Friends of the project

I know it is not proper etiquette to go back and change pages in the blog at later dates, but the number of people stepping forward to help on the project is important to us.  We will only list a little about each person to recognize them for their support until they say they want more information about them or their business added.  Come back and visit this page to see who else is helping.

Top listing has no choice, THANK YOU to my lady for letting me play in not an inexpensive way on a project that had/has a lot of risk.  Oh, yeah, and to my boys for humoring me, but I know they want to drive it!

The final inspiration, he knew I was interested and provided a connection to tip the scale and get us going: Wolf

Project design overview soundboards :
Trapp
Wolf
Drew
Jeremy
John

Automotive Knowledge:
Trapp (He builds all sorts of things car related including racing parts)
Kane @ Beaumont Alignment (These are the only guys that I have trusted to work on my cars (when I haven't done it myself) for over 30 years!)
Mike @ Advance Automotive (He builds and drives VW's for fun.)

Manufacturing:
Trapp
Parish (Machining specialist R.I.P.)
Coverdill
Pre-Pack Machining

Electronics and computers:
Wolf (Built the computer that talks to the five other computers in the car, Brusa Charger, Siemens Motor Controller, VW Chassis, Vicor DC-DC Convertor, Nissan BMS)
Elboco (CAN communications)
Jack (RF communications)
Uwe @ Ross-tech.com providing professional automotive communications hardware and software.

Software:
Wolf

FEA:
Don @ VPDS.com
Brad @ Caterpillar.com
OnShape.com
SimScale.com
Prabhu

Welding:
James.Brownfield
Cy
Parish

Materials:
MetalsDepot.com
ModernImports.com
Kiszka
MacksRecycling.com
Mike and Joshua
Advance Auto Parts : Thank You Kevin for letting me stare at the back room shelves.

Labor:
UIUC students that have put in hours of labor an internet time learning.

Programming:
Wolf
Noah
Tod
Chris
Luke

The I-Beam is in.

The main new load bearing member is in the car permanently.  From a Civil Engineers perspective, "This is so cute," as the beam is 2.33"W x 3"T.  I have no idea why they make one so small, but it works for us! 

Positioning the I-Beam into the frame for welding.

You can see at the top end of the I-Beam that we added a plate.  The plate allowed us to do the difficult welds out of the car, and better match the thickness of the car sheetmetal to ease the welding in the car.  The in-car weld goes around all 4 sides of the plate.  Thank you to Keith for the insight in making the engineered system more manufacturable.

James welding in the I-beam

We caught James Brownfield in action and had a bit of fun with him.  No matter how many times we told him that the welding helmet would darken automatically he obviously has been using the traditional welder mask all his life and would twitch his head to flip the helmet up and down for each weld.  Constantly expanding his horizons, I learned during this visit that in addition to being a precision instrument maker, that he also does real estate brokering.  James.Brownfield@ColdwellBanker.com
As opposed to my plan for some coarse and messy good old fashioned stick welding, James preferred TIG and they are much prettier than I could ever do.

Z-Bar battery frame with doubler plates tacked in position.

 I was not convinced the welds on the Z-Bar would hold as predicted and James had the suggestion of adding doubler plates to the sides spanning the welds.  We welded the joints, ground them flat, and then TIG welded the doubler plates all-around.  The image also shows the addition of the spanner angle iron.  These angle parts serve two functions, they significantly stiffen the Z-bars for side loading and they provide the lower attachment points for for the battery boxes.

Z-bar doubler plates

I-beam in, front battery boxes in place.

In the above image you can see the water pump and vacuum pump resting on the I-beam.  We are now int he process of determining the exact placement of the pumps.  They will hang from the underside of the I-beam,  Above the beam will be the DMOC controller and the 12V battery.

Battery frame progress

The I-Beam front support member of the battery frame was fitted last night.  Hopefully it warms up enough today to put some paint on it so we can weld it in fully along with the rest of the frame soon.

A donation to the cause a friend has shared a cut-off saw.  A little maintenance, fresh wires, oil, and a fresh blade made it cut like butter!  Manufactured in 1941! We found the thread standards in 1941 must not quite have matched today's standards when replacing some of the frame bolts.

I-beam test fit.  It will be welded at both ends to the main car frame.  It will have the battery frame set on top of it and the DMOC.  The A/C compressor, water pumps, vacuum pump, and steering pump will be hung from it.

Battery box with side holes for the battery compression rods.

Battery box with lower holes for battery and battery frame attachment.