Arklans electric hatch

[arklan]

ok so i was trying to get a hold of new front combination lights for the bumper, suzistore wanted $38 each which i thought was a huge ripoff
enter ebay to the rescue yet again

got some 48smd LEDs, 5 white and 2 amber/yellow
they come with a square of 3m adhesive on the back so they were really easy to attach
i got a piece of acrylic from the bin of a plastic place and cut it to the size, put sikaflex around the edge to seal it, and put the holes in the right spot
the wood matches up exact and goes on the inside with the LEDs stuck to it

it actually comes up pretty well and the parkers r extremely bright

piece of acrylic

front of wood

back of wood

in the bumper

working

[arklan]

ok so the lithiums arrived about 2 weeks ago and yestersay (sunday) I took it for its first drive
im a lover of chocolate so I took it down to thw ahops which is about 8km away
they werent open yet so I came home and went back later
after that I went with my dad as passenger to my auntys house and baxk which is a similar distance

I checked the voltage and it had barely moved so im happy that the car will do its advertised 80km range

pics and ramblings to follow

[Brayden]

Don't forget a video!

[arklan]

anyone know of any cheap sound deadening stuff?
i think someone said they used sark / sisilation?

for an electric car its actually pretty noisey, and because now i can hear the water moving around the tyres and all the rattling and noises that i couldnt hear over the engine before, its making me hella paranoid

car is very very toey / sensitive tho, gotta be careful for that

edit to add a lot of the noise is coming from the rear brakes
when I turn the back wheels they turn real easy half way then the other gets real difficult to turn
being drums im not gonna play with it, ill get a cia code breaker to fix them for me

[Brayden]

Sounds like the drums need machining.

I bought this stuff off ebay for sound deadening.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Car-Sound-De ... 4ac9e0b271
It's like dynamat only heaps cheaper. One box would be enough to do your entire car, including the inside of the roof. Makes an amazing difference to how solid the car feels too.

[arklan]

ok so here r some pictures

also i wanna ask about the speedo cable, as far as i know the plug should have a metal thing on the side of it for a bolt to go in and hold it down on to the gearbox
the speedo doesnt work in the bastard thing so iv been using the gps in my phone as a speedo until i can figure it out
if all fails ill remove the speedo and get a cheap android phone off ebay and have it as a permanent gps speedo

edit to add a link to a video i made today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C3K16oKi3Q&
reverse kinda snuck up on me there in the first few seconds :p

[Brayden]

The bolt is on the gearbox casing, you can see it in the pictures (10mm). Undo it and the cable will slide in.

Thanks for the vid too, nice work. Get those rear drums machined though!

[arklan]

thanks for the tip about the speedo connection

had the car up on the jack today and found that noise is coming from the rear right only, rear left is perfect
both have plenty of meat and the drums r smooth, no pits or gouges
so anyway the noise of the brake was just a ch ch ch as your driving

the car was also making a really loud noise as I was driving that made people look which I mentioned before
I took dad for a drive and said does it have any oil in the gearbox?
so short story shorter, put a packet of nulon 80w90 in to the gearbox because it didnt have even a lick of oil
id driven it about 60km like that

auto1 didnt have any castrol vmx80 on a sunday

the car is now heaps quieter, dont need the sound deadening any more (thanks for that tip too)


will update this post with a video later

[arklan]

no video but i just wanted to update that iv been driving this car for a good while now and its a very smooth drive with plenty of sting
no problems so far but with my luck ill probably have some later
i drove it to the farm last sunday which was 75km
charged at the gen set then drove it home
motor got pretty hot but it was sitting on about 170 amps most of the way, some aero mods would get that down a fair bit, our cars r as aerodynamic as bricks

[arklan]

just trouble shooting that god awful noise and a bit of shudder in the steering wheel
can i take the brake shoes out of 1 of the wheels and drive the car down to the end of the street and back ?
i dont want to break anything but looks like i might have to replace the whole hub

[Brayden]

No. If you remove the brake shoes then as soon as you hit the brakes the pistons will push out of the slave cylinder, and you'll have fluid everywhere.

[arklan]

bit of a moot point now
was driving to work and the accelerator got stuck full on, the pedal was returning but the car had full throttle
so i shit my pants and hit the emergency stop and pulled over
after a minute i tried the car again and as soon as it turned on it did a burnout so emergency button again
had to walk to work
2 things it couldv been, one being an $80 part and the other being a $3000 part
after some narrowing down its the expensive part, im crying on the inside
anyway the ev shop is gonna loan me replacements of both just to make sure which is nice but god damn
if anyone ever wants to make an electric car of any kind dont use a curtis brand anything

[arklan]

cant beleive it was that long ago i updated
anyway i ended up paying $400 for that expensive part so was a fair bit cheaper than i thought
the rear brake still makes that annoying noise but it went away a lot after swapping the drum with the mighty boy
it was only off the road for a week and iv been driving it ever since, iv been doing a few longer trips in to town and getting to the limits of the batteries and so id like to try and get a bit more range
i was planning to upgrade the batteries to 200ah (up from 100ah) with new lighter weight batteries
cost ~$13440 minus whatever i can get for my original pack, about $5k
the other option which i am gonna go for, is aerodynamic mods using ecomodder for inspiration
first will be shrouds over the back wheels, then blocking the front grill followed by air dams and side skirts and a flat panel under the car..

but the biggest one would be lowering it
the rear is easy, just lowering blocks, but the front will be more interesting
watch this space

[Brayden]

Why would the front be interesting? KSFL12 from King Springs - same as a MightyBoy.

[arklan]

bush mechanics chin spoiler, side skirts and belly pan to try and guide the wind, they r ugly af but they did give results.
to maintain 85kph it used to take 110amps but now takes 105amps
in my opinion this tiny increase is not worth having such an ugly cop magnet on the car so ill be taking them off