SirFireWolfe

Quick update on the car, I've gotten one of the old shocks out, only to find that the top hats which match up with the car will not fit the GR-2s I was planning on installing without drilling out the strut hole. For some reason they have a "D" shaped hole for the piston to mount to, whereas the strut has a round shaft. Everything to do with this project is taking about 4x as long as I had planned for it, but thankfully I've got all the pre-built parts for the car and all that remains is the custom stuff like the motor couple and battery box. While I was working on the car, I pulled out the old seats... Previous owner had seat covers on them and I can see why. Thankfully I found some much nicer ones out of an '89 hatch and they'll go in once I've got the battery box situated where the backseat used to be.

INTERLUDE: Doing the Shocks! While I gather up the funds for the last couple parts I need to start putting everything in the car: new shocks! Well, not new new, at least in the front, but certainly better than the popped ones that are in the car right now. I had the good fortune of grabbing some spare parts with Gladys when I bought her, including 2 sets of front coilovers, and since a pair of brand new rear shocks can be had for $50 off Amazon, I'm replacing all four once the rears arrive on Friday. In the meantime, I've grabbed the front ones from my parts stash. Funnily enough, the pair I grabbed are KYB GR-2s, which means that with the Excel-Gs going in the rear, all four corners are gonna be on KYB struts. I dunno I just think that's neat. Here's the new(er) front shocks loaded up for transport to Gladys in The Imp, my GFC. In other news, I just got back from the junkyard with a couple of parts which'll be very useful if I plan on stopping the car A vacuum pump and reservoir, which I pulled from a Volvo, but it's the same model used in 2014+ Foresters and the Tribeca (which I was originally gonna harvest this one from but someone beat me to the one on that lot) Also on the lot was this weird little thing: A ZAP Xebra, a weird little 3-wheeled electric "car" from the late 2000s, with a top speed of ~40mph and a range of 20-40 miles depending on the model you got Anyways, update over, I'll be back on Friday with a report on how the shock replacement goes!

Hey all, Sorry for the long time without update, but progress is being made! The EA-81 is now out of the car, and I have almost all the parts I need for the conversion either here or on the way, with the exception of the charger and equipment for the brake booster. Next on the agenda is getting the motor coupler welded and mounts fabricated, as well as pulling the exhaust and gas tank. I'm also planning on replacing both front and rear shocks while I've got the car up on jacks. If my memory serves I've got a pair of front struts ready to throw in there somewhere in my parts pile, but that may take a week or two now that I'm taking college classes again. My hope is to at least get this thing moving under its own power by the end of the year, which may or may not be too optimistic given the rather slow pace this project has taken so far...

Well, from what I know the build log for Angus' BRAT conversion is over on the Openinverter forums. I know for sure that you don't need a clutch, since neither of us use one, instead there's a steel coupler which mates onto the output shaft of the motor and uses the spline from the clutch to mate into the transmission, so the major sticking point here would be the strength of the weld holding the clutch spline onto the coupler. As to the end weight, I can't speak to how much that one weighs, but due to the differences between the two builds that feels immaterial. Really the only thing we share between the two builds is the motor, he's using battery modules from a Tesla Model 3 whereas I'm reusing the pack I pulled from the Leaf, and I'm pretty sure he's using different control electronics to send commands to the motor. But from my own research and some guesstimation, I would say that his conversion probably weighs somewhere in the range of 2500-2600lbs, and once it's done mine should be pretty similar, since the car's base weight is slightly lighter but my battery is a bit heavier as well.

You know what? That's probably the way to go, I've got a Harbor Freight just down the road and used hoists are only around $30 cheaper in my local listings right now. I'll aim to get the motors swapped out this week hopefully

Real quick update: the parts have been brought over to the GL, once I have a hoist of my own I'll be able to pull the EA-81 from the car, that'll probably be the next update I post

From the EA-81 FSM As for the location of the adjustment screws, on the Hitachi carb: And the Carter-Weber unit, if you have that one instead:

UPDATE 2: Everything Has Been Pulled From the Leaf Well, that was surprisingly quick and easy, but with just 3 hours of work both the transaxle and the battery pack have been removed from the Leaf. I had to pull both front tires to get at the driveshafts, but after that it was pretty smooth sailing. After disconnecting the harness and the connection to the battery pack, the engine came right off the engine mounts really cleanly. Right now, the whole unit is sitting on a furniture dolly until I can get it up to the GL on Saturday With the motor out, we used the hoist to get the car as high up on the jacks as possible. After then removing the aerodynamic paneling under the car, we then used a couple more dollys on floor jacks to hold up the traction battery while we undid the bolts holding it to the chassis. from there it was easy to lower it to the ground and roll it out When we rolled it out, there was maybe 3-4mm of space between the top of the pack and the bottom of the car, but it didn't catch on anything thankfully. With the pack removed, the easy part was over, mostly due to the thick rubber seal which surrounds the whole of the steel casing which holds the battery together. After copious use of a heat gun, several blades, and a completely ruined outer shell, I was able to get access to all the battery cells inside. PLEASE NOTE that this was extremely unsafe and I would not recommend doing any of this without proper safety equipment and expertise. That being said, the battery has been taken apart and now I've got it stored until I can get it into the other car.

