howdy, I got involved in playing a role and helping technically with a community play group so my spare time has kind of evaporated the last month or so, but soon....
I hope to be doing the floor graft in the next couple of weeks or so.
Good to hear that you'll be back on this project. I have been wondering how it has been progressing as well. I think you will have a pretty cool ride when it's all done. Ever thought about making a box cover out of solar panels for charging?
If you watch for a sale at Canadian Tire, they have a great 30 watt folding panel that we use at the lake. That panel is sold at many places but so far Canadian Tire has the best price.
We have 4 of them at the cabin. On a nice sunny day we get a bit over 5 amps charging out of them.
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
(OK this is the third time I've tried to answer this and something has goofed up each time so now that I've got my blood pressure under control I'll give it another try!)
I appreciate you asking about this project as it has kind of gone back burner while I am trying to actually get to to drive the 66 Grande this summer. (The 66 is scheduled for the paint shop in a couple of weeks so things will move along dramatically faster when I get it back looking like a real car again!)
Anyway what I have been doing is mostly parts accumulation when I could afford it.
I have picked up a real nice hood/grille at last years Red Deer swap meet so I now have three, 1 good and two marginal. I also have two complete sets of front fenders but they are all pretty rough so a lot of patching and reshaping will be needed. I also managed to get a set of 41 rear coupe fenders which I'll use instead of the toasted truck box fenders. Should look a lot better too.
I now have the complete conversion kit as well so all I need is the battery pack. I'd like to go lithium ion as it will be lighter and last longer than the 24 lead acid 6 volts golf cart type batteries that I thought I would use but they won't be cheap so i will need to earn some major bucks to get that in place.
I also managed to get some Willys repro stuff like door latches and rubber parts.
So while the Pontiac is at the shop I may try to actually mate the cab properly to the chassis which is a real head scratcher due to the width of the S10 body mounts. I want to use quite a bit of the S10 floor pan and firewall as i will then have seat, steering wheel and brake mounts and shifter hole already engineered in.
I had to leave it under a tarp all winter which didn't make me happy. i was also thinking of not giving it much of a fancy paint job and maybe even leaving the faded old paint alone. I kind of like the idea of the contrast between the high tech drivetrain/low tech body. (plus it will be cheaper)
Here are a few pics of what it looks like at the moment.
-- Edited by 66 Grande guy on Tuesday 3rd of April 2012 12:35:57 PM
Thanks for the update. I am fascinated by this project. I would say Lithium Ion is the answer, more power and less weight. Start collecting laptop batteries! I like the idea of no paint too. Could you image that flying past with no engine noise?! It would confuse a few people for sure. Good luck with the project, it will make a great magazine article once she is on the road!
I must say I have the same thoughts as you on the whole concept of freaking people out with it. i just hope I can actually license and insure it without too much hassle when the time comes. Alberta has been pretty easy that way in the past. i hope it continues.
I'm shooting for next summer on the road so I'll take a lot of pics and try to meet that deadline.
Howdy Guys, the long dormant or at least slow as a slug electric powered 1938 Willys pickup is back on the front burner for the last week or so. I 've had one of my sporadic fits of ambition and decided I needed to mate the body to the S10 floorpan, make a firewall and hang the pedals (Clutch and brake) just to see if the driving position is tolerable.
After a lot of thought I decided to go with a double layered plywood firewall that is attached to the original steel one. Since the original was flat except for stiffening ribs I routed out a pattern of the ribs into the back 3/4 plywood layer so that it kind of locked it in place and then added 3/4 birch plywood for the top layer. I then ran a bunch of bolts through the firewall at the top and through the trimmed off floor pan at the bottom uniting the two pretty solidly.
Some of you may be wondering why a wood firewall and for sure I wouldn't have used one if I was running a gas engine but since this is an electric setup wherein I also have to mount a number of the components to the firewall and wanted flatness, stiffness and the easy ability to ensure no stray current is going to ground where it shouldn't. it also should have a pretty good sound deadening effect athough with the electric setup I don't know how much noise there will be.
