Plug Bug: Broken brake…
…well, problems come in pairs. I changed my front brake pads about about 8600 miles; they wore away quickly! I didn’t change the rear, as they weren’t as bad as the front. I checked the new front ones at 15,000 miles and they are doing great. I had looked at the rear but only on one side and without taking the wheel off. They looked okay, so I wasn’t going to do them yet. However, the rear brakes started making a horrible noise last Friday.
So today I decided to take the brakes apart and drop in the new pads I already had on hand. It turned out to be an all day adventure. The left pads were worn, and it was time to replace them, but they weren’t totally shot. The right rear wasn’t in such good shape. Of the two pads, the left pad wore twice as fast, and was starting to etch into the disc! Doh! It wasn’t that bad, and I’m not going to replace the disc, but I had some trouble with installing the new pads. First of all, the pistons on the calipers were not wanting to go back in. I had to force them in with a pretty large C-clamp, and even then it was a lot of effort to get them in. Then I encountered the “problem”.
I have the rear disc brake conversion kit from CIP1. It is this one. It turns out one of the bolts that moves in and out to let the brake adjust was seized. So instead of moving as the pads wore, it just stayed put, and caused one side of the pad to wear twice as fast as the other! Worse, it was impossible to get off. I tried lots of things, including heating it with the torch, but it wasn’t budging. I put a bolt in and tried to get it to move…but that was a bad idea as the bolt snapped right off! That made things worse. I took the piece off the car and worked it in my vice and finally got it out.
In the picture below, the bottom right hole is where it was stuck; I managed to get it out by working it in a vice for a while.
The stuck piece freed:
Apparently some water got in the hole and let things rust up nice and bad. The sucky part is that I broke the bolt off in the piece:
..and easy outs (bolt extractors) *never* work for me. So, I of course broke one off in it.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I could order a new caliper (i.e.: this one). for $120 plus shipping, and wait a week to get it…but I don’t want to do that as it means week of not driving and I also have a car show to go to next Saturday! Instead, I decided to machine my own piece. So, after some time on the lathe and mill I had a replacement.
In the picture below, the top is the broken piece, the middle is the good piece+bolt, and the bottom is what I made. After the picture was taken, I quenched it in oil to harden it (note to self: don’t do it in a plastic container).
The finished piece is on the right, and the material I used is the big lump of steel.
My short test drive seems to let the brakes work! Cool…it only took all day (~10am to 8pm). And I missed hanging out with my friend Nathan for his birthday! Doh…
Plug Bug: Running again!
An update to the last post: The bug is running again! George, from Netgain motors, suggested seeing if the motor had excessive vibration. When I ran it at 12volts it seemed to hum pretty fine, so I put the car back together. It took a while, but I was running again by last Wednesday. I can’t really tell if the motor has any excessive vibration; it sounds a little different when I put in the clutch, but it doesn’t sound out of balance. So, I’m going to go with it!
Oh, and the little pieces that came out of the motor was balancing putty.
However…I ran into more problems with my rear brakes (next post..)
Plug Bug: 15,000 miles then a breakdown
The Bug has over 15,000 pure electric miles on it! The past ~14,000 have been relatively painless. I’ve had to do a few tweaks along the way, but nothing major.
Unfortunately, that changed last friday. I was getting into the carpool lane on Highway 85 southbound and accelerating hard. Then all of a sudden the motor was free spinning and not moving the car and making a bit of noise. I put in the clutch, as it seemed to make less noise that way, and pulled over to the side. I had to get towed home. I figured the transmission was shot, but shifting felt like it still worked.
I didn’t make the car to easily remove the motor/tranny combo. I can’t remove just the motor; there isn’t enough room to “back it out” and get the flywheel to clear the transmission. So, I have to take the transmission out too. The transmission has to be unhooked from the shifter in a very inconvenient spot; right under the back seat…which I have covered with batteries!
So, I had to remove the center pack of cells. This involved removing the BMS wires, and unbolting the cells. The center section slide right out:
Then I can get to the access plate:
I fought with the transmission/motor for a while, but finally got it out. I forgot to unbolt the clutch wire…which made it harder to do, and I managed to spill a bunch of tranny oil (doh!). I was being so careful too..as I hate spilling oil.
More unfortunately, I noticed some bits floating in the motor, as seen in this shot from under the car:
I took the motor off the transmission and saw what was wrong. The massive torque from the electric motor sheared off all the teeth on the inner spline of the clutch pad:
Which is a shame, since I have the Kennedy stage 2 clutch kit. I happened to have another one laying around, and I see its spline area is *much* longer:
No problem; that is easy to replace and cheap. However, here’s what I don’t know about. This was floating in the motor:
I’m pretty sure that I over sped the motor when the clutch pad broke loose. I think this caused some motor bits to fly apart. I need to ask my friends on DIYElectriccar.com for some advice.
I’m hoping I don’t have to replace the motor (it does still spin okay).
Proteas
Proteas
I sure love these flowers. They are amazing. Taken at UCSC Arboretum, April 22, 2012. Canon 5D Mark III.
South African Flower
South African Flower
Photography: Pink
Pink + Boka
Photography: Spider
Spider
Photography: More Flowers
More Flowers
Plug Bug: Burnt plugs
I have nearly 15,000 miles on my little electric car. I haven’t had to do much maintenance lately; the car has been running pretty well. I did a check on the front brake pads; the original set wore out really fast (like 7 or 8k miles), and I’m happy to see that the new ceramic pads are wearing away a lot slower than the original ones.
I did have some trouble recently at about 14,600 miles. The inlet plug seems to have had some extra resistance and was melting! The LS-30 inlet isn’t all that secure, and I think the loose locking connection would sometimes arc when I turn off the power with my wall timer.
Luckily I caught it before it caught on fire, but it is pretty concerning that it was melting to this point. I also realized all my other plugs had some melting signs, so I had to replace them all (about $110!). I’m looking into not using the LS-30 anymore and instead use the J1772 plug, and modify my adapter box to turn quickly the charger off when the thing is unplugged to prevent arcing.
