Getting closer to a car that starts and stops

Making a modified "dog house" to fit the transmission, using part of the original cover and sheet metal from an old 286 IBM PC.

Mounts to hold the adapter plate to the frame.

Installation of the firewall-mounted, more modern, master brake cylinder. The original was frame mounted under the driver seat.

The temperature is warming up enough to do some painting, and the car is slowly becoming more monochromatic.

The electric motor has arrived, so I am doing the final steps to fit it to the transmission. The transmission input shaft is cut with a grinder to the right length.

Bolting the motor to the adapter plate. Concentrity is achieved by the hole in the plate matching with the raised bevel on the motor face-plate.

Looking inside the bell housing at the coupler.

the motor and transmission assembled.

Lifting the motor into place.

Connecting the driveshaft.

Assembling the adapter plate bracket.

Anxious to see the parts turning, I try running the whole drive train, with rear tires off the ground, with a 12V battery.

The addition of a front bracket to support the back of the motor.

Laying out the underhood area, and finishing the heater.

Time to start figuring out how all the parts will fit under the hood. The pizza boxes I've been saving up will prove useful here.

Thus I started putting in the steering column, emergency brake, firewall mounted brake pedal, transmission...

Here I have a cardboard model of the 8" motor, as I don't have my real one yet. There is not much room for anything larger, so while I thought a of going with a 9" motor to get more performance, the option was not really there.

A criterion of my design is to group all the batteries together in an insulated box, as done for the rear batteries, so I really can't stick my batteries here and there wherever there's a spot, as seen in some conversions. Here I'm trying out simple box arrangement that would hold 4 batteries in a 2x2 arrangement. It doesnt fit that well and doesn't provide clearance in critical areas.

A second arrangement. Clearance is a bit better, however the batteries sit a bit higher up.

This is a different arrangement that will make more room about the brake linkage components. This will require hammering back the wheel wells a few inches in the front, however, here the batteries will sit lower. This layout should work.


The start of the front battery box(es).

Back to the heater. There is quite a difference between the old heater core and the ceramic element taken from a $25 heater that will replace it.

Making a metal shroud to accomodate the smaller size. I knew the cover from the old BetaMax VCR would come in handy some day.

The completed shroud.

The element mounted on the shroud.

more parts assembled...

And the finished heater.

Making the first battery box....

This is the steel frame for the rear battery box, made of slotted angle iron. It will hold four 12V batteries (Trojan 1275 flooded lead acid golf cart batteries) the walls will be made of plywood and will have a 1" styrofoam lining for insulation. (the top part of the frame has not yet been assembled in this photo)


The original gas tank also served as part of the trunk floor, so its removal leaves a hole in the trunk, but its not large enough for the battery box.


After elarging the hole.



Its a tight fit, but the box goes in.


Next will be the front battery box that will hold another 4 batteries. With tigher space constraints, and other parts in the way like brake mechanisms and a steering column, this will be more of a challenge. Using cardboard mockups of the batteries is useful in trying different layouts.

Drive train and painting

A good friend of mine has been kind enough to weld the pieces of my slip yolk together (see previous posts to how these were made). A good solid weld was achieved without any distortion of the universal joint arms.


This is the slip yolk after a bit of grinding of the weld bead as it spun on the lathe, which should help to keep it balanced.


The slip yoke connected to the original prop shaft, completing the drive train.


Series wound electric motors, like the kind I plan to use in my conversion, are susceptible to over-spinning and destroying themselves if power is applied while not under load (i.e. if the accelerator is pressed while the car is in neutral). To protect the motor, I would like to have a lock-out so the motor cannot be energized when the transmission is in neutral. Here I have drilled a hole in the transmission casing to receive a spare reverse indicator switch, which I will use as a neutral indicator switch.


On the gear selector shaft, I have added a set of copper sleeves to push against the switch when in the mid position. Pieces of regular copper plumbing did just the job.


The final assembly, and it works.



In researching methods of DIY car painting, I found many reports of people having good success using a roller to apply the paint. Using a front fender as a test piece, I am applying a first coat of paint using a high density 4" roller. The paint is thinned about 15%. It looks like there are lots of bubbles here, but most disappear before the paint dries.



The trick to this method is a color sand between coats to remove imperfections, and the occasional bubble that didn't pop. This is the fender after after about 4 coats and some wet color sanding.
After another two coats, more sanding, finishing with 1500 grit paper, a buffing with rubbing compound, then polishing compound, it looks not bad.

shifter and other body work

It's been -30C outside (and in my garage) these last few weeks, so I'm mostly working on things I can do inside the house.


Finding a shift lever for a Chevette 4-speed (i.e. the transmission I am using) is a real challenge. The recent hike in the price of steel has sent a lot of these cars to the crusher. "You should have come 6 months ago" I was often told while searching for this part. My transmission supplier was able to find something close (the parts on the right), which I have to fit into the control housing on the left.

With a little bit of cutting and turning, a workable solution was obtained.

The inside of the steering gear box. As per my Yahoo Group contacts, the lubrication to use here is gear oil.

The existing seal for the pitman arm shaft would certainly not hold oil, so I renewed it.

In this North American version of a British car, the steering and foot pedals are all on the left hand side, however, for some reason the manufacturer didn't switch over the door lock to the driver door. Thus, locking and unlocking the car by key has be done on the passenger side (there's only one lock). Seeing this would not be convenient, I decided to move the lock over. By rubbing a card over the holes for the key and handle assembly, I am making a template to mark the hole locations for the other door.


Using the template, I have cut the hole for the key lock.

A pic of the lock mechanism inside the door. The only modification required was to add a copper bushing to the handle to better guide the shoot bolt.

I now have my door lock on the driver door.

While most of the car is relatively undamaged, the front fascia was a rather twisted piece of metal .

After some hammering, it got reasonably straight. The rest will have to rely on putty filler.

Making new interior door panels. The old ones were water damaged, and as I found out too late, had shrunk rather significantly such that they weren't reliable to use as templates for the new ones.

I thought I would use a stiffer material (5 ply veneer) rather than Masonite, however I didn't notice the panels need to have a slight bend at the top end, to which my panels resisted. Using a router, I cut grooves where the bend needs to be (see previous photo), and used a clamping jig to form a permanent bend.


The panels are painted, and then covered with a padded vinyl.