an auto shop and let them pull off the parts needed and attach them to your new strut and shock and skip the next part, but I decided to give it a go.

I got a strut spring compressor from AutoZone. They sell for 40 bucks, but you can take one out for free with a deposit. I believe a coil spring compressor would also work.

This will compress the spring so you can safely remove the spring retainer and other needed parts (you need to compress both sides or the spring will bow). After removing the spring, you can loosen the compressor to remove it from the extended spring. I should note that the spring actually extended farther than the compressor, slightly, but I was able to remove it with a slight bit of manual compression on the spring.

Here you can see the difference between the old (black) strut spring and the new (cool blue) strut spring, which is shorter and has thicker coils.


They can be added to the new heavy duty shocks with the same compression technique and the screws and retainers from the old shocks. Because the shock is shorter, it didn't need much compression. (If I did it right) It should look something like this:

One problem is that the bottom two sides of the shock would seem to require rubber spacers before attaching them to the control arm. They were not supplied with the shocks, presumably because they assume you would use the ones from the old shocks, but those aren't compatible.

I ended up trolling the local auto parts stores. There is no standard rubber spacer. At Napa I found something I figured I could fashion into a spacer by cutting off the ends and carving it a bit to fit.



Here's what I came up with in the end. I think it works alright. I guess sometimes you have to improvise.
Finally, I put in the new strut, screwing the bottom bolt and nut and then the top nut (they give you a new top nut for some reason). Here it is in the car:

It is the same procedure on the other side. I should note that these are not adjusted with the precision needed. Once I get the car running, I will need to go to the shop and have them balance them precisely, although I should at least be able to drive on them to get to the shop.

Step 11: Mounting Spacer and Adaptor

Description: Attaching The spacer and the adaptor plate to the electric motor.

Tools Needed: Allen ratchets, torque wrench, red loctite.

Estimated Time: Open

Caveats: Got a rear shaft?

Purpose of this step: The electric engine needs to be attached to the engine in much the same way the old motor was. It sits in front of the transmission, on the old motor mount and the adaptor allows you to to attach it to the transmission. The spacer gives you the correct distance (the electric engine is a bit shorter in length) so that the transmission still sits in the same place it did before.

Above is the front of the engine and the spacer. The crate that the engine came in is different than the one for the ADC, so you have to use your imagination a bit when deciding how to move the engine around on the crate to work on it. You basically need to turn it upside down when doing this (which I assume will have a reason later). You then attach the spacer.

It fit snugly on the engine with some gentle tapping from my rubber mallet. You can then screw it in using the allen cap screws provided with the kit. Before you put them on, though, you put a little red loctite on them.
This is some kind of goop that keeps the screws in there tight. There is also a blue loctite (don't be fooled by the blue bottle - this is red), which is not as strong. I don't know when you'd use the blue.

The bolts are put in using a torque wrench to prevent overtightening. This is my first time using one and it was fun. I got one that you set in advance, so you can feel it slip when you get to the desired torque (in this case 35 ft. lbs.).

The next thing they ask you to do is put the motor key in the slot on the shaft.

This is a bit of a problem. The slot or groove on the shaft is curved in the back. I assume the ADC groove was a straight cut, so the motor key, which is a little piece of rectangular metal that comes with the kit, doesn't go all the way back into the curved groove and juts out a bit. I discovered later that this is a problem when attaching the hub, which needs to be flush on the shaft. I have e-mailed Electro Automotive about it (I'm not holding my breath for a reply). I'm considering just sawing off the excess, but if they have a better remedy, I'll wait.
*Note: I address the motor key issue in Step 13, when I attach the hub and flywheel.





Now it's time for the the adaptor plate to be attached. The EA instructions say to mount this with the "flat edges of the plate should be on bottom and to the left when viewed from the drive end of the motor." This tested all of my spatial coordination and I found myself still lacking. Eventually, I held the adaptor to the transmission and I think I was able to establish witch way it should fit on the engine by matching the adaptor plate to the transmission. This is attached using some flathead bolts and red loctite, with the same 35 lb torque.

I hope this is correct, but I suppose I'll find out eventually.

***This is where I was originally held up. I was going to have the flywheel and clutch attachment as part of this step, but you can see that at step 13 and 14. While waiting, I did the rear suspension in step 12, but you can hold off on that until after steps 13 and 14 if you want.

Step 10: Clutch and Flywheel Removal

Description: Removing the clutch assembly (Pressure plate and clutch disc) and Flywheel from the combustion engine.

Tools Needed: Socket wrench and 13mm, 17mm sockets, flywheel lock.

Estimated Time: 1 - 2 Hours

Caveats: May require some torque. Careful when removing pressure plate that clutch disc is also secure before you pull it off.

