In February the youngsters register of the Volvo Classic Club dropped by to hear more about my project. Not only did I do a test drive of the presentation with my kids, I also cleaned up the garage so everybody could sit down.
It was a nice meeting by the way with interesting conversations and a nice pizza from our wood fired oven afterwards. A nice spin off was that suddenly there was enough room in the garage to turn the car around.
So I took the frame fabricated last summer.
I had to remove a bit more of the old spare wheel area but after that it fitted perfectly. Aligned the height according to my design and test fitted a Tesla battery module.
Worked out very well so I attached the frame to the chassis beams of the car.
I welded tubes in the beam to prevent it from being squeezed while tightening the bolts.
It exactly fits near the top up to the millimeter!
As per the design.
Next I installed the outer box and mounted the tow bar. That also exactly fits.
And as per the design as well having the exact amount of spacing between the tow bar and the battery box.
The spare wheel area was a bit tapered do I installed new corners (old ones were rusty anyway) to match the width of the outer battery box.
The front edge of the spare wheel area was curved to accommodate the fuel tank.
Now it is straight and exactly aligns with the outer battery box.
I did not attached the flanges to mount the outer battery box in the design of the box. The cassis beam was not fully flat due to the new bumper mount supports. I had just designed the flanges and had them lasercut and bend.
Now I could install these at the correct height underneath the car.
So I drilled holes into the flange and added rivet nuts in the chassis beam.
I did the same for the front flange. Furthermore I welded in bolts to install the tow bar easily with the battery box in place.
Cable glands
I did not think of every detail while finalising the design so I had to add some holes both in the mounting flange and the box itself.
At the right hand side I had forgotten to add the outgoing gland for the high voltage cable and 220V input for the right hand charger.
I did design the incoming hole and the charger cable and 220V AC cable did indeed exactly fit into the orange corrugated tube and in the gland.
After stitch welding all mounts I could take off the outer battery box.
And TIG welded the whole thing. Despite the fact that it is stainless steel I did do an attempt myself.
Wasn’t very easy and despite the low current it warped quite a lot. So I clamped a steel beam onto it to hold it in place.
While welding the front mount I also used a beam to fasten the whole thing and prevent warping.
That did work out fine for the mounting flange itself. However the edge sticking down warped quite a lot 🙁
So I could no longer install the outer box. That edge need to slide in between the new spare wheel area edge and the frame.
After some advice from Mischa I took my friend Eckold the shrinker and shrinked the warped edge.
It improved a lot.
The outer box fits again and is ready to be bolted on.
Only need to do some minor tweaks to get it fully sealed.
