Friday, April 18, 2008

More U-Pull-It Measurements

I wanted to get some more detailed measurements, so I went back to U-Pull-It again. Here are some photos:


Here's a shot of the front engine compartment without anything in it. I'm trying to see the best way of putting batteries in the front rack. The front is 35 1/2" wide without the tow brackets, 35" wide with the tow brackets and 34 1/4" wide with the bolt heads protruding out of the brackets. If we have two batteries aligned left-to-right and two batteries aligned front-to-back in the front battery rack, that gives a minimum width of 34 3/4". With the battery rack metal parts, that adds 1/4", making things very tight.

Also the measurement from the front vertical metal for the hood latch to the clutch slave cylinder is 7 1/2". Without the clutch cylinder, the space is more reasonable at 9". If the group decides to go with a clutch-less system, that will make clearance on the front battery rack better.

Now I realize that this car may have been in an accident and the front measurements may be off, so I'll have to revisit this when we work on a purchased vehicle.

Other measurements I cared about were:
  • space between the two trunk frame supports 32 1/2" (for rear battery box)
  • space between trunk frame supports with welded joint 31 1/2"
  • approximate depth to work with for rear battery box: 24"
  • Distance between two front suspension towers: 31 5/8"
  • Distance between two bolts on side of front suspension towers: 6 1/16"
  • Distance between left front tower and brake fluid reservoir: 28 1/2"

Another thing I wanted to look into was using existing mounts from the engine to support the dangling end of the motor. Here are some shots looking at the driver side mounts on the engine:


This shows the bolts on the upper engine mount. The two vertical bolts below it hold it to the engine.


This shows another bracket that might be useful that attaches to the upper engine mount. Perhaps this is for the power steering pump.


Here is a more detailed shot of the lower engine mount on the drivers side.

Next, I'll be doing some research on suspension parts to handle the added battery weight.

Cheers,
Tim

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