Another Fly in the Ointment of Discontent

So that pretty transaxle has a few problems.  The passenger side bearing won't seal right and the paper gaskets on the same side are leaking.  Not only is that side leaking but both axle ends are leaking too.  ARGHHH!!!

I added an old gasket from the old transaxle, coated with silicone and that didn't stop the leak.

I thought maybe if I just put it all together the wheel bearing would naturally seal into the axle tube.  Needless to say, that was purely wishful thinking on my part.  The low speed test was awful.  However, I did manage to finally get the shifter adjusted correctly.  The first short drive I took, all I had was reverse and fourth.  More ARGHH!!!

In talking with lowbugget, where I bought the transaxle from, he suggested I coat all the paper gaskets with gasket seal, and try heating the wheel bearing on a hot plate to expand the metal before putting it on the axle. Hmmm that makes sense.

I had also noticed the motor was vibrating.  I took off the motor and realized the flywheel was wobbly.  Come to find out the washer that helps to keep it in place wasn't thick enough.  I took a couple of the grease slinger washers that Charlie had made for me and by adding a 1/16th of an inch this seems to have solved that problem.  Yeah!!

Good thing the weekend is coming.  If I end up pulling the transaxle....again...at least I'll be able to get most of it done.

BMS Fixed

Dimitri from MINIBMS is great.  He answers emails promptly, helps troubleshoot your situation and then sent me a free headboard since the last one suffered a 12V surge from the Manzanita Micro charger.  Even though the charger wasn't grounded to the chassis, it was touching the battery box and somehow this fried the headboard, thus the buzzer couldn't sound and there was no warning that the batteries were over charging.  It's a good thing I check them regularly when I do charge otherwise it could have been worse.

To fix the charger issue, I padded the charger's exterior, next to the battery box, with some of those pipe tube foam insulation so it couldn't possibly make contact with anything metal.

In addition to the new headboard, I went and bought a few more cell boards.  After I swapped out the headboards, I decided to test the board by jumping the cell loop tabs.  No buzzer noise - that's good.  Then I tried with the batteries connected to the cell loop tabs.  Still...no buzzer. Yeah!!! Except I had bypassed about 4 cell boards that didn't pass the resistance test.  I started to reconnect them, one by one, then checking to see if the buzzer would sound.  I ended up replacing 3 boards.  At least I have one extra for any emergencies.

I charged the batteries and, sure enough, the buzzer sounded and the headboard triggered the relay which turned off the charger right when the first battery hit more than 3.6V. 

I love it when a plan comes together.

New Transaxle/Old Problem

Pretty ain't it?

 Complete with new axles, this is a Freeway Flyer - it has taller gears for less RPMs at faster speeds. Even though Lowbugget screwed up and sent me the wrong transaxle to begin with, they did a bang up job of packing this one.  Before I dove in, I completely reviewed the DVD I got from the Bug Me video vol. 5.  One thing I noticed was the backup light switch was painted over, so I had to scrape off the paint for a good electrical connection.

Here are the new axles in place, that's after you wrestle with the spacer with a nub and the snap ring.  This did come with racers and bearings but did not come with a thro out bearing.  I took the new one I put on the old transaxle off and transferred it.

I couldn't wait to get the new baby in place.  I forgot how much work it is, my back is hurting.  Decided to call it a night and wait until the next day, after church to finish.

The next day, I put in the motor and got an old familiar noise when I stepped on the accelerator.  Grinding......OK, once again I had to get out the grinder and make way for a small rubbing problem.

You can see the spot in the upper left corner.  I thought that by upgrading to a 12V I wouldn't have this problem?  Well, at least it's fixed now.

If I can get the wheels on tomorrow, maybe I can take it for a spin before the snow comes.

Bad Battery

I have 48 Lithium Batteries.  Oops, now I have 47.  What happened?  Human error, I didn't connect the buzzer on my BMS to let me know if there is a problem when I charge.  The result was an overcharge event.  Thank God the MiniBMS has a way to burn off excessive voltage.  But unfortunately one of the batteries, probably bad from the start, leaked a lot of battery goo and even though it reads 3.0 volts, the best plan is to wire around it and not take the chance of being stranded because of one battery running out of steam before all the others do.

Don't forget YOU are an essential piece of the Battery Maintenance System.  Check your batteries often when you are charging.

Notice the BMS board doesn't have a light.  You can see a lake of goo underneath.

Even though the pict is fuzzy, the back of the board is a mess.  Complete loss for the board, that's OK they are only $12 each.

 There's the messy gooey gross crap that came out of the battery.

I just happened to have an extra cable that allowed me to wire around the battery.

And the final step is to put something over it so in case anything comes in contact you won't get a large bright spark.

Now to fix the BMS......