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From visiting the Roaring Forties factory, COVID closing production, buying the Tesla Moter.
The car arriving in Perth Western Australia.
The car arrived on Friday the 20th and from now on rather than me entering the date I will put the week of the build. I will exclude weeks that I am away, like holidays. This will give an idea as to the time it takes me to complete the build, excluding holidays.
The first job was to build a trolley to mount the car so that I did not end up breaking my back working on the car, I have a very stiff back anyway and the car can be moved around the garage it has large wheels, all steerable. On opposite corners there are breaks, and the other corner the wheels can be locked straight to help me steer, unlike a shopping trolley. The car was lifted onto the table with he use of a couple of gantries and 4 pulley blocks. It was a good thing that the GT40 has a hole in the boot and bonnet to allow the chains to go down to the chassis. If you do it yourself don't skimp on gear. The hire was not cheap but the car is expensive.
For those with sharp eyes will notice that I have done some fiberglass work on the front right headlight. This is a light mold that will help me select some headlights that will fit from a scrap yard.
Over the weekend there was a lot of measuring of the engine bay to calculate the container dimensions for the batteries. I need to fit in 192 batteries. For wiring sense containers should have batches of batteries devisable by 12. There is also a big question. "Do I have spacing between the batteries to assist cooling?"
The bottom line is that the 192 batteries could not be fitted into the engine bay, even without spacing, but the extras could be placed in the door sills. So the decision to have spaces was made. Each battery will have a 10mm strip of hard foam, 4.5mm thick, along the top and bottom of the battery allowing air to flow from front to back of the box. Pictures will to come later. After much calculating, what I hope was the ideal box dimensions was decided on. In addition, the dimensions of the copper plates to join the batteries together were drawn up and a friend of mine in Sydney drew up the CAD design. (I have a free copy of Sketchup but it can not work to finer than 1 mm. The diameter of a 5mm hole is 2.5mm!)
The control board arrived for the Tesla motor, supplied by Tim at EVWorks. This replaces the Tesla that can not be used as access to its brains is not available to non Tesla products.
In the mean time the MoTeC wiring system continues with Great help from Glen. I have got to the stage of working on the display, getting flash indicators, main beam etc. to display.
Tim from EV Works. came on Thursday to help me replace the Tesla differential with the Quafe Limited Slip Diff. There are good instructions on the EVTV Motor Verks web site that are easy to follow.
We did the replacement on the floor as I was concerned that the weight of the Tesla motor would be too heavy for my work bench. It was probably better as in that position it was easier to maneuver into position.
The pulling of the old bearings needed a bit of "Aussie know how" (The ability to fix something when there is not a perfect tool for the job.) So put your brain into gear and don't expect a garage to do the job for you.
The only issue we had was lining all the components up, on either side of the two castings. My suggestion is that you have half a dozen over length bolts to initially hold the casings together and gradually align everything bit by bit. We also had a 5 minute gasket seal that was used to seal the two halves of the motor together. You will not do the job in 5 minutes.
Once the diff was replaced Tim replaced the Tesla power board with an alternate version that fits in place beautifully, replacing the Tesla board. The reason for the replacement is that Tesla will not allow you to have access to the electronic drive brains of the system. The replacement will give us that ability.
Although the car has not left Phillip Island yet there is some more progress with the aluminum body coming on. The Suspension is being fitted as have the hydraulic jacks.
I have purchased some light switches off EBay hoping that they would be easy to wire in to the harness, but as with all things now they are designed to fit into a VW CANBus, Nobody is able to help so I have ideas on how to progress see on my next post. Although the car has not left Phillip Island yet there is some more progress with the aluminum body coming on. The Suspension is being fitted as have the hydraulic jacks.
I have purchased some light switches off eBay hoping that they would be easy to wire in to the harness, but as with all things now they are designed to fit into a VW CANBus, nobody is able to help so I have ideas on how to progress see on my next post.
With hopefully only a week before delivery I received deliveries over the week of a number of light switches and break switches for the car. In addition the that I hope electronic hand break, will be legal, arrived from American. I did find that the instructions were somewhat lacking. As when I went to set the stop and return points of the liner motor, I had no idea how to send the actuator back to its shorter position, having not fully understood the instructions. When you read both the AutoLoc and American Shifter instructions to understand what is going on. I worked out that 1 (Brown) to 8 White all work independently so you can set the Brown 1 on the first press to release the break, on the second press actuate the break. The remaining connections can all have separate functions. So I set a function on 2 (Brown/Blue) to release the break. This is all test bench stuff just to be sure that it works.
