Fourteen batteries do indeed fit under the hood, with room left over for the motor controller and other equipment.
I still want to make a couple of modifications to the racks. Now that the hood is back on the car, I can see exactly how much clearance the front row of batteries has. I have decided to raise the front battery rack about a half inch to provide a little more space above the terminals on the bottom row. I am also going to cut the angle iron to provide access to the battery cell covers on the bottom batteries, as the water needs to be checked periodically. I will be able to slide the top batteries over enough to gain access to the bottom row for this task.
The car sits very nicely with all of the batteries installed. You can see in the pictures how it compares to the stock '70 Duster (without an engine) next to it. Before I started this project I measured the height of the car at the top of each wheel well centered on the wheel hub. With the weight of the batteries, the car sits about 2 1/2 lower in the rear and only 1 inch lower in the front. I had always disliked how high it was in the rear. Now I think it sits perfectly.
2 comments:
Dear Bruce,
found your Blog at Chromjuwelen.de. Thats a pretty nice custom-culture car page from Germany which posted your site under category engine-swap. Just wanted to tell you (obviously your german is not that good :)!), that they are very excited about that electrical storm theme. They wrote very friendly little article. I'm very interested in it, too - so I have to read your blog daily. Thanks for that entertaining writing. So, sending greetings from overseas (Münster, Germany), regards - Philipp
pbolzen@gm.de
Hello Philipp,
Thanks for the note. No, my German is not too good :) I was glad to have Chromjuwelen write about my project. There may be another German website article coming out soon as well. I am really pleasantly surprised that there is such interest in my project in Europe. It is also good to know that people are reading my blog :)
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