Then I had to hang the S10 Pedals and the S10 steering column. I was going to try and use the original pedal assembly but it just wouldn't fit so I had to built assemblies from what I could scrounge. The tricky part is to actually get enough room between the pedals so I could get m size 10 foot to which pedal I want without hitting the other one. It is pretty narrow down there and I haven't quite finished that part yet as it will take some heating and bending of the brake pedal swingarm. I also have yet to squeeze in the accelerator but I can make that baby pretty small as all I have to do is link it to the voltage controller so I 'm not too worried.
I got the steering column snugged in between the pedals and it feels pretty good and has full tilt motion too so all is good there.
Still wont be a truck for a long-legged guy though.
Anyway here are a couple of pics of the work.
It may not seem to be too much but it took me most of a week to try, fail and try again and then take stuff in and out about 50 times.
So really I just have to connect the brakes, bleed the clutch and it could be mobile soon.
Unfortunately I have kick it out of the garage for while while I bring in an Ex-Alberta Forest Service 1959 IHC 3/4 ton 4x4 that I'm restoring for parade duties hopefully for next summer.
And then my wife has a long list of Christmas stuff and a couple of renos to do so it may be a while again...
Still, feels good to have made some real progress instead of just having it take up room.
Hi guys due to popular request( i.e.. MC was interested) and the fact we have been actually featuring a picture of a late 30's Willys I'm going to update the forum on the recent progress (and there has been quite a bit) of my electric powered 1938 Willys pickup truck. I had the occasion to resurrect this thread and I cant believe how long this thing has been in gestation so I am determined to drive it this summer as I'm not getting any younger or slimmer, so I want to get to drive it while I can still squeeze into it. (Thank goodness I put in a tilt!)
First a bit of background:
Years ago I found this truck laying on its side in the bush with the frame broken in about 3 places which kind of implies that whoever owned this little thing worked it pretty much to death. It had laid on its driver's side while someone before me took out the engine and running gear. While it quietly laid there and took a few bullet holes, it had held water in whatever body parts would pool for many years so the driver's side cab is really lacelike behind the door and the box driver's side front section was really gone as well. The driver's fender, besides being really fatigue-cracked (and repaired badly) was also rusted almost to unusability. However on the plus side, it was a 1938 Willys pickup that had all its body parts except the tailgate and where are you going to find another? According to my best guess they may have made about 1000 of them that bad sales year for Willys. Plus, they are as cute as a bug and the front clip is the same as the cars to make parts searching a bit easier.
Turns out trying to find any late 30's Willys parts is not at all easy but over the years I have managed to find 2 other hoods, one other set of pretty bad fenders, glove compartment doors, a spare set of inner fenders and the good luck last year to acquire a 1938 Willys sedan at an auction that had a much better front clip. Luckily the pickup doors (which are unique in their shape were not bad at all, so those I could work with)
Unfortunately it also turned out that all the sheet metal needed a lot of work by a skilled body person (which I am definitely not!) who can cope with welding the incredibly thin sheet metal they used on these el-cheapo vehicles. As a result I have really dithered on this thing over the years.
Once I decided to go electric though I thought that maybe I can just get it moving and worry about the details later.
Since then between lifes events it just goes in fits and starts, Since the last update last year I have managed to do a few things:
-Rebuilt the rear axles seal and brakes so all is new back there.
-Rejigged the rear shock mounts to bring them lower to accommodate the pickup box. (The frame is from an S10 Blazer)
-Dragged out the box and test fitted it about 50 times until I finally got it pretty much sitting straight and square and the right height I think. Luckily it had a steel floor (pretty advanced for the day) so was structurally fairly sound although battered. I had to get some wheel spacers to bring out the wheel widths front and back by 1.5 inches on each side so I could get the box between the tires and so the front suspension didn't have that pinched in look. (Still have to get slightly narrower tires for the rear though.)
