It's been a while since I last updated this. Sadly I have made far less progress than I wanted to, but I'm trying to find 6-8 hours per week to work on it.
I did start to weld up the new rear suspension arms, but stopped part way through because I didn't want to be welding and grinding near the battery while it was exposed. The 3d printed cut and alignment jigs worked very well, though. I really like this method for suspension parts when it's very important to make two parts mirror image to eachother as accurately as possible. Here's a shot of the upper balljoint holder and how it was aligned, as well as an in-progress shot of the lower arms in their jigs.
Upper balljoint holder in its jig
Lower arms in position to be welded
I did manage to get my hands on a Pacifica battery, and made a
teardown thread detailing some design aspects of the battery as well as a list of components with part numbers. I decided on a stacked arrangement with an angle steel frame and aluminum panels. Sadly this box would not meet the latest proposed rules for competition in the SCCA, but if those rules are adopted by my club I will build a new box.
The right hand side of the frame is removable, as is the top. It's a bit of a pain, but after lowering in the bottom module, I attach the side frame, then lower the top module into place, followed by the top frame and finally all the panels. It's very tight inside though, so I had to order some 45 and 90 degree cable lugs. I also reused some of the flexible bus bar from the original battery. Once the angled lugs arrive, I will do my best to run the rest of the HV wire within the battery and into the contactor box which is mounted to the passenger side of the battery box.
Test fit outside the car, shows general frame design
Made a new BMS wiring harness with new plugs that I ordered online
In the car with the top cover removed
Not much space wasted here! (I have since decided I can probably mount the charger in the rear for better weight distribution)
I have also made some progress on modifications to the rear frame, going from solid axle and fuel tank mount to IRS and motor mount. Additional bracing will come after everything else has been positioned. I have also 3d printed some parts to fit into the suspension pickup points so that I can position them as precisely as possible. I did this with great results when building the front suspension, although the frame was sat on a very nice and flat build table. This time around I will have to define some datum lines and locate the brackets relative to the rest of the frame rather than the established points I had been using on the build table.
New tubes added for upper and lower control arm pickup points. Some parts of the old solid axle frame have been cut out, more still will be cut out after the rest of the welding is done.
Test fit of the Leaf stack.. I had to remove the inverter, lower the motor and reducer into the opening, then reassemble the inverter to the motor in place. Again not fun, but there's just
barely enough space.
I've made a front motor mount but ran out of material before I could do the other two mounts that I have planned. Hoping to bang those out this weekend and maybe even finish all of the welding back there.
I'm also 3d printing some welding jigs so I can keep the geometry as consistent as possible from side to side. I used them to great effect when building the rest of the car.
