Today was a great day for our project. Once again, we put the car on a tow truck and got it out of Nico’s shop.

The car went into the body shop for a much needed make over. Our friends at Signature Auto Body in Hallandale welcomed our car to get it re done. The shop owner, Shimon Kapeta wecomed us and assured us that they would do a real nice job with the Buzz.

He even assigned his best worker to get it all fixed up. What they are going to do is get rid of all the rusty pieces, fix the little bumps and dings the car has and them prime the whole car. As we are going to wrap it, it doesn’t make sense to wait an extra week to get it painted. Especially because he assured us that the wrap will damage the paint if we ever remove it. If we never remove it, then why do we need paint, right? We cant wait to see it done!

All we need to do is find some replacement parts for some items that are missing or broken.

Flooded lead acid batteries, like the ones we are using for our car have a special ability of releasing Hydrogen gas when they charge. When this gas accumulates it can explode if ignited. The front battery rack would be OK, as it is “out in the open, under the hood of the car… so no problem there. However, in the rear battery box in the trunk of our car, once it is sealed, it can and will accumulate. This is why we are installing a gas extraction system.

For this we used a marine engine room blower. This is a little electric fan that runs on 12Vdc and does not arc when you turn it on. This is good because an arc can make this accumulated hydrogen explode. So, we cut a hole in the rear passenger wheel well and installed ducting to transport the gas out.

We used a 2 3/4 hole drill bit, and a 3 inch pvc pipe fitting with some silicone to create the opening in the wheel well and the battery box. For this we had to move some batteries out of the box… they are heavy. Then we installed the fan against the inside of the wheel well, in the trunk. Once it was all installed we zip tied everything together.

We tested the fan real quick with one of the batteries and we are confident it can move some air and gas…. We will be wiring the fan with a turbo timer to keep it running after the charger is unplugged. Once we get to that part, we’ll let you know how.

Wow, recovering from Azul’s wedding was interesting, but we got a wholesome Venezulean breakfast (arepas con perico), at my girlfriend, Barbie’s house and we were back up on track.

Today we dedicated our time to planning the next month of work (a lot to do, not a lot of time) and to making the battery cables. At least most of them.

Here is the diagram of how they are going to be connected together. We measured the lengths of the runs we needed to make, at least for the ones we know the distances. We do not know the lengths of neither the cables that go under the car, from the rear battery box to the control box in the front and back nor the ones that go from the front batteries to the control box.

We got together at Danny’s house and got working. Making battery cables is easy, if you have the right tools and materials. We had:

- 2/0 welding cables (donated by Chuck at Dockside Power)
- Lugs (a.k.a. battery terminals) (donated by 3M, through our friend Jimmy Rodriguez at Fox Rowden)
- Black heat shrink (also by 3M)
- Red heat shrink (donated by Bill Naranjo, from Thomas and Betts)
- A good knife to strip the insulation
- Hand held, battery powered, hydraulic crimper, the Gator (on loan from Greenlee tools)
- A heat gun

With the help of Barbie we cut all the cables to the right length. We stripped the insulation to fit the lugs (length of the barrel + 1/2″) and put the lugs on the copper wire. Crimping the lugs (squeezing them on the cable) was very easy because we had the best tool for it. The Greenlee Gator crimper makes crimping those lugs on the cables a breeze. It is battery powered and hydraulic, so you just press the button and off it goes. Just don’t get your fingers (or any body part you mind loosing) caught in it. One day we’ll buy one of these, in the meantime, borrowing this one from Frank Manfredonia, from Greenlee, will do. Thanks, Frank!. After crimping, we just slid the heat shrink on the terminals and heated them with the heat gun. Done! we put red heat shrink one one end and black on the other to guide us through the battery connections.

We made the 7 wires that inter-connect the rear batteries and the 3 for the front ones. We’ll make the rest once we have the control box in.