UPDATE: The Leaf Has Arrived! Thanks everyone for taking an interest in the project, things are starting to move along now, the Leaf I ordered just arrived a few minutes ago Hopefully in the next few days I can get the motor, battery pack, and anything else I might need pulled from the car. Yeah, I was looking into past conversions people have done to old Subarus, apparently 15-20 years ago someone put a forklift motor into a 3rd gen wagon for a solar powered car, things have definitely changed now that we have readily available wrecked production EVs to pull parts from sadly no, I was just planning on sending the rolling body to the junkyard after I get what I need from it, though if anyone in the Denver area wants it sans drivetrain for whatever reason, feel free to get in contact with me Yeah, I plan on documenting everything that happens to this car on here as well as maybe a Youtube series on the conversion as well. My goal is to have the car at least moving under its own power in 2 months, which might be a bit ambitious given my lack of knowledge on these things besides intermediate self-taught experience with mechanics and electronics, but I hope to have the car ready for an EV show in August at the latest As far as the adapter plate goes, Angus (the gentleman who runs that site) was kind enough to design this updated version of the adapter plate for me, it uses the bell housing off of the EA81 for proper spacing and mating to the transmission bell housing. Actually that reminds me, if anybody is interested in 2 parts EA-81s (one with blown HG, one seized) and an unknown condition EA-82, I'm planning on selling the parts I have off to anyone interested, ditto the fuel tank, exhaust and any associated parts once I get those pulled from the GL again just contact me with an offer

Hi all, I'd like to introduce you to my current project: This is Gladys, my 1987 GL hatchback. I bought her in August of 2021 and she was a wonderful car to have, until she blew her first engine in late October. Two more engines and a blown HG later, she has been sitting on a friend's property for the past several months awaiting her new engine, or rather, her new motor. See, I plan to replace the gas engine in this car with an electric drivetrain out of a Nissan Leaf. Part of the reason its taken so long to get this project moving has been waiting to find a suitable donor car in my price range (>$3,000 USD) but just a couple of days ago I was fortunate enough to get my hands on this crashed 2015 Leaf from Copart for a grand total of around $2,800 So in this thread I'm planning on documenting the swap and any problems or workarounds I'm encountering as I go along. The basic plan for the build is to take the motor from the leaf and mate it onto the existing 4 speed transmission using an adapter plate made by Angus over at http://bratindustries.net, who performed a similar swap on a 1983 BRAT (a little off topic, but he used the third eye mechanism to hide the fast charging port which I think is really neat). Since it's not strictly necessary with an electric drivetrain I'm forgoing the clutch in favor of a direct connection from the motor to the transmission. I then plan to power it using the battery pack from the leaf, stored in the back since I'm planning on a rear seat delete to preserve space and weight. The whole system will charge from a standard J1772 charging port located where the filler neck used to be. I intend to keep the look of the car as stock as possible inside, going so far as to replace the modified center console with an aftermarket head unit that was in the car with a stock unit I was able to find on eBay along with a factory cassette deck. the accelerator will hook up to the control electronics through the throttle cable and the stock gauge cluster will remain unmodified save for allowing the fuel gauge to read out the battery's state of charge. Should this project all go as planned, the car should have the equivalent of a 107hp motor with 184 lb/ft of torque and about 60 miles of range, give or take some thanks to regenerative braking. Of course if I want more range I might decide to upgrade the battery later on down the line, though I think this should be plenty sufficient for the time being. I plan to use as much from the Leaf as possible, but I'll use third party components to get stuff like the brake booster working on battery power Now, this project is still very much in the early stages even though I'm months in already, but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about the project, as well as taking any suggestions you might have about how to get the conversion done

Okay, update: I've just stopped by the Denver UP&P and picked up shift boots for a Loyale and a pre-facelift Justy, hopefully in the next few weeks I can find time to test them

Oh, great! I wonder, if a Swift's seats are so easy to retrofit, is it possible that the Cultus has a similarly compatible design? There's a whole lot of Geo Metros in junkyards around... Yeah, I do plan on posting my conversation on here, once I start it most likely at the start of next year, I'm eyeing up some totaled Nissan Leafs at my local insurance auctions for donor cars. I've seen some talk on here about EV conversions but almost all of it is over a decade old and the landscape of electric cars has changed drastically in that time. I suppose I could get it reupholstered, but honestly now I'm starting to like the idea of having an accordion boot instead of the vinyl one. I think I'll keep that in mind as a backup in case I can't get a rubber one to work.

