1971 GMCe Lexus GS450H BMW 530e Tesla Model S Electruck [Upgrade]

[Gregski]

another day another template (and one dull razor)

[Gregski]

not my favorite tool, still trying to learn how to use it as sometimes I am a surgeon with it, but most of the time a Barbarian

[Gregski]

top tip on fillin in them holes, anything bigger than tiny I like to use some backing plate on it, this is a flattened out piece of copper pipe you can source at your local plumbing supply, works great as the filer rod won't stick to it

and Robert is still your mother's brother

[Gregski]

A Note On The Side: if you are good with working with wood, or simply enjoy working with it, you will be really good with working with metal as it is more forgiving, you can bend it and you can straighten it, you can also cut it as many times as you like and it will still be long enuff, ha ha (if you get my meaning, unlike wood)

[Gregski]

Top Tip: on punching holes, lay a piece of paper or card stock over the holes and with a ball peen hammer gently tap tap tap the holes perimeter and it will punch out the perfect hole for you to transfer over, also great for making paper gaskets, works around edges as well for that perfect border cut

[Gregski]

and let's glue it on there

[Gregski]

well now for the moment of truth, will this thing come out?

[Gregski]

over the last 20 years I have seen more painting products get banned in California than I care to mention, you know the good ol' May cause California in the State of Cancer warnings! I about lost my shiet when I found out we can no longer buy Denatured Alcohol here !!!


so this is the latest thing I have tried lately, works pretty OK, and it has that familiar smell like it is just rebranded Mineral Spirits or Acetone?

maybe one of you Walter Whites can set me straight on the ingredients

[Gregski]

and I got it covered with primer just before the rain that night, I really like this RUST-OLEUM primer it covers well, makes me feel like a PROFESSIONAL and you can get it at Home Depot or Lowe's at half the cost of what they sell the same stuff at the Auto Parts Stores

[Gregski]

and here is Reason #197 why I chose the Lexus GS450 transmission as my electric power plant, essentially so I won't have to do this:

In this video Damien Maguire shows us what it takes to attach a first gen Nissan Leaf electric motor to a BMW E46 five speed transmission.

• adapter plate
• input shaft coupler

Don't get me wrong we loved our 2013 Nissan Leaf which we leased for three years, and of course I love Damien, everything I know about EVs I learned from his videos.

but please take a looksie and anjoy

oh by the way 197 is also the horse power of the bigger electric motor inside of our Lexus transmission, yes there are two electric motors inside of it, the other one is a bit smaller

[Gregski]

so when the combustion engine goes away, so does vacuum or the source of vacuum, this means that we loose power brakes, as the brake booster is vacuum operated, here I am starting to work with a replacement electronic booster called an iBooster from a 2018 Honda CRV (there were two generations of this animal, and I believe mine is still Gen 1)

thanks be to Lars and his amazing blog on this topic at EVcreate.nl Electric power brakes

but first the mandatory stare and compare (Chevy on the left, not Chevy on the right)

[Gregski]

I can't believe the short sightedness of the Chevy engineers, that merely 50 years ago they could not foresee that we would some day be bolting up electronic components to these rigs, was all that pretend metric compliance for nothing? needless to say I must drill four new holes, oh the calamity

[Gregski]

a cool video by TesLorean showing how this iBooster works

[Gregski]

time to adapt and overcome

I may weld up the old holes, I may not

[Gregski]

and I like to clean my old parts after I work with them, to maximize my chances of tetanus

[Gregski]

after little thought I just nibbed off this eyelet off of the old booster and stuckatized it on to the new one

[Gregski]

Fun Fact: Trusting that your 70s vehicle was built with the highest of precision fitment standards in mind and perfect symmetry is a sure way to make you drill and weld up your new holes two or three times to fianlly meet their polywhompuses

this is how off the factory brackets come off the firewall towards the new booster, they are NOT even (like I originally assumed)

[Gregski]

this is the part where you tell me I mounted it sideways or upside down ?

2018 Honda CRV iBooster same crap as in the Tesla but for a 1/3rd of the cost

[TheSilverBuick]

This project thread is amazing.

[Gregski]

This project thread is amazing.

download.jpg (7.84 KiB) Viewed 3287 times

[Gregski]

I think I put off tackling the battery tray long enuff, so first it was time to make the uneven, even!

using only the finest metals from my scrap pile of finest metals

[Gregski]

this is approximately 3,612 back and forths with the angle grinder

tack you very much

[Gregski]

at first this level of inaccuracy made my heart skip a beat...

but then later I realized the whole front end is up in the air a bit more than the rear and not on the level


so Top Tip, when twerking on old cars or trucks, measure and go off of their parts and not off of the circumference of the earth and shiet, (I once built a perfectly symmetrical split bumper for my '54 ... spent hours and hours on getting both sides identical, and then I mounted them and they looked jacked, I could not figure out what was wrong, so I cut the uneven side all up and welded it up so it looked like HELL on the garage floor, then I mounted it up, and my wife goes HMMM THAT LOOKS PERECT !!!

[Gregski]

that's more like it, I like it! do you?

[Gregski]

and here's how them horns look naked, perfectly level from 50 feet...

not purdy but strong