Purpose of these parts: Okay, I needed the flywheel after all. One of its functions is to work with the starter (that's where the serrated edge comes in). That function I don't think I'll need, but the other more important function is as a rotating connection to the engine. The clutch disc (via the pressure plate) is pushed flat against this to engage the transmission to the engine, causing the transmission to spin and the transmission, in turn spins the axles.


This is the clutch assembly sitting in the engine. We can see the outer half, which is the pressure plate. That needs to be removed along with the clutch disc as one piece. The Flywheel is behind that (you can see its serrated edge)and will be removed after we get out the clutch.
The Hayne's Manual says to make a magic marker line from the pressure plate to the outer shell of the flywheel for alignment when you put it back together. You can just make it out in the picture (incidentally, removing the transmission, clutch and flywheel are not in the ElectroAutomotive manual). In the left of the picture you can see one of the bolts, I think there were six, that need to be removed. they tell you to loosen each one a little bit at a time so as not to distort the pressure plate. I don't really see why it would matter, but I did it that way. The bolts were a bit tough, but came off with some elbow grease. Again, when pulling off the pressure plate, be careful to get hold of the clutch disc which is no longer connected by the bolts to the pressure plate.

Here's a look at the pressure plate. I think it looks pretty good. If anyone knows differently, let me know. I think it's a keeper.






And look at this clutch disc. A little airbrushing and it could be a model for the Pelican Parts catalog, I think. It's just beautiful to look at in the afternoon light. Sorry, I'm getting a bit carried away...






Next up is the flywheel, which is held in place by 5 very angry bolts. I could not budge these bolts. To make things worse, anytime I tried turn a bolt, the flywheel would turn, killing my torque. I tried a number of different things to keep the flywheel from moving (screwdriver, plastic vice, my hand, etc.). I figured they must have been put on by a machine. Then I got the idea to use my drill to turn it. I figured there must be a bit that will take a socket and got one at the local hardware store. That didn't work, either. My drill smoked up, but not the slightest turn. I was about to give up, when I remembered that my kit came with a "flywheel lock".



I had seen it sitting around in the box and had no idea what it was until that moment. I was able to fit that on one of the two bolts just below the flywheel (perhaps that is their purpose?).




I then got one of my jack handles and put my socket wrench in it to give me some more serious torque. I finally had a stationary flywheel and some serious torque. The bolts all gave easily at that point.




The flywheel also looks fine to me, so unless someone can say otherwise, I'll stick with the same pressure plate, clutch disc and flywheel.

Step 9: Removing the Transmission from the Engine

Description: When the engine is dropped, the transmission is still attached. The transmission will be removed and later attached to the electric engine (along with the clutch).

Tools Needed: Various wrenches and ratchet wrenches (metric). Also some sort of support will be needed to put the transmission on. I got another furniture cart for 20 dollars at Home Despot.

Estimated Time: 1 hour

Caveats: None

I spent a lot of time worrying about this, and it turned out to be a very simple procedure.


Here is the transmission and engine mounted. The top left black cylinder sticking out of the transmission is the starter motor. It took me awhile to figure that out. It appears to hook up with the flywheel to spin the gas engine to get it going. Presumably, I won't need it for the electric engine, so will give it to whoever takes my old combustion engine. There was also a little plug leading leading down to the side of the transmission (not pictured) that I believe is used for the reverse light indicator. I'm not sure if I'll need that or not.
Removing the starter was a simple matter of unscrewing a couple of nuts and bolts.
Next, the exhaust has to be removed in the back, as it impinges on pulling the transmission from the engine.

First the rear part of the exhaust can be unscrewed (3 nut/bolt combos on each side) and removed. This almost clears the way, but we still have the transmission mount to the exhaust.









This is just two bolts on the tranny and two (already removed) from the exhaust. Once you have that out, you are clear to detach and remove the transmission.

This involves removing two bolts from up top (one was already part of the motor starter mounting) and two nuts from below. the one pictured is a little tricky as there isn't much access, but I finally managed to get it out of there. The transmission can then be detached from the motor. It is heavier in the back, but one person can move it. As mentioned, I moved it onto another furniture cart to make it easier to move around the garage as needed.

Here is the detached transmission. I will also drain the transmission fluid, which I haven't done yet and put in some new stuff (It requires a whopping 17 mm hex wrench, which is available at most auto parts stores).

The clutch casing is still attached to the engine. So far, I think it looks okay, but the next step is to pull it off and take a look at the whole thing. Before I started this project, I didn't really know that a clutch and transmission were two different things, so I am certainly learning!

Lastly, a lot of bloggers put up pictures of their pets, so I'll leave you with a picture of one of my dogs, Whitman. I got him shortly after I met my wife ten years ago. We picked him up at the pound in San Francisco. He was a stray found in Golden Gate Park, presumably a cocker spaniel mix. He definitely cemented our relationship and I sometimes wonder if he was the real reason my wife married me.