Chapter 11 - How Hard Is it to Bolt On a Motor?
(part two)
When last we met our hero, he was at a steel yard, buying a 6" wide steel beam. The shortest length I could buy was ten feet long. Had to have them cut it in half so I could get it in my minivan. Next, I picked up 42 pounds of 3/8 inch thick steel plate.
The idea was that the middle part of the motor would sit on the beam, while steel arms welded to the beam would grab the sides of the 240 pound motor with high strength steel bolts.
This bracket would be bolted to the original V-8 engine motor mounts on one end. The other side would hold the butt end of the electric motor.
More Things to Think About
The motor's front bell housing must be bolted to the Corvette torque tube. (to find out what that is, see the future chapter, "How Different Is That Differential?") As bad luck would have it, the bell housing bolt holes are 180 degrees off from where we would like them to be.
There was no getting around it, the Warp 11 would have to be taken apart. Doing this would void the warranty on this $3800 electric motor, probably because it is easy to really mess up things. Lee warned that the carbon block brushes were spring-loaded. Those springs had to be removed first, to be quickly followed by the brushes themselves. Only then would it be somewhat safe to disassemble the heavy motor.
Many years ago, in my capacity as a child, I had taken apart a number of small toy motors, but never had much luck putting them back together. But, this was not the time to be thinking about past mistakes. No, this was the time to think about new, more expensive mistakes.
Time for a short review.
The Warp 11 has 4 major parts: the rear end holds the brushes that feed current to the spinning armature; the midsection contains the field coils which produce a powerful magnetic field; the front bell end holds up the drive shaft end of the armature; last, we have the armature itself, which spins in reaction to the magnetic field. Simple, but not fool proof. (see following paragraph)
Feeling somewhat like the person who has to disarm a live bomb, I set to work. Out came the retaining screw, followed by the springs and the blocky brushes. Quickly moving to the business end of the motor, I unscrewed the bolts that held the bell end to the rest of the motor. Grabbing the bell, I tried to pull it away from the field coil. It moved an inch and stopped. A smart person would check to see why things were stuck. I blundered ahead. Getting a good grip, I put my back into it. Suddenly, everything came free. I fell backwards, and the armature almost landed in my lap.
This was accompanied by a quick, short, screech. I was shocked to discover that this electric motor had 8 brushes, not 2! The literature had not warned me of this unusual feature. Removing the extra brushes, I saw that the carbon blocks were chipped, but not otherwise damaged.
Turning the bell 180 degrees, I bolted the motor back together and spring-clipped the brushes back in place. Once the Warp 11 was bolted on the new steel beam and the beam was bolted to the car frame, I hooked the motor to a 12-volt battery. The armature spun happily, I had reassembled the motor correctly!
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
Brad and Chris do a great job boring and drilling the steel plate so that it matches the circle of threaded holes found on the back end of the motor. It takes 2 weeks of welding, drilling, and grinding before the heavy steel bracket is finally bolted in place.
For certain, the motor will not shake loose now!
But… But… But…
We have a problem. We need to have one of our battery boxes just about where the new bracket is. That box can sit on top of the bracket. But if we do that, we will have a new problem. Where do we put the controller??
It's getting very crowded under the hood! We want the controller near the motor and sitting on top of the middle battery box seemed like the best idea. But with the box on the bracket, there is no room. What a headache! Need to think.
The guys take a well deserved break for the Christmas holidays.
I promised myself that I would work on the car every day until it was on the road. I put a wire cup wheel on my angle grinder and cleaned the C beam. After that the beam got primed and painted. Once the paint was completely dry, I slid the motor mount under the car and bolted the motor to the beam.
Brad had found some silicone rubber pads to reduce the sound of the motor. These were placed between the steel motor mount and the steel frame of the Corvette.
With Joyce working the hoist and me under the car, we guided the mount on to the frame bolts. I placed a silicone pad on the back side of the motor mount and topped it off with a pad sized steel plate. Whew!
Time for my Christmas break.
Next: a hard look at the differential.