The Ghia on the trailer in a parking lot at Circus Circus Las Vegas.
The Ghia on the trailer in a parking lot at Circus Circus Las Vegas.
Van and Ghia (and Anna) after refueling at Tonopah. Note the price of the gas in 2003. Good reason to go electric!
Van and Ghia parked at Albert's shop in Paisley, OR.
Albert loads his ATV with the spare crankcase and assorted extra parts.
The Ghia, parked in front of the house in Bend.
The Ghia, parked in front of the house in Bend.
The Ghia in the garage with the Subaru.
What a beauty!
Ghia engine comparment, left side. Note fuel pump and voltage regulator. Also note the rust holes in the corner.
My new suit. Fits me rather well, I think.
The Ghia, before I fired up the pressure washer.
The pressure washer, and a few other tools.
The Ghia, after the pressure washing was done.
The new motor for the Ghia has arrived!
It's really big!
This appears to be the tach sensor.
Measuring the gas tank hole. Batteries will go here eventually.
Cardboard mockup of baseplate of front battery holder.
Clem Ryan has fabricated part of the front battery box.
Clem is grinding off the front corners of the baseplate to match my cardboard template.
This is as far down as the box will go.
With a battery in the box and a board across the trunk opening, there is five inches of airspace above the battery terminal.
The motor adapter has finally arrived from Electro Automotive! That's the starter hole blockoff plate on the left.
On the left is the transmission profile plate. On the right is the motor collar/spacer ring.
Motor with collar.
Playing around. The collar is bolted to the motor.
The profile plate and the taperlock hub are assembled. The flywheel bolts to the hub.
Now we're getting serious. I've got the motor strapped down to a cradle so I can get some serious torque to tighten things. Motor collar is installed and torqued to the proper value.
Side view of motor, cradle, and collar.
The profile plate is installed.
The hub is installed. Alas, it sticks out too far! The motor shaft is longer than the motor I told Electro Auto I had, so their collar isn't deep enough. My fault.
The Electronic Hacksaw, on top of the metal it will remove.
Rear apron is removed.
I've removed the rear engine deck. It offended me.
The right side came right up. It had been tacked down with a pretty bad brazing job. I mostly pried it up with a screwdriver.
The left side, however, was a different story. Someone had welded down a piece of steel over the old battery area, and they'd done a decent job. I had to use the Electronic Hacksaw on it.
My motor crane and winch.
End view of the crosspieces, showing the cable going between them.
The crane is in position, lifting a test load (an Optima battery).
The front battery box is finished. It will hold four Optima batteries. An angle iron frame for holding them down is not shown.
The blank area to the right is above the steering column. Can't put a battery there!
The new motor collar from Electro Auto, next to the old one on the left. The new one is noticeably thicker.
Let's do this again. This time, closer to the rear of the Ghia. I almost hurt myself last time.
New thicker motor collar is installed.
Transmission profile plate is installed.
Flywheel is installed. Note my funky flywheel lock, to keep it from moving while I tighten the gland nut in the center.
Another view of the flywheel lock. I'm so cheap.
The clutch is installed. Now I'm doing flywheel balancing by spinning the motor and whacking the clutch with a rubber hammer until it stops vibrating.
Cleaning the gunk from the bell housing.
Motor is hoisted into position.
Whoops, forgot the clutch throwout bearing. Let's try this again.
No bearing installed....
One bearing installed.
I'm tightening the four bolts that hold the motor assembly to the transmission.
All installed! The wheels turn smoothly with no odd noises. It won't go into reverse - must look into that later.
Doug attempts to remove the roll bar from the Ghia's interior.
Doug has cracked the windshield. Oops.
The crack from the inside.
The windshield is gone, leaving most of the gasket.
Rig for testing the strength of tee nuts. The plywood is 1/2in, the winch rated at 1000lbs.
This is what happened to the eyebolt. The tee nut is to the left, showing no signs of damage.
Second tee nut strength test. It pulled the tee nut right through the plywood.
Second tee nut strength test. It pulled the tee nut right through the plywood. Notice the plywood bulging upwards.
Second tee nut strength test. It pulled the tee nut right through the plywood.
Second tee nut strength test. It pulled the tee nut right through the plywood.
Proof of concept of my battery hold-down scheme.
Proof of concept of my battery hold-down scheme.
Proof of concept of my battery hold-down scheme.
Proof of concept of my battery hold-down scheme.
Ghia backseat, batteries hidden.
Ghia backseat, batteries exposed. I eventually settled on only eight batteries back here, exactly half of the pack.
Ghia front trunk, with prototype for battery mounting board.
Ghia front trunk, with prototype for battery mounting board. The batteries fit fine.
Laying out the rear battery shelf.
The rear battery shelf has the tee nuts installed. The angle iron will strengthen the shelf and help prevent batteries from flying forward in a collision.
Drilling centering discs out of plywood. These will be glued down over the tee nuts and help guide the batteries into the right position.
Centering discs are countersinked and glued down. This didn't work - the plywood discs came apart too easily.
Note the sloppy job done on drilling these discs (by eye). The batteries almost didn't fit together.
So for the front shelf I built a jig.
New brake reservoir hoses. I also drilled a hole for the brake light wires.
Front battery shelf test installation. Looks perfect! Hopefully those particle-board discs will be less likely to delaminate than the plywood.
Inside the front fender. This strengthens the shelf mount.
The shelves, front and rear, have been well varnished.
All the angle iron shelf hardware has been painted with Rustoleum and is ready to go.
This is a piece of floor linoleum, cut to the size of the bottom of the front shelf. The waterproof side is down. This will be glued to the shelf to help protect it from road spray from underneath.
Drilling the holes for the battery hold-down plates.
