Housecleaning... · 18 September 05

The removal of Eve’s engine is awaiting a trip to the store to replace a broken socket, get a 1/2” extension, and to buy a longer 17mm socket to remove the engine mount bolts.

In the meantime I’ve been doing a little housework on the website, cleaning a few things up and making a new section just for Eve.

On the right side you’ll see a new link for Current EV Project. This takes you to a new section of the site dedicated to nothing but Eve’s conversion entries. It has all of the entries organized from the start to present without any of my non-related ramblings and posts (like this one!). You can also click on Eve’s picture in the upper right.

I also added a feature to the pages in how comments are shown on article pages (not this main page). The problem was that the PREV/NEXT links for the articles was way down at the bottom and not all that obvious. So I cleaned them up a bit and in the process hid the comments.

The comments are still there, but are now toggle in and out of visibility using a little bit of web magic found here. Let me know if you have any problems getting to them, I haven’t had the chance to test it on all browsers yet.

Finally, a slightly more pressing matter has been taking time away from the EV: our fridge was dying. It’s only a few years old and some of the parts are still covered under warranty. But who wants to pay someone to come out to tell you that this isn’t the part? I decided to figure out what was wrong first and then call for warranty repair if covered.

The freezer section was working fine but the fridge was sitting at a balmy 64°. Turns out there’s a little vent of sorts that let’s cold air from the freezer into the fridge. The main fridge compartment temperature is regulated by a little electric motor (see, this does apply to an EV web site!) that opened a venetian blind of sorts, letting in or blocking airflow. It was permanently closed.

I cracked it open and have discovered the culprit: a cheesy little piece of plastic had broken. Someone on the Kenmore engineering team should be embarrassed about designing such a weak link.

Maybe I’ll post an article about it over at my other site, The How Zone, when I’m done fixing it.

The Knuckle Gods Are Pleased · 16 September 05

Remember when I mentioned how much fun it is to tear things apart?

I’m an idiot.

Well, actually, I have smoothing algorithm in my brain that takes the hard edges off of bad memories, casting them in a rosy, warm glow of fond nostalgia. I realized this last night when I looked down to see bright red blood oozing from otherwise oily black hands. Oh, right, this…

Still, it’s kinda fun.

Let’s cover what happened on day two of deconstruction…

Continue reading »»

Day One: Toxic Avenger · 15 September 05

In the middle of working on Eve last night, with oil sluggishly draining into a container under the car, another vat glowing sickly green below the radiator, and gas fumes wafting through the air, I started to think (or hallucinate) that maybe Eve should have an alter ego:

Toxic Avenger!

Day one went pretty well, although messy. Let’s see what damage I have done…

Continue reading »»

Eve of Deconstruction · 14 September 05

I’ve always loved taking things apart. Putting things back together…well, if you insist.

But the real fun is in the disassembly. There’s nothing quite like cracking something open for the first time and discovering how it works, finding the clever engineering (or not-so clever), and marveling at all of the forces that must have gone into designing, manufacturing, assembling and bringing it together into one unit.

Which is why tonight should be a blast. Tonight I pop off Eve’s hood, drain the oil and anti-freeze, siphon off the gas and start the meticulous task of removing everything that isn’t needed in an EV.

Continue reading »»