Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Adapter Plate Template

With the gearbox requiring some TLC and a wire brush and maybe some WD-40, I quickly traced the outline onto some stock wood to cut a template.




As you can see from the second pic, I'm going to have to cut a space for the drive shafts to fit. I don't think it's necessary to be 100% accurate, since the adapter plate doesn't need to be watertight, but I'd like to get it as close as possible, just to eliminate the possibility of vibration or problems in the future.

You can also see the dashed lines at the "top" of the adapter plate. Rather than making the top match the curve of the gearbox, I'm thinking of extending it up and having a flat top with a series of holes drilled into it. This would make it like a modified Picatinny Rail and enable me to bolt a shelf to the top of the adapter plate to hold the controller or support the battery rack.











The good news is that now I can start talking to my local machine shop/fabricators and actually have something they can see, measure and work with, rather than just drawings on paper. YAY!

3 comments:

David Harrington said...

When do you plan on getting your motor?

They could probably make up the coupling and plates if you give them the transmission and the motor, or at least the motor outline from the manufacturer. I found tracing out the transmission lead to huge measurement problems (probably my bad), and I am about to get new plates through a machine shop in the coming weeks for my FB1. I am talking to them soon about it and I plan on giving them the transmission and the motor so they can do there thing with their fancy tools.

Justin Sawell said...

Hmmm. Getting the motor - that's the next big step.

I was saving towards the $2,300 but since the bottom has fallen out of the world markets (both financial and economic) I just don't know where I stand. The importer has told me there is a delay (which suits me at the moment since I'm still saving up) but if one comes available I might have to borrow the money and just suck it up.

Yes - I'm going to give the machine shop the entire gearbox as well as a motor drawing. I will leave it up to them to align the motor hole with the spline to make it all line up properly.

David Harrington said...

How's the EV coming? Has there been any progress on it or is it on a stand still?