-I had to fabricate a piece of the box floor drivers front side as close to the original sort of accordion pattern as I could as well as the lower box front panel and then resurrect my rusty welding skills to put that all together as well as filling a bunch of other rusty or drilled out spots. Luckily I have a Mig but even so, with the age thing working against me (i.e. bad eyes, shakey hands and impatience) it really isn't ending up a show piece. Again luckily, I can hide most of the ugly welds under the box liner that I had to build to hold the lithium Ion Battery pack.
-Once I finally had the box mounted I started to assemble the electric components I have had taking up room in the garage for a few years now. The biggest worry was the state of health of the 44 very expensive lithium Ion Batteries but once I measured their voltage I was relieved to see they were still right up to spec.
-The next step to build a box liner/battery containment system that will be sufficient to contain the 600 lbs of cells in normal road use and in the event of an a moderate accident. As I am no engineer and this kit was designed to be used in a stock S10 pickup I had to sort of err on the side of caution and hopefully over engineer it. I had originally thought to put the batteries under the box nestled in between the frame rails but once I looked at it I figured it would subject them to too much road wear and tear so I figured I'd sacrifice most of the 6 foot box to batteries.
Now that I have built the thing and hopefully have worked out a way to hold them in place securely but not so tight as to deform them, and to allow for for heat dissipation but to also protect them from the weather and impacts I just have to finish up the details such as cutting a bunch of cooling holes in the aluminum boxed rails that separate them. I also still have to finish mounting them and build the back of the box with a provision for a cooling fan.
It s all kind of solving one little engineering thing at a time while trying to keep the big picture in my head. The manual that came with the kit is only marginally useful mostly because it details a conversion of a conventional S10 which this is not.
The last couple of nights I have had to try to figure out where and how to mount the rest of the components such as:
The controller (Solid state box (that needs a heat sink) that is designed to control the speed of the DC motor
The pot box-which is the variable speed input device that acts as a proxy for a gas pedal
The onboard charger which recharges the battery pack
The DC to DC converter with takes 144 volts from the battery pack and drops it to 12 so I can run the vehicle systems like lights, stereo etc.
The 12 volt battery that is needed to store the 12 volts from the converter.
The intermittent vacuum pump that hooks into the 12 volt battery so I can still have power brake assist for the front discs.
The terminal box which has all the fuses and the emergency shut off breaker.
The emergency shutoff handle and cable.
All of this stuff has to fit under the hood or in the cab so I've been doing some mockups and trying to figure if any of these need to be mounted in specific orientations. Some of these are located now but the big expensive stuff is still on the table.
Once this is done I've got to take off the temporary front clip and redo all the front suspension parts as well as installing the 1.5 inch dropped spindles that I have sitting around so I can get the truck sitting at the right ride height, front and back.
So there ya go!
Lots done and lots to do. I seem to be on a bit of roll so now that I can actually visualize driving it (maybe not quite legally but still..). Where I'm still leary is when I actually start hooking up the components as the manual is pretty confusing, I'm not an electrical whiz and this stuff isn't in the locations he had envisioned in the first place. Plus you're dealing with 144 volts which is nothing to mess with.
I think when I'm ready to throw the switch I will take it outside and chain it to a big tree in case it either catches on fire or takes off uncontrollably. In any case it will be quite a tense moment.
Here's hoping I have more updates soon.
Here are some recent pics. More on Request
-- Edited by 66 Grande guy on Sunday 28th of January 2018 06:32:20 PM
-- Edited by Carl Stevenson on Sunday 28th of January 2018 10:33:34 PM
-- Edited by 66 Grande guy on Monday 29th of January 2018 01:47:30 AM
Thanks for posting your updates (just for me! lol), and reviving this thread.
My hat is off to you for your ambition, imagination and creativity. I would not ever have thought of doing this, but with how you found it and what was left, it seems like the perfect thing to do with it.
You know you'll never see another one like it... anywhere!
Good to see this thread active again Ken and as long as you keep that sense of humour you'll get er done. Fun watching. Pretty sure I sent you some pictures of a guy's S10 here in Kelowna a few years ago. He used to do all his running around for his shop with it. Keep her going.