Finally, we made a list of things left to do in the car…. wanna see it? click here

Well, we got our vacuum pump online from EV Source. The kit came with “everything we needed”, supposedly, except all fasteners and brackets, which they forgot to ship (but now it’s on its way).

We are not very happy with this pump, because it is loud, mainly made of plastic, and whoever designed its mounting bracket did a lousy job. For you to be able to put a screw through one of the mounting holes, you need to take the pump apart, risking breaking many of its flimsy plastic parts. Good news! EV Source found a better pump that they will be distributing in the next 2 weeks. This sounds great, we are looking forward to using them in the future, but for now, in the efforts of moving forward, we made this one work.

I got to Nico’s early, for a change, and started trying to figure out where to mount the vacuum tank. the other day we found a really nice spot behind the driver side headlamp, in front of the wiper fluid reservoir. We thought of making a bracket for it, but didn’t find the time, so I drilled a hole on the sheet metal and bolted it right there. It looks really nice and tight. That took about an hour in itself…

Now for the real challenge, where to mount the vacuum pump. After looking around a lot, we decided to lift the car and mount it in one of the front battery rack supports. It was a mission to drill holes there because our drill wouldn’t fit. After some creativity from Nico’s side, we tapped the holes with some self-tapping screws and the air wrench and finished them off with the drill on a very funky angle.

By 3 pm we had the pump mounted and the hole between the pump and the tank installed. What a mission, but it’s done.

We ran off right after to Azul’s wedding! Congratulations, Azul!!!

Ok, we are back from a bit of a blank moment in time there. It took us forever to finish the racks and the motor mounts. All that custom work was tedious but it got done. We only had a couple of holes to drill and to spray paint them black.

We towed the car back to Nico’s and had him put in the new suspension we got from Coil Springs Specialties. All we can say is “we hope it comes down once we add the weight of the batteries”. Take a look for yourself.

Maybe we needed to add the weight of the batteries, as that is what the springs are designed for.

We received our 12 Trojan T-1275 batteries last Tuesday from our new friends in Carolina Energy Distributors, in South Carolina (thanks Don Quinn!). We did not get these locally, because the local Trojan distributor was not willing to honor the discount that Trojan headquarters had agreed to give the project. Not nice. As soon as we got the batteries, we put them in the car in our finally completed racks.

Checked suspension clearance again. Still too high. About 4 inches too high. So we loaded the car with mechanics. Now we have the 1008lbs of batteries plus the 60 lbs of racks and cables and the 140 lbs of motor in, PLUS about 750 lbs og guys in it. Still too high, right? especially in the front.

So we called the specialists to ask them how come these “specially designed coils” ended up seating so up high. They asked if we had “rolled the car yet”, because this would set the springs and lower it. We hadn’t, so we did. This time we put 2 batteries in the car and rolled it. They did set some, but we still have a good 3.5 inches to go to reach our design height. We called them and are waiting to see if we can cut the springs and get a partial refund, instead of having to wait more time and energy in shipping these springs back to Kansas. Let’s see what they say. We want to get this done today if possible.

In the meantime, with the help of Luis Valenzuela from GreenArtUSA and Barbara Alfonzo, from Bebecito Organic, we selected the fabrics we will be using for the interior. The colors are Orange and Herb Garden (light green). The orange will also cover the door panel inserts, so we checked for contrast with the inside of my car, which is black, like the Golf’s.

These will be donated by Valley Forge, one of the official sponsors of Green Art Fair Miami 2008. We are looking forward to seeing the car done nice with this cool recycled polyester with recycled plastic bottles backing fabric. What a cool green concept.

Last Saturday, we finished painting the racks, the motor mount and some of the welds inside the engine bay. Also, we reinstalled the front batteries, it all looks really nice in the engine compartment now.

Azul, is working on our top battery supports for the front battery racks to strap them down. He agreed yesterday to help us put together the installation at Green Art Fair and to let us use some of his super-cool furniture in our booth, from his company Blue Chains.