Making Fake Batteries

Today was a slow day for the Civic, since I'm preparing for EV awareness day tomorrow with the Oregon Electric Vehicle Association. I printed a bunch of flyers and made about 300 business cards for the event. This should be interesting.

I did spend a few hours ordering battery lugs and terminal covers as well as the vacuum pump for the power brake assist.

To get ready for figuring out the battery boxes, picked out the maximum group 31 battery dimensions from the following batteries:

• Optima group 31 yellow top
• Deka 9A31 Intimidator
• Odyssey 2150
  

I made up some fake batteries with foam-core with these dimensions.


Here is a 22x28 sheet of foam core from Fred Meyer. I'm lucky in that with the 22"x28" sheet, I can just fit all the faces for one battery with just a little left over.


Here's one complete foam-core fake battery. I made two of them. I made circles on the top for the terminals that are going to stick up. I was hoping terminal placement for the group 31 batteries was the same, but all three batteries have them in different locations. This will make hold-downs that sit on the edge near the terminals somewhat tricky.


Here's trying to figure out approximate placement in the rear trunk with the batteries. The support that I'll be bolting to the chassis is 1.5" thick, so a 2x4 does well since it has the same thickness for approximating the placement.

Tomorrow: Standing all day in Pioneer Square in Portland, answering the same questions over and over...

Next Up: Bolting up some metal pieces to determine proper battery rack size

Figuring out the Engine Harness

I spent a few hours looking at the engine wiring harness and all its connectors to see how I could effectively attach signals to drive dashboard lights and gauges. Bob Bath calls this the "snake," but I like to think of it more like a nine-headed Hydra.


Here's a photo (click to enlarge) of the wiring harness I removed from my Civic DX. I cut off the C118 connector because the wire to the sensor was too hard to remove. You're wiring harness may differ slightly. I figured out the connectors based on the description on page 23-16 in the Helms manual. That's my cat's tail in the upper right corner of the photo.

Important signals in main engine wiring harness:

• C104 blk/wht - "start" signal from ignition switch to activate the controller (through C124) (note: interlocked by clutch pedal)
• C108 yel/grn - coolant temperature sending signal to temperature gauge in dash (through C126)
• C110 yel and grn/blk - backup light switch (through C126)
• C112 yel/wht, yel/blu, blk - speedometer pulse signal (through C126)
• C118 yel/red - goes to oil indicator light on dash, pull to ground (through C126)
• C119 wht/blu - goes to battery indicator light on dash, pull to ground (through C126)
• T101 wht - High current alternator output that could come from DC-DC converter directly to fusebox and primary battery connection

Don't care connectors (can cut off, if desired):

• C101, C102, C103 - main ECU connectors
  
• C105 - coolant temp switch (to activate radiator fan)
  
• C106 - ignition coil (note: this is used in CivicWithACord, but T101 is suggested instead)
• C107 - TDC/CRANK/CYL sensors (to ECU)
• C109 - coolant temp sensor (to ECU)
• C111 - oxygen sensor (to ECU)
• C114, C115, C116, C117 - throttle position and other signals (to ECU)
• C120, C121, C122, C123 - fuel injectors (from ECU)
  

I think I'll hang onto the harness for a few more days before hacking it up in case I come up with any "bright ideas" for how I can use the "don't care" wiring to link items under the hood to the (now unused) ECU connectors in the passenger compartment.

Next up: thinking about the battery racks

Getting Rid of Stuff

After removing all the gasoline based components from the car, my garage was pretty full of stuff.

Here are the leftover fluids from the car. Left is power steering fluid, center is coolant and right is contaminated gasoline with bits of everything in it. Fortunately, Portland has a great city recycling program and they take home hazardous waste for free (up to five gallons). If you're near Portland, call their recycling hotline (503-234-3000) and they'll tell you exactly where you can take all your old stuff. If you have old auto parts (like a gas tank), you can also drop them off at U-Pull-It.


Here's the pile of stuff that I removed from the Civic that's worthless now. There's the engine on a hoist, all the air intake ductwork, the fuel system, the exhaust system, the starter, power-steering pump and a bunch of other stuff.


This is Dave, who answered my ad on Craigslist for the Honda Civic engine. He has an old beat up Civic that needs several parts, so he was happy to take everything away for a package price. I'm so glad to have space again in my garage to work. It feels like a huge release after purging all that gasoline-based stuff. Dave is a machinist and was fascinated by the adapter plate and shaft coupling from Electro Automotive. We went for a quick spin in the electric 914 and had a blast.

Thanks, Dave, for taking away all my crap.

Next up: wrestling with the wiring harness. (aka: the "snake")

Making a Blank Slate

Today was a bit slower since I didn't get much sleep last night and I helped my friend Andrew diagnose a bad brake drum on his truck this morning.

For the most part, today was the last day of removing parts from the car. From now on, it's all about engineering new parts and installing pre-built ones to make the electric car.


