2: Monday 23rd July 2012

Today ZEN (Zero Emission Nihilator) arrived at my house. I had just been told what needs doing in the garden over the summer, so now I had something to do in my spare time as well (sarcasm)! The term nihilator is a derivation of nihilation that means to reduce to nothing. So ZEN is to reduce emissions to nothing along with oil changes and other fluid maintenance, road tax, gear changes, clutch and flywheel, and a whole bunch of stuff becomes nothing. The nihilator being the device that causes the nihilation (not some role-play figurine). My first great challenge is complete, as my wife spotted that it had the small quarter window missing from the rear side door and she said there is a window missing from "my car". That put a smile on my face. I also need to get the keys (not that anybody would take it as it has no engine etc.

So few minor jobs to do before starting the conversion. Really looking forward to this and I shall be posting many videos and photos in the coming days weeks and months (years also, but not too long I hope).

With this project comes a philosophy of low cost. What is also coincidence is that license plate is J224CEV (Cheap Electric Vehicle). I plan on spending the smallest amount of money to make this a working electric car.

My budget of £1000 includes:
Car (glider) = £0 (just cost my time and effort so far in exchange for the car), see previous post.
Motor = £120 (This is currently in Wolverhampton with a friend waiting for me to pay and collect)
Controller = £500 approx (re-volt 1000A cougar controller kit)
Batteries = £0 (I have spares).
Adaptors = £0 (home made, eventually)
Steel for frames etc. = £0 (helped a friend replace his head gasket in exchange for steel angle section)
Manual Gearbox = £250 from local breakers yard, I shall try to improve on this.

When I have replaced the autotrans with manual I shall have the auto box to sell or weigh-in for scrap.

I shall mount a rear pulley to drive the power steering pump, alternator and AC pump and maybe a vacuum pump for the brakes too.

I believe the £1000 budget is realistic, we shall see. I shall tot it up when I get the road tax disc. Once it is road legal then it is initially finished. There will be many upgrades for the future.

1: Friday 20th April 2012

First post of my latest EV conversion project. Tomorrow I shall be helping my friend Darren get his Mitsubishi Pajero running. Over the last 4 weeks we have taken the engine from one Pajero and put it in another. Lets rewind a few steps and pick up from the start. My daughter has a friend who lives 10 miles away and she is the sister of one of the girls in her football team. As they are both 16, they can't drive and they are both getting lifts from parents (Darren and Myself). When I dropped of my Daughter (Sydney-Ann, aka Syd) one time I noticed 2 Mitsubishi Pajeros looking sorry for themselves on the drive way. The next Time I saw Darren on Syd's return, I asked him what he was doing with them. Initially he was not sure, but he told me at the next football match that his wife wanted to keep one, but he needed to swap the engines over as the other was for spares. I struck a deal with him that if between us we could get the engine swapped over, I would get the other car for time and labour (that's free to me!). We have spent some time now doing the swap of the engines and there is a bit more to do tomorrow and hopefully we should then have it running. I also need to get a manual gearbox as it is automatic at the moment. I looked into locking the gearbox into 2nd gear, but while it is possible, it would require a lot of work and be very difficult, and also it would cost me a lot of money so a manual gearbox will be better. I shall put some pics up soon.