Archive for April, 2012

The Bug has over 15,000 pure electric miles on it! The past ~14,000 have been relatively painless. I’ve had to do a few tweaks along the way, but nothing major.

Unfortunately, that changed last friday. I was getting into the carpool lane on Highway 85 southbound and accelerating hard. Then all of a sudden the motor was free spinning and not moving the car and making a bit of noise. I put in the clutch, as it seemed to make less noise that way, and pulled over to the side. I had to get towed home. I figured the transmission was shot, but shifting felt like it still worked.

I didn’t make the car to easily remove the motor/tranny combo. I can’t remove just the motor; there isn’t enough room to “back it out” and get the flywheel to clear the transmission. So, I have to take the transmission out too. The transmission has to be unhooked from the shifter in a very inconvenient spot; right under the back seat…which I have covered with batteries!

So, I had to remove the center pack of cells. This involved removing the BMS wires, and unbolting the cells. The center section slide right out:

Then I can get to the access plate:

I fought with the transmission/motor for a while, but finally got it out. I forgot to unbolt the clutch wire…which made it harder to do, and I managed to spill a bunch of tranny oil (doh!). I was being so careful too..as I hate spilling oil.

More unfortunately, I noticed some bits floating in the motor, as seen in this shot from under the car:

I took the motor off the transmission and saw what was wrong. The massive torque from the electric motor sheared off all the teeth on the inner spline of the clutch pad:

Which is a shame, since I have the Kennedy stage 2 clutch kit. I happened to have another one laying around, and I see its spline area is *much* longer:

No problem; that is easy to replace and cheap. However, here’s what I don’t know about. This was floating in the motor:

I’m pretty sure that I over sped the motor when the clutch pad broke loose. I think this caused some motor bits to fly apart. I need to ask my friends on DIYElectriccar.com for some advice.

I’m hoping I don’t have to replace the motor (it does still spin okay).

Proteas

I sure love these flowers. They are amazing. Taken at UCSC Arboretum, April 22, 2012. Canon 5D Mark III.

South African Flower

Pink + Boka

Spider

More Flowers

I have nearly 15,000 miles on my little electric car. I haven’t had to do much maintenance lately; the car has been running pretty well. I did a check on the front brake pads; the original set wore out really fast (like 7 or 8k miles), and I’m happy to see that the new ceramic pads are wearing away a lot slower than the original ones.

I did have some trouble recently at about 14,600 miles. The inlet plug seems to have had some extra resistance and was melting! The LS-30 inlet isn’t all that secure, and I think the loose locking connection would sometimes arc when I turn off the power with my wall timer.

Luckily I caught it before it caught on fire, but it is pretty concerning that it was melting to this point. I also realized all my other plugs had some melting signs, so I had to replace them all (about $110!). I’m looking into not using the LS-30 anymore and instead use the J1772 plug, and modify my adapter box to turn quickly the charger off when the thing is unplugged to prevent arcing.

Nice license plate!

Some footage from playing around with my 5D.

Small Flowers, Big Macro