Here's the engine that we removed yesterday. I ran out to Sears (only six blocks away) and got the proper 17mm 12 pt socket to remove the flywheel bolts. This is the engine without the flywheel, ready to sell.

I spent most of the day tearing out unneeded parts. On principle, I also ripped out the three fuel lines going towards the rear of the car to the gas tank. This was a pain since they are routed together with the two rear brake lines, so I had to be careful not to damage things.


Here's a picture of the carnage and removed guts. Let's see, we have the following:

• Charcoal cannister
• Fuel filter
• Power steering pump, reservoir and all lines going to the power steering valve
• The three fuel-related lines from under the car
• The battery, battery tray and hold-down hardware
• All radiator hoses going to the heater core in the passenger cabin (these were virtually glued on by the sticky coolant)
• All remaining brackets that were left dangling from removed parts

After removing everything, this is the cleared out engine compartment. Notice that the only metal fluid lines on the firewall are the brake lines and the clutch hydraulic line. There's still quite a bit of dirt on the engine compartment walls that the steam cleaner could not reach due to the engine being in the way.


Here's the same picture after I took sponge and soap to the walls. While it's not completely spit-n-polish, the engine compartment is surprisingly clean, which is one thing people tend to notice a lot in EV conversions.

With things cleaned up, I started to work on figuring out the power steering system. After reading up much on the internet and studying the Helms manual, I tried the following trick:

The left-over power steering fluid reservoir has three hose connection points on it. The two smaller ones are the fluid return from the power steering valve. I'm going to try and route the thick pipe from the reservoir into the steering valve high-pressure intake. Most of the fluid is drained out of the power-steering system, so it actually pulls in air and moves air around to reduce the force needed to turn the wheel. To make way for other EV components, I'm thinking about mounting this reservoir down low, underneath the batteries. This frees up quite a bit of space and clearance where the power-steering lines used to be for batteries and other EV components.

Just some details about the above picture. There are three hydraulic connections on the power steering valve (upper left in picture). The two on the left return power-steering fluid to the tank while the one on the right is the power steering pump high-pressure input.

Some people just loop-back the return line(s) back into the high-pressure inlet to allow driving without a pump. However, the power steering fluid is thick causes difficultly in turning the wheel without the pump assists. By routing all lines to a reservoir, power-steering fluid comes out of the system but only air goes back in. The air is much easier to move around and thus, makes the steering much easier.


One other task for this project is to upgrade the suspension to handle the extra weight of the batteries. With the forks and ball joints removed from the front suspension, all I had to do was unscrew the brake lines from the shock/spring combo and it becomes easy to remove after undoing the nuts on the top of the shock tower.

While I might be able to do it myself, I plan on taking these spring/shock combinations to a local suspension shop and have them replace the springs with whatever I order. If I had upgraded the suspension before disabling the car, that would have worked as well.

Cheers! Talk to you tomorrow.
Tim

Hoisting Out the Engine

My buddy Andrew came out this morning to help get the engine out.


Here's Drew, happy to use an engine hoist for the first time.


To get enough clearance to lift out the engine, you need to open the hood as far as it can go. I've doubled the engine hoist hook back on itself to allow for more lifting space.


While following the instructions in the Helms manual, I couldn't get the long rod out of the driver's side front engine mount, so I removed it completely.


Here's the drivers side front engine mount on the floor. The long pin on the left which fit through the rubber mount was interfering with the chassis.


We had to slightly rotate the engine counter-clockwise (as you look down) so that all the pieces would clear.


With everything clear, the engine lifts out easily.


Here I stand, much cleaner than yesterday, happy to get this gas guzzling monster out of the car.


Here is the engine sitting on a heavy duty furniture dolly with the transmission still attached. We added supports under the engine portion so that the transmission could be unbolted and wiggled off.


Here's the exposed flywheel (rather rusty) after we wiggled off the transmission.


Here's the transmission. It looks like there's quite a bit of clutch powder coating the inside of the bell housing. At least it's not oily, which indicates that the main shaft seal is probably okay.


To remove the clutch pressure plate, Drew used a flathead screwdriver has an impromptu flywheel lock while I wrenched off the bolts.


Here's the empty engine bay. Later in the day, I removed the charcoal cannister, the fuel filter, several brackets and other things.


Here's the start of removing the power-steering system. The Helms manual has you drain the power steering fluid by running the engine with one of the hoses in a bucket. Wait a minute! There's no engine anymore! I guess I'll just drain what I can by taking apart the hoses.

Since I got rid of the power steering pump, reservoir and lines, I have to figure out what to do with the power steering rack. There's a huge online thread that covers how to convert your power steering rack to manual, but unfortunately it's old and all the pictures are gone. The link is here:

http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=184202&page=1

The link covers how to do this for an Acura Integra, but similar concepts apply to the Civic. The trick with the Civic is that it has three fittings for the power steering fluid instead of two (like the Acura).

