Electric Car

Posted by LivingProvident on Sep 12th, 2009 | one comment home title

I grew up on a farm and so we had lots of junk to play with. Mostly out of the “Bone Yard”…

What you ask is the “Bone Yard”?

Well when you have a farm you often have many cars, trucks, tractors, and other farming projects they sometimes become…um…what is the word, dead… broke down… unfixable. But most of all you can not haul them off because they are prime for future parts on farm projects, so you place them into the farm graveyard. The word graveyard is pretty morbid so we, along with a lot of other farmers, call it the “Bone Yard”.

Well you get the drift a “Bone Yard” is a great place to find really useful stuff like an old Datsun pickup truck. We took all of the body parts off that old truck until it was stropped down to just a frame. We bolted two seats onto the frame around the middle area.

Unfortunately the steering column broke so we had to weld a steel plate into the gears and then a steel rod to it that went straight up. Then another steel rod got welded to the first rod and it went back to the driver’s seat. This make shift rudder was exactly that and it steered opposite, so if you turn the rudder left the truck (call it electric car) goes right. OK all we need now is something to drive this beast with big snow tires on the back and little tires on the front.

We looked around until we found an electric motor from a forklift. Perfect so we tied it into the differential at the rear axle. We used a spider gear that gave it just enough play to be able to hook things up. Now we needed some batteries. We had 7 batteries laying around in various states of disrepair. Dad went and got some old ones from work to top us off at 12 batteries. We welded in a rack and hooked all of the batteries up and then the fun began.

To start off you have to understand that when all of the batteries are hooked up they give a high level of power and the electric motor reacts by going fully on. There is noway to control the speed. Either it is on or it is off and on has only one level, fast. We did put in a break that was a pipe hooked to the emergency brake and a rope so we did have the ability to lock up the tires!

We were able to get a switch but the power was to much and it melted down. My dad got a couple more switches and they melted down as well. Finally one day my dad came home from work and says I have a switch that should work. So we went to hook it up. Normally we jack the car up on blocks and get ready for the electric motor to take off. This time when we ask dad if we should get the jacks he said no this switch will work for sure. So there is dad sitting backwards on the electric car with his legs dangling from the frame backwards as the switch melted down and the electric car takes off out of the shop.

The rudder, aka makeshift steering wheel, hit my dad in the arm as he looked over his shoulder to grab it. Seeing that he is heading towards the suburban (freshly painted) he steers the electric car away but ends up hitting the front of our little red car and bouncing back in the direction of the suburban. My dad steers away again and misses the suburban by less than a foot. Now the electric car is going full speed and is between the house and the suburban and the angle does not give dad any room to steer. The electric car hits the corner of the house and starts to gouge into the siding. This was not a bad thing because it slowed the electric car down and in fact to a stop. With the rear wheels on the grass they simply spun and spun until one of the batteries blew up and ended the connection to the electric motor.

Wow, dad survived! We were all stunned as we helped him pull the car off of the house. The gouge was impressive but did not really hurt anything but the looks. I remember saying with my brothers to dad that he was in big trouble when mom found out. We had all gotten in a lot of trouble over the years being 4 boys there was not one door in the house that had not been replaced, and we won’t even get into the windows.

“Dad you are in trouble” we all said. Dad shook his head and said “what do you mean I am not in trouble” and as he said it he pushed the shrubs up and covered the scared house so that the wound was gone! He then looked at us and said “Mom better not find out about this”. The look was one that only dads can give and this story was not shared until the siding was fixed. We did get the car working again finally.

So the switches were not a good idea, we went to just arching two large wires together to get the power to the motor. Finally the day came we rolled the car up to the pump house dirt road and got ready to see this car go. I remember putting on my dads New York police biker leather jacket and some welding gloves. My brother took the drivers seat and we both placed out feet awkwardly on the frame of the electric car.

Time to go…I carefully, which is the last time the word carefully was used again that day, I carefully put both wires in each hand with a tight grip. It was like a was going to ride a bull but come to think on it I was not actually holding on to this bull. Dad said go and I put the wires together…Boom…we were off at full speed as soon as the giant snow tires stopped spinning. Bouncing down the road tossed and turned. My brother tried to grasp the rudder with his hand and the understanding of how to steer this monster. I remember thinking why doesn’t he stay on the dirt road as we swerved on and then off and then back on again. I pulled the wires to get us going slower and my first attempt failed the wires had fused together! I pulled harder and to my relief they came apart. We slowed and my brother said go faster as a laugh came out of him. I gave us more speed before the laugh and what it meant fully hit me.

I had often heard the laugh from my brother it was a trait he got from my father. Basically my dad was laughing that same laugh when the electric car went flying out fo the shop with him sitting on it backwards. You do not want to hear the laugh. So I slowed us down even more with on, off, on, off of the wires held by my welding gloves.

Finally the spider gear blew out and we rolled to a stop. The motor was no longer hooked to the differential that made the wheels move. It was over, the first and only run, we would ever have. My dad and mom looked at each other as we bounced up and down on this beast we had created and they knew we would end up getting hurt really bad. My dad decided because of a look from mom that he would not be able to find another spider gear for our electric car. It all worked out though because later we turned that electric car into a giant catapult that shot basket balls 70 feet. That is a story for another day.

Speaking of the story for another day when I was looking for the video of the electric car at my parents I found this short clip. Here is the catapult.

This is a motivational story to help us all understand that we are not limited ever! If a couple of kids could build an electric car out of the “Bone Yard” than anything is possible! Get out there and build something, do not spend a fortune to do what you can do with a little sweat equity.

I have a friend that converted a car into fully electric, you can see it at his web site Brooksolar.com.

Rhett Out

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