Sunday, September 28, 2008

Motor Brace

The main electric motor mounting point is the adapter in the rear, which is securely attached to the frame rails of the car. I have also fabricated a brace for the front of the motor to help support it and keep it from trying to twist or move around. I just welded together some 1/4 x 1-1/2 steel bar and fastened it to the existing motor mount locations.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looking good so far!
I would recommend some gusseting in the joints of your frontal motor-mount however.. Looks like it'll hold for a while, however the weight of that large motor over any bumps, plus some time will mean that the support will slowly disappear.

Keep it up!

DeMorro said...

Hey Bruce, I'd like to ask you a few questions about your project, if you could, send me an email, demorro@gmail.com.

Thanks.

bill de beer said...

Hi,
Just looking at your project,I`m planning to build my own ev shortly, looking at the motor brace, to reduce harmonic noise ,dont you think rubber mount will be nessasary.
Just a thought.
Nice job so far.

Regards

Bill ( South Africa)

Bruce said...

Hopefully there will be no harmonic noise with the motor. They are supposed to be quite smooth compared to an internal combustion engine. I guess we'll see.

I considered making the front mount beefier. I am expecting a minimum amount of force at that location, but I will keep an eye on it and add gusseting later if necessary.

Daniel Busby said...

Hello. I'm in the middle of my own conversion ('64 Spitfire) and I'm wondering about your choice to hardmount the motor. Did you also hardmount the transmission? If the drivetrain needs to give a bit, where will the slack be taken up? Your project looks great, by the way. You're doing a great job of documenting as well. I look forward to hearing how it all performs.

Bruce said...

Hi Daniel,

Everything I've read said that vibration would not be an issue. However, the trans is mounted in its original rubber mount. Also, the Lovejoy coupling I used between the motor and trans has a synthetic piece that works as a vibration damper and it allows for a little movement in the drivetrain.

I spun the motor up in the car using a 12 volt battery and even put it in gear and spun the wheels with it jacked up. It all seemed very smooth in that test.

Of course I'll post whatever my experiences are when I get it on the road.