After studying the Helms manual, I'm going to try and get a "T" fitting to route the power steering return path into the high-pressure supply input and see how that works. I'll try to add a reservoir like the link above suggests to allow the system to breathe. Worst case, I can replace the power-steering rack with a manual one. The replacement probably wouldn't be that bad since I already have the engine bay cleared out.


One easy way to lighten up your flywheel is to knock the teeth off of it. Electric cars don't have starter motors, so they don't need the teeth. For the stock Civic flywheel, the teeth are just pressed onto the circumference of the flywheel.

Here I've placed the flywheel (teeth down) on top of two short 4x4 blocks and am using an old bolt with large hammer to work my way around the edge, knocking the teeth slowly off.


After about fifteen minutes of hammering, the ring popped right off. Several internet links describe how to put the toothed ring back on using your freezer to shrink the flywheel and the oven to enlarge the tooth ring.

Next up: removing the unneeded fuel lines and trying to figure out the power steering "T" fitting for manual operation. I might also clean up the engine compartment with a toothbrush.

Removing the Fuel and Exhaust Systems

I spent most of this afternoon and evening removing the fuel tank and exhaust system. Since this part of the car wasn't steam cleaned like the engine compartment, I got complete covered in dirt and gasoline grime.


I'm using the floor jack to raise the back end of the car. If I don't use these blocks, I can't raise the car enough to insert the large 6-ton jackstands.


This shows the rear jack-stands installed and the rear wheels removed. Since the parking brake holds the rear wheels still, I didn't have to loosen the lug nuts while the wheels were still on the ground.


Here are all four wheels gracing my front hallway (What? You don't store your tires in the house?) I need to do this since I only have a tiny one-car garage.


Yay, I got the muffler out without too much hassle. I pried off the rubber rings holding the exhaust system to the car so I didn't have to cut them.


Death to the catalytic converter and the last of the exhaust system! This looks like a large bassoon over in the corner of my garage. I'm giving all these parts to the guy who is buying my engine. They passed the emissions test wonderfully, so I hope some gas guzzler can make use of them.


Okay, now for the fuel tank. The first thing is to disconnect the wires from the top. In order to lift up the back seat, there's a small bolt holding the seat down that goes through this ring. It was a pain to get to, but it's there.


After raising the rear seat, you get access to the service cover for the fuel tank.


Here's the service cover removed, exposing the fuel supply hose, the return hose and the electrical connections.


Same picture with the electrical connections removed. The red one was very gummy, but I don't know why.


The instructions call for draining the fuel out of the tank by unscrewing the drain plug. This proved to be a big mess because the grime and surface tension of the gasoline caused it to run down the tank and all over the floor. I tried capturing this for about two minutes and then gave up. The tank only had about two gallons in it, so I plugged it back up and continued on.


After tearing off the plastic covers for the fuel hoses and the filler line, the instructions suggest that you use a floor jack to hold up the tank while you loosen the holding straps.


After removing the straps and filler hose, the tank lowered easily to the floor. I'll be very happy to finally get rid of this gasoline-fuming mess.


Here's the tank outside over a clean oil pan so I can get out the remaining fuel. I'm leaving the tank outside tonight to air out since the whole garage reeks of gasoline fumes right now.


This job was actually much dirtier than I expected. There was quite a bit of dried mud caked around the fuel tank and behind the plastic hose protection shields, so it all came down on top of me when I pulled things out.

I'm looking forward to a shower.

Tomorrow: yanking the engine and trying to find a place to put it...

Adding Chain for Engine Pull

My buddy Andrew is coming tomorrow morning to help me hoist the engine out of the compartment. I went out to Home Depot and purchased the following:

• four foot length of 1/4" chain
• one 10mm x 1.25mm thread bolt 30 mm long

The engine didn't come with hoist brackets, so I put the 10mm bolt into this hole on backside of the camshaft cover (drivers side) to hold one end of the chain.


I picked a reasonable length on the chain and used one of the bolts on top of the tranny to hold the other end.


When I pull the chain tight, it has a reasonable 90 degree angle in it. I've also moved several items like the spark plug wires out of the way so the chain doesn't pinch anything when we raise the engine.


One more critical measurement we need to take before removing the engine is the height of the transmission. If we install the motor and the transmission is too high or low, it won't behave properly with the drive-shafts. With both the front and back of the car up on jack-stands, I found that the bottom of the transmission is almost perfectly level with the bottom of the front bumper. Here is my level touching the bottom of the transmission case.


Here's the other end of the level touching the bottom of the front bumper. The bubble is showing just about perfect. Now, my garage floor is slightly sloped and the jack stands may not be perfect, but this is good since I'm not moving the car before installing the motor/tranny combination. Other people might need to make their own measurements based on a different slope in their garage.

Looks like I'm good for when Andrew shows up to remove the engine.

Next Up: removing the fuel and exhaust system