First drive

As this was so close I figured I may as well put the wheels on and drive it. So I did, and it seems to drive quite smoothly.

So now I've got to that stage I feel more certain that this is going to happen properly soon.

The next step is to step back a little bit and remove all the parts I don't need off the car properly and start to buy and build the rest of the parts I still need, ie;

• Remove fuel tank, pipes and other ancillary parts I don't need
• Build a battery box, 1 for the front and 1 for the back
• Design a heatsink, fans and mount for the curtis controller
• Finish the box off for the controller parts, relays etc 
• Buy a charger ~ £200-500
• Buy and fit a power inlet socket - £60
• Change the foot pedal for the 5K pot type - (I will mount the 5k pot to the current pedal)
• Buy and fit a vacuum pump for the brake system
• Mount the Curtis display on the centre console
• Change the gear selector to have the interlock and forward-reverse switches in it
• Add any other required switches to the centre console
• Build in the gear change motor with up-down switches on the gear selector

.... and last but definitely least, buy some batteries!... £1200-£3000!

Now I've written the list I can see I still have a way to go.

First run

I have been trying to work out why I couldn't get the motor to run, everything is just as it should be, I was coming to the conclusion that the controller was setup differently to the standard. However just as I was about to start sorting out a CAN converter and working out how to access the settings I gave the system one more check over. A last check of voltages on the switch inputs showed that the old switch I had dug out of a very old box of parts wasn't switching... so the interlock line wasn't being set high.
Although the motor was now in the car and a little less accessible I quickly connected it up and switched on... and it works.

The EV sub-frame is in!

I've removed the ICE sub frame and fitted the EV version!. This is a real land mark as the motor has been sitting in it's chassis for a very long time now waiting for this moment. Today was warm'ish, sunny and home alone so the perfect day to get it done.

Here are some pictures of the old one coming out and the new one going in..

The ICE and EV frames side by side

Some wooden wheels to help move the EV frame around

Wheeling in

There is a lot of space in the back now, plenty of room for some volts.. 

With the weight down on the suspension it's shown the motor plate is too close for the travel so will need a tweak. 

The car was sitting too low with the new chassis, although in place the springs looked the same once I removed and compared them they were quite different. So I've removed the springs from the ICE frame and fitted them, the car now sits at the correct height. So fortwo and roadster springs must be quite different. 

The old sub-frame is coming out

I couldn't resist having a go at removing the engine, it was a sunny day even though it's Feb and 3C outside, the sun seemed warm.

So I removed the whole outer skin, windows etc and now have something resembling a mini Delorean which is cool.

So I've continued to strip down taking pics of the various connections I've removed so that if anyone ever want to put the old engine back they can. Hopefully I'm not ever going to want the old engine back?!.
There appear to be very few connections, so far I've removed the 4 main bolts that hold the sub=frame to the car and jacked up the car 100mm to see what is tied to it.

There is a main control connector

The blower connector 

A broken rubber mount

A connector on the left hand sub-frame surface

Looking across between the car and the frame

The brake and wheel sensors

Air con pipes (which were broken on mine) and didn't work

The handbrake cable, which I'm going to have to get to by jacking the car up quite high to get underneath.

Something happened!

After a very long break on this I finally found some time to make another start on it. The main aim was to get the electrical system connected up and get the motor running. As the starter motor on the ICE had seized up again when I last tried to start the car and the clutch was grabbing badly before I took the car off the road I figured I'd also have a go at removing the existing sub-frame and seeing what the connections are and prep it for the new frame to go in.

For the electrical test I needed some volts... so as I'm on a low/no budget for this I picked up some old backup batteries from the local recycling centre and built a battery box. I also wanted to include the shunt and some big switches. Handy that I found an old drawer that I could use as a box.

So here it is, it's not pretty but I'm generally short on time so at least it got done. This gives me enough voltage to run the system and hopefully just about enough current to see the motor turn. I don't know the history of the batteries but I'm hoping the voltage doesn't drop too much under minimum load.

 I also added a secondary battery to replicate the 12v system battery for the aux stuff but won't need to use that yet.

So I now have 80v with an isolator and a current and volt meter in line.. I've also got some 40A fuses as the connections aren't going to handle much current. Once I know it runs I can then buy and build the full battery system.

 Next was the rest of the system, I've cut off the heatshrink to get a better look at where the pre-wired connector calves go. I found some wires were doubled back and then paired out the minimum wires needed to make the system run.

Contactor - Pins 13 and 6
Throttle wires - Pins 18 and 16
Curtis display - Pins 25-28-29-7
Forward - Reverse - Pins 1 switching to 22 or 33
Interlock - Pin 1 and 9

Without the motor connected or Main power switched on I just switched on the KS1 control power and..... not much, curtis lights up and contactor pulls in and drops out.
So I connected up to the motor and switched on the Main contactor and then powering up brings in the contactor which now holds on. This is good but the display was showing 'Charging', so after a bit of searching around I found there was a Charger Interlock input on pin 11, so I put a switch between that and pin 1 and that cleared that issue. Powering up again I was now getting Reverse or if I switch the forward-reverse switch I get BDI 100%.. but no turning motor.

Next step is to check the throttle setup, I was supplied with a 2 wire throttle so I've assumed it was set up for that, but maybe not. As yet I haven't got a way to see the setup of the controller, I've assumed it's set up enough to work but perhaps my next stage is to sort out a cable and find some software to talk to it... I'll try some of the other throttle connection options first.

For me this was a big step forward. Hopefully I can sort this out tomorrow.