75 Super elecric vehicle (ev) build

[Hondapop]

The picture below is the day I brought home my first vw bug (I hope there actually is a picture above as I have not tried posting pictures yet).

This is a build thread I am starting to show the progress on building an all electric 75 Super. I hope to keep motivated to show progress here on TheSamba.

The garage I have is rather small which is one reason I chose a small car like the bug.

First a little background information on who what and why?

I'm a 55 year old engineer in the solid waste management buisness and have been "playing' with cars since I was 14. Most of my experience is with making cars go faster. My last car was a few years ago and was a honda civic hatchback (hense my sign-in name). I decided about a year ago to do an all electric vehicle and started looking for good candidates. I slowly worked tward a vw bug since it is light and really nice looking. I actually like the older models better than the super's but I didn't want to take a good candidate for restoration out of someone elses hands (no offense to Supers, just they are newer and there seem to be several in my area). I also bought a super because it has a better suspension for the extra weight I will be adding.

[Hondapop]

Oh...I really don't know much about bugs other than what I have learned so far with the super, so please excuse any ignorance to some of the basic things most of you have already learned.


The car was running when I bought it, but not well. It also came with a spare engine with reported low mileage.

The outside of the car was in good shape with very little rust showing.

[Hondapop]

I started the project by buying all the vw manuals I could and registering with The Samba. Part of the reason I am posting the work here is because I have typically just hit up forums like this for a quick asnwer and never really gave much back. I know this is an unusual project for this site, but much of the project is a restoration. The actual electrial conversion, while costly, really won't be as involved as restoring the bug (at least that is how I see it today....we will see)

The pictures below are to show the general condition of the car on the "inside".









[/img]

[Hondapop]

I ended up researching the removal of the pan from the body and found a few that have done this by themselves. I lined everything up and spend an hour scrathing my head on why the pan wouldn't separate. I finally found any area on the left side where the po welded the pan to the body.

The heater channel and floor pan on the left side was reeplaced by the previous owner. They did a good job with the work, other than welding the body to the pan.

[Hondapop]

I am still amazed at how much rust you can find once you start removing everything

[Hondapop]

I found a local group of vw guys that have several projects they are working on. They have a lot of vw experience and were great to talk with. I ended up giving both engines to them so the parts will be used. The spare engine was installed in another vw and apparently runs great.

I originally thought I could just replace the front quarter of the drivers pan be once I got everything apart it seemed better to just replace the whole pan. I also spend an afternoon removing the large rusty areas with a grinder with a wire brush.

I found a few small areas of the frame that had rust holes and needed to be repaired. The frame rust holes matched the areas of rust I found on the body (makes some sense). Please excuse any close up looks at my welding as I just purchased the mig welder. I can gas weld some but this is my first try at mig welding.

[Hondapop]

I was very lucky to find the local vw guys. They loned me their industial air compressor and rotisserie to allow me to sand blast the frame. WOW ...is it nice to have this equipment. It took most of one day to sandblast the pan and all the other pieces I brought but it was worth it. The pan was epoxy primed and chassis coated. I aslo put a layer of Eastwoods seam sealer on the joints and the repair areas.

[Hondapop]

I decided to go with a gloss black paint on many of the components and a gray for the transmission and axles.

I ended up replacing most of the bolt on stuff. I kept the drum back brakes but added a disc conversion up front. I thought the extra weight I was added would need the extra stopping power of front discs. The front suspension is mainly from Topline and everything is set to be about 1.5 inches lower than stock (we will see once everything is loaded?)

[Q-Dog]

Out of curiosity, why have youmoved the driver side seat mount back. Looks like about 5 inches back.
_________________
Brian

'69 Dune Buggy
'69 Beetle Convertible
'70 Beetle

[Hondapop]

[Hondapop]

I made some progress on starting the rust repair of the body over the last few weeks. I started with the front of the vehicle and used a grinder with a knotted wire wheel brush to remove all the paint (and hopefully all the rust too). The corners were the tough locations so I used a drill with a small wire brush attachment which worked ok. Some the areas were only accessed by hand and a small brush. Most of the front end was in good shape except for the area that contacts the pan at the very front on the passagers side (bottom of the arch). Sorry, I don't know the panel names...

I purchased some repair panel steel in 16 gauge and 20 gauge for the different areas. I don't have a metal break so I bought a cheep harber frieght shearer which ended up working great. I used cardboard as a template which was perfect. I little time with the cardboard saved a lot of trim time. With everything ground down, I tacked the repairs in place and then completed the welds. All the welding was covered with Eastwood seem sealer before a final coat of paint. The trunk area was in good shape with surface rust and a few holes. I tried Por 15 in this area for the first time. It seemed to work well (we will see). I plan to prime and topcoat with paint shortly

[Hondapop]

The area at the back wheel wells had some previous repair work performed by the previous owner. Most of the work looked pretty good. Some of the repairs were made by brazing instead of welding. I'm not sure but brazing may be a lost art.

[zombiebug]

Great work! Keep it up and keep us posted! Vws are the original blank canvas you can do just about anything to them. If it makes you happy then good on you. Keep us posted on the great work.
_________________
'74 Super

[jwold]

Along the lines of electric vw bugs...

http://www.thegreensceneev.com/-75-VW-Beetle-Electric-Conversion.html

[baxsie]

Very nice find on the base car. I can't wait to see the electrics

[Hondapop]

[baxsie]

[Hondapop]

[thechief86]

nice find! and great color! I like the gas powerplant, but i've actually done an ev conversion on a toyota tercel, and a nissan frontier for a program at the college i went to. i have been more impressed by alternative fuels in internal combustion engines, such as veggie oil, E10, cng, propane, and hydrogen as far as performance and range go, but electric is a neat way to go, and has potential for great performance as long as weight can be kept down, and good batteries can be sourced.
good luck, and keep us updated!
you probably already know this, but with an electric motor, you can hook directly to the transmission input without a clutch, as the motor stops spinning when the throttle is off. It is very easy to just drive without a clutch as if the normal 4 speed is an autostick, and synchronization happens very easily.
gearing through the transmission can help with more than just ease of mounting and force direction change. it also multiplies torque so a much weaker/smaller motor can be used with better takeoff and more usable power throughout each range. from there, top speed has potential to be endless if the right motor is used and the power is there.
_________________
"A poor workman always blames his parts... Ya gotta have skillz to hang junk." -johnnypan

[Hondapop]