Vanagon 100% electric with Chevy Bolt drivetrain

[yabert]

[elizer]

Really creative and ingenious. I cant imagine the instant torque you must get. Last year when I drove through Quebec I was really surprised how many charging stations there were at gas stations. Way more than I see over here. Here they are usually at shopping malls, office buildings, and strip malls. Sheetz is installing charging stations at all their gas stations but they are regional here.

[yabert]

Here some news of the Vanabolt.
It passed over the winter with brio. Not stuck a single time in the snow, the electric heater do his job well to defog the windows and the powertrain work well in cold weather.
We enjoy to drive this van the last few months and it will be simply better for the next warmer months as the range will be greater.

Some change I did:
I add extra plastic on my front plastic mudguards. There are only few inchs from ground now and this block almost all splash from the wheels.
It's a necessity, because before the change it had up to 6'' of snow/salt/dirty stuff packed under the frame coming from front wheels projection.
You can clearly see that the black paint on the traction battery support didn't protect well after only few months. This years, f**k paint, but application of rust proofing product. This solution seem way more effective to protect steel parts under the body.

Also, we have now a 2'' trailer hitch in the rear of the van. It will be perfect for towing my small sail boat, bikes, and many other things.
It build from a single Hitch Receiver Tube and three laser cut plates. All material cust me 50$.
I really like the fit and the fact that this assembly weight less than 15 lbs.

[yabert]

First paint removal test on the Vanabolt.
The red coating (spray can) and army green coating (spray can) can be remove in few second with wire brush wheel.
The white coating and the OEM Assuan Brown coating+primer are a bit tougher to remove.
Anyway, I think we don't have choice to remove all the 5 coatings of paint to do a good new paint job.
We choosed our color, it will be blue. Still we hesitate a bit between dark blue, light blue, blue-green

[Jake de Villiers]

[jimf909]

Looking forward to more. Blue-green is intriguing. Sky blue/cream two tone of the earlier Vanagons also is pretty.


Lots of good photos of different colored vanagons on oldbluesblog (kamz place)...

http://oldbluesblog.com/files/Paint%20Colors_and_Examples.pdf

http://oldbluesblog.com/index.html
_________________
- Jim

[RoryGirl]

Needs to be some sort of electric blue...no?
_________________
1991 Double door pop top conversion

[Merian]

Turquoise

Dove Blue as a 2nd choice
_________________
....

[panel]

[Jake de Villiers]

[VicVan]

Wow! How did I only notice this thread now! Sorry I missed it the first time, I would have loved to host you on Vancouver Island.
Une prochaine fois, peut-être...

Whereabouts in Québec are you?

Anyway, great job. It's amazing. Reading the thread, I share the opinion that the debates on EV vs. gasoline distracts from the technical performance, but on the other hand Yabert is a pioneer and his project an eye-opener for many of us. In addition to the technical achievement of fusing two radically different vehicles together, he makes us question the status quo. Chapeau !

And I'll keep this one in the back of my mind:

[Abscate]

Current brown.

Coming soon, 10 cent per mile Road use tax for electric cars
_________________
.ssS!

[alexbeatle]

Bravo on the project!

Were you able to figure out the CCS charging?

[Royb]

I missed this the first time around too! Really innovative and impressive! Please keep posting as you troubleshoot and improve.
_________________
1991 Westy

[yabert]

What is the tips to seal the panels joints (gap) on a Vanagon? (pic 2)
Is someone have suggestion to prepare those zones before paint or I simply put primer and that it?

The big job is started. Below the van after two entire days of wires wheel grinding and paint remover.
It's not easy to remove 40 years of paints. There is the red, over the green hunter, over the white, over the original brown, over a white primer and over a grey primer.
There is few holes to repair, so I weld some 18Ga steel part at some place. At other places I will simply repair with potty. After all, it's a quick 200$ paint job, not the real job.
The van is our only family car, so we don't have the time to be separate from it too long
.

_________________
My 360 volts Vanabolt: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...highlight=

[dobryan]

Here is some good seam reading.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/search.php?searc...=titleonly
_________________
Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2002 Subaru EJ25 and Peloquin TBD

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." Robert Louis Stevenson

MD>Canada>AK>WA>OR>CA>AZ>UT>WY>SD
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620646

Building a bus for travel in Europe (euroBus)
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=695371

The Western Syncro build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=746794

[charleslabri]

i recently did the seams across my whole van.
I prepped them by taking out ALL of anything there with a dremmel wire wheel (i bought a pack of 20 and i used em all).

then laid down primer over the seams (used a urethane to water seal), then put down seam sealer (use painters tape on either side of the seam so it doesnt get everywhere and you get a clean line when you pull the tape off), and then did another coat of sealant primer over the top of the seams when the stuff dried..
then did base and clear coat.

i didnt want that shiz rotting

[yabert]

Exactly what I'm looking for.
Thanks guys.
_________________
My 360 volts Vanabolt: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...highlight=

[Abscate]

Tell everyone here you are taking the windows out to paint, even if you aren’t.

Thank me later

Good luck with that project!
_________________
.ssS!

[charleslabri]

oh, and dont forget to squish the seam sealer in with your finger so it gets nice and in there.

When i was painting my doors i found seams on all the doors that i re-sealed as well. Dont forget those