The hold down plates do double duty as a mounting spot for the Rudman Regulators.
The first batch of hold down plates. The big holes are bolt and vent holes, the little holes are for the regulator stand-off posts.
It's starting to come together!
All sixteen batteries, wired in parallel to keep them balanced. I hook a charger to them periodically to keep them topped up.
The motor is being winched back into position after Jim Husted has installed the variable brush ring.
Test-fitting the front batteries and calculating how to install regulators and build the necessary cables.
Crimping a sample cable. This is using the heavy-duty terminals acquired at Specialty Auto Electric. The large rubber cover is for covering both automotive and stud terminals on the Orbital battery.
Here's how I'm using Jonathan's crimper. Hope he doesn't mind.
The tiny steering wheel interferes with the dashboard instruments. It's gotta go.
Aaah, much better. Looks like a 15 inch wheel (like the stock one, imagine that) will work without covering anything up.
Motor's installed. Note the cheesy angle indicator, and the 5/16 bolt+jam nut+zip tie method of restraining the speed sensor wires.
A side view from underneath. Note how the lever exits the motor, and my exquisite modifications to the gravel screen.
Jim Husted's shop. We're making a jig to countersink the standoff post holes into the battery hold-down plates.
The finished jig in the press. The point on the piece of motor shaft presses into a matching hole in the flat bar. Squeeze the plate between them, and instant countersink dimple.
Uh oh, these terminals are too close. It doesn't matter if they touch electrically since they're the two ends of a single cable, but there's not enough room here for the batteries to sit flat especially with the boots between them. Probably have to grind them down a bit.
My cable making workstation. I've marked the proper lengths on the workbench.
Crimping the Quick Cable terminals. Much nicer than the generic ones from the local shop.
How beautiful!
Here's what it will look like up front. Pity about the mess in the middle, but I can't figure out a way to do this that won't interfere with the regulator boards.
The tee nuts I purchased originally are too short for the bolts to reach them after installing hold down plate and lock washer. New ones to the right work much better.
Underneath the rear seat. I've lifted up the body a couple of inches so I can remove the heater tubes from behind the rear torsion tube.
From the other side. The heater tube used to be fastened down over that gasket. The bottom bolt was behind the tube until I lifted the body.
Both heater tubes have been removed. They flank the case for the Auburn Grizzly controller that will eventually propel the car.
The body is lifted a bit from the pan in the rear. Good practice for later.
This is a piece of 2 inch flexible conduit installed in the passenger footwell. It's supposed to protect the passenger from the high voltage cables running through the heater channel to the rear.
Inside the front trunk, looking at the top of the conduit.
Smaller 1-inch conduit for routing the high voltage cables into the behind-the-seat area.
Preparing to paint the battery hold-down plates.
Blue Rustoleum to match the blue Orbital batteries. It took a number of coats until I was satisfied with the coverage.
My Vicor MegaPac DC/DC converter.
The giant sawhorses I built for raising the body. I need to get under there to remove the Y-tube so I can route the high voltage cables and conduit.
Eight feet is long enough to span the car's width.
Here we go. Jack up the car, put it on jackstands, then put bricks under the jack. Repeat.
Then put bricks under the jack stands.
Then put more bricks under the jack.
The body is high enough now to get the sawhorse underneath the front bumper brackets.
Next, lower the floor jack. The pan begins to drop out of the body, visible below the driver's door hinge.
Of course I should have started at the back, due to the geometry of the body. I had to drop the front and start over in the rear.
Both ends of the car are now on the sawhorses. Not bad for an ignoramus working on his own.
The body's in the air and the pan has been rolled forward so I can get underneath and into the rear seat area.
Looking down at the motor and transaxle. So beautiful!
The Y-tube has to go. I've drilled out the spot welds.
The near branch of the Y isn't attached to anything, but I need to cut through the other branch.
The Electronic Hacksaw strikes again!
The captive nuts in the front corners of the body stayed behind on the pan. Also note that one of the other pan bolt nuts stayed behind too.
Curt prepares to do battle with the rusty front corners.
The cancer is mostly removed on the passenger's side.
The Ghia, up on my sawhorses in Curt's shop.
The day warmed up, so we opened the shop door. That's the Ghia's chassis in front. That motor hanging off the back sure does grab the attention of passers-by!
View from the wheel well at Curt's welding handiwork.
Here's the passenger's side front corner, from underneath. Hard to tell where Curt added the repair part. Nice work!
Now the driver's side. Bad metal all removed.
Now the driver's side. Bad metal all removed.
The replacement part, trimmed and slightly modified to fit into the hole.
The engine bay's new tin. It's intended to waterproof the whole thing so I can safely mount the charger and controller back there.
New steering wheel. It's used but in really good shape. It looks like a bus wheel, which is good. I need a big one to be able to turn the wheels when there's 400 pounds of lead on the front beam.
New windshield is installed. It's a Pinkerton, which is supposed to be a good brand. It's sure purty!
New windshield is installed. It's a Pinkerton, which is supposed to be a good brand. It's sure purty!
New steering wheel and new turn signal assembly. Lots of wiring to be done.
New sheet metal peeking out from under the engine lid.
Open the door and see the new tin! I'm not 100% happy with the neatness of Curt's welding, but it should do the job.
A look into how the shelves extend into the fender cavity.
The rear apron, with the latch assembly welded on.
The rear apron, with attached latch assembly. Note the holes for bolting it onto the fenders.
Rear apron in place.
Rear apron, and the underside of the new tin.
Under the right rear fender. It should be stout enough to hold up the controller (and the aux battery).
Under the right rear fender. It should be stout enough to hold up the controller (and the aux battery).
A view underneath, from the side.