I also received delivery of two ECUMaster CAN Switch boards. These will receive data 8 Switch and 8 Analog and send the data to the MoTeC Display. In principle the CAN Switches will reduce the limited number of wires going into the MoTeC units.
I spent a couple of days making a CANBus to test bench some of the settings on the MoTeC and then had a few hours with Glen Auto Sports Electronics checking that things were in order for me to continue testing and learning. It spins my brain out. It is great working with him, so patient with this amateur.
My weekly call with Roaring Forties confirmed that, with no promises, the car should be ready for shipping around the end of next week with the aluminum polished to sparkling, with Purple Polish.
The motor is in the cage and the car is about ready to leave Philip Island. Robert had a lot of issues fitting the body as the jig he had from the previous owner of the business had built the jig based on a crashed car! All sorted and the jig is ready for future clients.
In the meantime, I have been learning from both HP Academy and Glen of Auto Sport Electronics had been very patient with me, whilst I learn how to program my MoTeC electronics.
In the mean time I have been on a wiring course run by HP Academy. For those not already experts in wiring I recommend going through this course. Very thorough and easy to follow.
Chassis back from powder coating, satin black and floor fitted. Aluminum panels being made and finished, Bodywork has been fitted. Suspension has been powder coated in the same satin black and will be fitted as soon as the aluminum is completed.
Motor cradle needs to be manufactured.
Robert is spot on with his timing at Roaring Forties.
As the Tesla has a straightforward differential and uses the breaks to encourage even drive on the back two wheels. I needed a limited Slip Differential. EVTV Motor Verks in Missouri USA. You can buy the Quaife LSD from them. I found them very efficient to deal with, giving me same day replies to my questions. Although I found their freight costs very expensive. But I have a way around that as follows. I have found many USA companies charge prohibitive freight costs overseas, so I use a freight forwarding company, Stakry, who also allow you to batch your purchases. I have an account with them and have used them for many years. Again, a very efficient company. Back to EVTV They have a very good video on how to fit it to your Tesla S drive, it looks to be easy enough, but from what I have seen before handling your Tesla motor with care. (The original link has been lost.)
There were some traumas getting the engine to fit and but with Roberts persistence it was eventually fitted in May.
In the meantime I needed to have a contact who would help me with the Electrical side of the build. I believe I was fortunate in making contact with Tim from EV Works in Landsdale Western Australia. Tim supplies batteries for Electric Cars and gives me good advice.
I decided, having seen a video on a Lotus Evora Tesla build, to go for the MoTeC display system.
At the same time, we watched a very good video on the Tesla motor by Professor John Kelly Webster State University. I would recommend that anybody who is getting involved with a Tesla motor look at the video. This changed our thinking on converting the motor from East West to North South.
Shortly after the opening Roaring Forties changed hands with Robert Logan, who had previously built GT40s and also built 1960s F1 cars to the USA. I have to say that I felt a lot more confident with Robert, particularly as we both knew making an Electric GT40 was not going to be easy. Robert had to settle down bringing the manufacturing to Philip Island.
Waiting for COVID to allow progress.
Whilst the factory was closed there was little that we could do. However as I like to plan ahead I started working on the colour scheme. A car like the GT40 needs to look good. It rarely comes in one colour as the Go Fast Stripe was a regular feature that gave the car at least one additional colour. Details on how I went ahead in this important part of the project can be seen on a separate page, Choosing Colour.
I went to the F1 in Melbourne Australia and on the Friday before practice my daughter and I went to visit Roaring Forties who were, at that time located in Melbourne. After a chat to the management and a sit in one of the cars and a chat with an owner we did our tourist thing round Melbourne. The race had been canceled due to COVID closing the event that morning. A week later I ordered the Tesla motor from America, on EBay. Another week later, due to lockdown the factory closed and did not open until November 2020.
With six weeks of work done since the last post, it looks as if little has been done, I think that this is what happens as the project progresses. The major progress is that we have the Tesla talking to the MoTeC. This is done with the installation of the Openinvertor power board, that replaces the Tesla board. You can not communicate with the Tesla. With the help from Tim at EVWorks and Glen from Autosport Electronics communication began. I then started to fill in the communication channels into the MoTeC. In addition, I installed the cameras supplied by Surround Monitoring System, these are now able to display on the MoTeC, mounted into the grill. I also received delivery of the distance sensors, but as these do not output a resistance or voltage for the MoTeC to understand. I will have to put my very limited Arduino skills to use. See the future. A few other jobs have included installing the radiator grill, made from security door mesh. In addition, as I hate to see air ducts of any kind blanked off, I have opened up the NACA ducts and put mesh in them. I have since noted that the center bonnet duct is a little too deep, so some modification will be required there in the future.
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