Electric Motor

The motor I'm using is an Advanced DC FB1-4001A motor, 72-144VDC, 19HP, 9.1" Dia., double shaft that I purchased from EV Parts. This motor is specifically designed for large electric vehicles for which my truck surely qualifies. This picture shows the motor being "run in" on my bench. The motor manufacture recommends that you run the motor for a couple of hours on 12v to set the brushes. The brushes are square pieces of carbon that conduct the power to commutor bars. When you run the motor the brushes wear down to a curved shape so they have more surface area on the commutor and can conductor more current. This is called setting the brushes.

The aluminum piece on the end of the motor is the adapter plate that bolts the motor to my truck's transmission. This plate is specifically designed for my 1990 Toyota truck transmission by a company called EVCC. I got mine through EV Parts again although they don't seem to list currently the adapter for my truck. If you're doing a conversion make sure you get the adapter for your specific vehicle since they are all different. You can also see the motor clamp mount around the motor that will be used to mount the motor to the truck frame.

When I started this project I was most concerned with the mechanical aspects of removing the gas engine and mounting the electric motor. I am an electrical engineer and I figured I could do the wiring/electrical part of the project but I'm not very experienced with cars so I wasn't sure about doing the mechanical work. It actually turned out not to be that hard but I also had expert help from my friend Fred Kludy who is excellent with all things mechanical.

The photo shows Fred hoisting the electric motor mated to the Toyota transmission, ready to be installed into the truck. Unfortunately I don't have photos of the steps in between, mounting the flywheel to the motor and then motor/adaptor/flywheel to the transmission. I would recommend getting some help from someone who has experience with transmission. It takes some of the worry out of whether you put it back together correctly. Also the directions that I received from EVCC with the adapter kit are pretty thorough.

In this photo you can see engine and mated transmission lowered back into the truck. Again I was very worried about fabricating mounting hardware for the electric motor in the truck but it turned out to be fairly easy. In this picture you can see the rectangular metal plate on the bottom of the motor clamp. It lines up with a support beam that runs across the bottom of the engine compartment. I had a local machine shop frabricate a steel plate the same size as the plate on the bottom of the motor clamp with the same holes in the corners. I hired a welder to weld the plate on to the beam. Then I bolted the clamp to the welded plate with four rubber isolators from McMaster-Carr. I also added an anti-torsion bar that isn't installed in this picture to keep the motor from twisting in the clamp.

This mounting system seems to be working pretty well after 3000 miles. The rubber isolators seem to keep the motor pretty quiet. The clutch and gears work normally although I don't use them that much. I usually just leave it in 2nd gear all the way from stopping to 50mph. And of course you don't have to use the clutch when you stop with an electric motor, it just stops along with the truck. The one change I need to make is the mounting of the anti-torsion bar. I bolted the anti-torsion bar from the motor adapter plate to convient piece of metal on the frame which used to be bracket for the muffler. Unfortunately, the bracket is not very stiff and I can feel the gearshift move in my hands when I accellerate which means the whole motor and tranmission is rotating slightly from the torque. I think if I stiffen up that bracket by welding a gusset it should cut down on the rotating of the motor/transmission.