One more reason why not to use gas.

You may be thinking "Is it hard to do precision/accurate cutting with an angle grinder????" well yes it is actually difficult but I managed to do it with out screwing it up. I went to an E.V. meeting on Sunday and got to ride an electric motorcycle and it was awesome!!!! so now I am even more excited to finish it. He had also cut out the tank for room and I found another guy building an electric ( http://elgixxer.blogspot.com/ he is doing a GSX-R too like me so if you like mine you should definitely check out his) so I guess it is quite common so I started to cut away.

I ended up doing it in a few pieces to get it out leaving enough around the edges so there would still be something for it to rest rest on when it is sitting on the frame.
TTTAAAAAAA-DDDDAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!! and here is the reason why we all should not be using gas! see how dirty the tank is on the inside? That does not happen with a zero emission vehicle like a totally awesome electric motorcycle!
I made a swipe with a rag so you can see what the tank is supposed to look like and what it does look like after years of use.
I cleaned up the inside a little bit so I could paint it, no one is going to see it so I was not too worried about getting it prefect just clean enough so the paint will stick to it.
I decided to go with black but as soon as I finished I regretted it. I am not sure if it will make much of a difference but I am concerned about heat and black might make it hotter then say white. If you have any experience with this or know if it actually will make any substantial difference let me know.
The best part is with this whole in the tank I am about 98% positive that I am going to be able to get 6 batteries on the bike to get the 72V I want. I only had 5 boxes made up and I left space for the 6th. I'll take some pictures when I get another box made up.

Oh thank heavens for the machine shop!

So I ran into a snag with the project, as I as taking off the rear wheel so I could change out the sprocket I figured I would take off the rotor as wheel to clean it up since it is pretty rusty. Well the previous owner decided it would be a great idea to put gobs and gobs and then even a little gob more of loc-tite on all the bolts. So by the time I had figured that out I broke one of the bolts off so now I had 1 broken bolt and 4 more that were stuck.

Luckily there is a machine shop where I work and they were willing to help me out so I brought it in and got some help. At first the problem only began to get worse because even they were having a hard time with it. What I ended up doing was to heat up the other four bolts real hot and loosen up the loc-tite and luckily I was able to get them out with out breaking them, but they definitely need to be replaced now.

Now for the fun part getting out the broken one. We drilled it out and tried to use an easy out which is basically a left-handed thread drill bit so as you turn it into the bolt it threads itself while unthreading the bolt. Well that did not go to well as the easy out tool broke off inside as well. That bolt is practically welded in there. This created another problem because it can't be redrilled because of how hard it is.

I ended up drilling a small hole in the other side of the rim and slipped a punch down in there and was able to get the easy-out out of there.

So back to the machine shop for more drilling, after few different sizes of bits and a tap we got it out of there cleanly so now everything is fine. This is what was left of the bolt I thought it was pretty cool how thin it was just goes to show how good the guys in the machine shop are! Thanks again!

It's finally here!

This is not what I was planning on writing about but it is the best part so I will get it out of the way first. My motor arrived the other day and I couldn't be happier(well almost is has presented some interesting predicaments because of the size) I got it at a great price I saved about $100 cause I went in on a group buy with a few other people so they gave us a deal since we bought 5 of them.

It is an Etek-RT motor it should work out pretty well but it is a bit longer than the one used in the design plans that I am using for reference. It is longer because it has more torque and power I went that path because I want to go fast!

I got the rest of the mounts off it took a while but its done it may need a little touch up still to make it pretty but right now it looks pretty good I think this will do in order to keep moving forward.

Everything is nice and flush to the frame now which should give me that extra space that I need for batteries.

As you can see my mock up battery fits up much snugger now that the mounts are gone. I am still debating on whether to cut off the bottom of the gas tank to fit more batteries the next thing I am going to work on is getting a mount for the motor I would like to mount it on the swing arm so hopefully that works out I would hate to loose out on the battery space if I had to mount it underneath.

The next step I think is to design the motor mount and try to get that mounted. Hopefully I can mount the motor on the swing arm so I do not have to take away from the battery space underneath. I might run into the problem of the motor sticking out too far since it is a few inches longer and it also ways 40 lbs so it might throw the bike off balance.

My first power tool!

So I must be turning into a real man finally I got my first power tool! I picked myself up a nice little grinder from Home Depot, I even got a deal on it because I wanted the cheaper on but the guy could not find any so he gave me the more expensive one for the price of the cheaper one. There are a whole bunch of engine mounts and flanges that take up those precious few inches of space that I need for batteries so like old girlfriends the must go!

As you can see they are not very big but when you have 6 big batteries to cram in there every little nook and cranny is precious.

The box is just a mock up for the actual size of the batteries that I want to use so I can try various ways way to maximize the space.
I started on these mounts first and it took me a while just to get one of them off so I may need to get a different wheel for the grinder that will make it easier/faster

As you can see it's nice and flat but I still have quite a few more to get off so I'll be busy with my new toy.

Lost the weight!

So the heap of metal is finally gone!  Thanks to the Cal-boys for coming to help me lift it out on their lunch today you guys are awesome!  now that I have it stripped down I just need to clean it up all nice to get rid of all the oil and everything else that is on there.  There are a few wires that I am not sure where they go to but it should not be a problem I kept track of the few that I am concerned with like the lights, horn, gauges, and the fan.  I got lucky and the 1994 GSX-R was the first year to have a water cooled engine so I am going to try and keep the fan to help cool off the controller and other electrical parts that get hot.

Now that the engine is out I just need someone to buy it, I had someone call about it earlier this week and said they wanted to come by and see it today  but I never heard from them again.  Oh well hope somebody wants it if you know of someone or are interested let me know!

Say goodbye to gas forever!

So it didn't take me long at all to start tearing things apart.  The first thing to go is what so many of you depend on and hopefully in the near future I will not need again!.

The gas was pretty bad the inside of the tank is totally rusted but not a big deal the tank will just be for looks from now on and not function.
Elecxs-r keeps getting more naked day by day and its time to loose some serious weight.
Exhaust gone!
Radiator gone!
Last night I was up working on it till 11:00 P.M. or later but I had to call it an early night tonight around 9:00 P.M.  I about got the engine out but lifting a 200 lb motor while balancing the bike at the same time was a bit to daunting of a task to do alone so I will have to enlist some help from others tomorrow so look out I'm coming for ya cause I'm ready to keep shedding those pounds!