Motor...

After working for what seems like forever, I was finally able to acquire a motor. It arrived on August 24th.

Originally, I was planning to purchase a used Advanced D.C. 9" (FBI-4001) motor, but these cost easily over $1,000. New, they go for about $1,700. If I bought one, I wouldn't be able to buy anything else I needed. So I kept looking. Eventually, I came across a Kostov 72v 9" motor on eBay. I did a little research, and I discovered that Kostov also made a 144v version of the motor, which would be perfect for my project. I emailed the seller and asked if he had any 144v motors available. Luckily, he still had one 144v motor remaining, which he sold me. These motors retail for significantly less than the Advanced D.C. motors, leaving a little room in my bank account for the adaptor plate (the part that attaches the motor to the transmission). I'm pretty happy with my purchase.

Next: ICE Component Removal, Part 1 of 1,000,000 (or so it seems).

Before Conversion...

To start off, here's a picture of my truck before conversion to electric power. It's a 1988 Mazda B2200. It's somewhat rusty, but not too bad. It's got a lot of miles on it, so the engine smokes pretty badly (especially on startup), but the rest of the truck seems to be in good mechanical shape. This is pretty much ideal for a conversion.

The idea is to convert the truck to 100% electric power, as a zero emissions vehicle (ZEV). This will be done by removing the dirty internal combustion engine (ICE) components and installing an electric motor, batteries, etc. in their places.

The truck should be able to cover most, if not all, of my daily traveling needs. I'm expecting to end up with a range of no less than 25 miles, probably at least 35. This is will be plenty for me. I'll be able to recharge it at night, when I'll rarely have to drive it, and it'll be ready to go in the morning.

So that's the plan. At this point, I've acquired a motor for the project and I've removed the engine and transmission. I'll cover this in future posts, when I have the time. Watch this space for more info!