ZEV Parking?
Back when I was researching all of the perks of owning my own electric vehicle, I came across a decal that is given out by the California DMV. It is intended to assure that the vehicle that’s taking up the “EV only” parking/charging spot is actually an electric vehicle. I thought that I might as [...]
Sparky’s Nice Rack
Recently I had the Spitfire off the road for some much needed repairs and maintenance. One of the features I decided to finish up was a hang glider rack for carrying my glider to and from the beach. The glider is much longer than the car, and it looks a little silly, but it [...]
Sparkfire’s new gas tank
On Friday last week, a fellow Spitfire converter helped me pick up the next big change for my EV. $7200 in lithium batteries. I bought them from CALB’s warehouse in Pomona, CA. They’re close enough that I could drive over with my helpful friend and pick ‘em up. This also means that if I find [...]
Suckin’ off the company Amps
My company, AeroVironment, is in the business of designing and building a multitude of electric vehicle charging solutions. It’s joked that if it moves, we charge it. Even though our company makes the chargers, we did not have them actually installed in our parking lot, despite the few EVs owned by employees (myself among them). [...]
Sparkfire Rides Again!
After 4 long months, I finally got the EV back on the road. I apologize for not keeping this blog well updated. In the meantime I’ve done so many small tasks, that it was hard to blog about them. Here’s a short list of the things I completed: Fixed the driveshaft Connected the transmission housing [...]
Windows in the Doors
After a few weeks of being much too busy to work on the Spitfire, I decided to warm back up with a cosmetic fix that has been nagging me for a while. I decided to tackle the windows, seals, and door trim. While not important to getting the car back on the road, I feel [...]
De-Rusting the Wheels
The ugliest part of my Spitfire has been the wheels. I had intended on cleaning them up and re-painting them, but having the vehicle undriveable for a few days to do so was unthinkable. But, with the car laid up with the transmission work, it was a great time to get this done. The rust [...]
Blinkers and Adaptor Plates
I’ve been making a lot of progress lately, but it’s been a lot of little things that are difficult to write about. I’ll just lump them all together here in one big post. First I installed the new amber blinkers that I bought. Believe it or not the car originally had plastic lenses, but they [...]
Keying the Mainshaft
My motor has an output shaft of 1 1/8″ with a 1/4″ keyway. How do I mate that to the mainshaft with an OD of .920″ and no keyway? Well, I machined a collar to slip over the mainshaft with an OD of 1 1/8″. Then, I milled out a deep keyway, to make sure [...]
Sparkfire Adaptor Plate
Progress has been slow lately on the direct drive conversion for my EV. I’ve been a bit busy with life lately. There’s been a lot of planning and discussing with local experts concerning the best way to implement the direct drive system. I’ve settled on using the rear extension off of the back of the [...]
