On the Road Again

Despite having to drive 100 miles and  arriving on time to pick up my motor and now modified adapter plate/hub, the company that was doing the repairs was not ready for me.  An hour later they showed me everything that the machinist had done and assembled and tested it on a 12V battery.  In addition to the hub being off center the adapter plate was not completely parallel with itself.  They ground it down to level it. The technician said it would be probably off by 1/16 of an inch now.  So, after having waited a month for something that should have taken a week, it cost me an extra $200.  !@#$#@! (This is why I'm not letting you know who the company is)

Of course once I get home, I'm wanting to put this badboy into my Bradley and give it a go.  I fully expected to be disappointed on the first attempt.  And I was.  As I was tightening the bolts I could feel the flywheel starting to hit something.  I took out the motor, replaced the flywheel (with teeth) with the flywheel with no teeth.  Slid the motor in and once again, the motor is frozen from the flywheel hitting something. That usually doesn't happen. Hmmm......

OK, remember at the start of this blog how I talked about the distance or "magic number" now being off 1/16 of an inch?  I added some 1/8 inch washers to the bolts and viola, it works.  I left the motor on the motorcycle jack and left the bolts just slightly loose, I applied some juice so the wheels would turn a little.  The motor seemed to then line up with the transaxle and any vibrations smoothed away.  I then tightened everything up, and removed the motorcycle jack.  I went through all 4 gears with the car still on jacks.  Nice and smooth.

Took the car for a quick couple rides around the block.  Then went for a 7 mile ride on the backroads of town.  Then went for a couple errands - another 7 miles.  7 KWh to recharge, don't forget the car had been sitting for quite a while.  Balanced the pack and now I'm ready to go and test at 55 mph.

I still need to get an alignment done so I'm not sure I want to push it too fast just yet.