Sorry to double post, but I'd like to gather some community knowledge about seat retrofitting for EA81 cars while my mind's on it. From what I've seen, front seats from the following cars can be easily retrofitted to go into a 2nd gen (no welding and minimal drilling out): Mazda Protege/323 (also rebadged as Ford Escort and Mercury Tracer stateside, Ford Laser in Europe), Mazda MX-3, and I believe the Ford Probe as well. If anybody else knows better or has other models they know fit well into an EA81 wagon/ sedan/ hatch/ etc. please add to the list! As for myself I think I'll keep an eye out for mx3 and Probe listings given that they should come forward enough to still access the back seat of my hatch (actually if anyone has any clues as to a good donor for rear seats for a gen 2 hatch that would be another great addition!)

Thanks for the reply Bennie, sadly that's what I figured, I may try to adapt a boot off of a loyale or early impreza/legacy anyway but I guess for now what I have works. On the seats- do BRZ ones work alright in a Leone? To be honest I don't want to break the bank I just want ones which aren't falling apart at the seams. Heated ones would be nice but also once it's electric that's just another drain on the battery, y'know? I figured I'd go with whatever is the easiest to retrofit and sorta matches the interior color

Hi everybody, I'm looking to improve the interior of my EA81 hatch before/as I convert it to electric, I've already got some parts ready to swap out like an uncracked dashboard and some new interior lights, but one main piece I'd like to take a look at is the shift lever (and seats too but I'm keeping my eyes peeled for some Escorts and Probes in the usual places). For the most part it's fine but the (vinyl? pleather? I'm not sure) stock shifter boot is just torn to pieces and I'd like to just outright replace it. I've been eyeing up manual 3rd gens because of their relative plentifulness in my local junkyards, but it looks like their boots are a different design, more like the accordion boots out of early legacys or imprezas. Are they interchangeable into ea81 machines, or would I be better off looking elsewhere?

Huh, interesting. If it was a repair job, it was a damn good one because I for one can't tell the difference. I'm gonna see if I can't get some photos sent to me later today, since it's sitting at a friend's house waiting for the electric conversion I have planned for it...

Sadly I don't have photos and I don't have access to the car at the moment, but it looks stock, as I said it has the rectangular door, or at least it should, it's been removed at one point. So now all I've got is a rectangular void with the filler cap and no door, but it's definitely the shape and size of the gen 3 ones, and there's the lever to open it on the driver's side floor.

Okay, this may sound a little odd, but I'm not sure what's going on with this. I've got a 2nd gen GL hatch (production date may '87) which has given me some questions with its gas cap door, of all things. Essentially, it seems as if the car has a rectangular fuel door and lever system from a 3rd gen car, as opposed to the locked round door which was used on all the rest of the 2nd gen cars to my knowledge. So what's going on here? I know that 1987 was towards the end of production for 2nd gen cars other than the BRAT, so was this a weird symptom of parts swapovers for the end of production, or is there more to this than I can see? I've seen pictures of other '87s which have the original door so that's primarily where my confusion comes from.

Alright, well since I've already got the car at my mechanic's, I'll just get a head gasket swap along with the new distributor, I can't really get a whole new engine, seeing as this is already the 2nd one I've had to put in there in the past 6 months

Well, it seems that I've found the reason the engine isn't starting, or at least the probable cause. It sends that while the engine was overheating, it got so hot in the engine bay that it fused the cap of the distributor to its body, if I were to guess the rotor is probably toast in there so I'm looking for a new disty right now, and actually I'm starting to think that I may have just unveiled my new radiator given that it doesn't have a clear fill line like the stock ea81 radiator. As for the hoses in the cooling system, I figured they might all be toast, given that I had to cut the uper hose short to eliminate a leak, and my lower hose almost split the whole way 'round, I'm definitely gonna be looking for a replacement upper hose, I'm not sure how many total hoses the ea81 has in its coolant loop so if any of y'all know that'd be a great help

Right, I figure at this point the engine at least has some head gasket fatigue, if not outright damage, but it hasn't seized as yet, it'll still crank when I turn the ignition but as I said it just doesn't want to turn over for some reason. Also worth mentioning that I did replace the PCV valve yesterday, no change in the car's operation (or lack thereof)

Also, update regarding the cranking situation: watching the carb with the air filter cover off, as I crank it some small puffs of smoke or something pop out from the carb rhythmically, it seems like it's just about to start up and then nothing.

Well, given that I've just replaced my radiator, water pump, and lower hose, as well as cutting down the upper hose by about half an inch to remove a split, I think that takes the cooling system out of the question. As far as the engine starting, it'll crank, and sometimes it'll seem like it's about to start, but it won't. Edit: I've just tried getting the PCV valve out but my socket was too big to get it in there I'll try to figure out how to get it out, but it's being a real pain in my backside

Hi again Bennie, I haven't looked to far into the situation on this, but what I did notice some oil which looked to have gotten all over the dizzy cap, might have seeped in and gunked it up, I've actually got a second dizzy around in my spares, should I try just dropping that in?

Thanks for the advice Bennie, that seems to cover the oil related problems, but what might be causing me to overheat? That's been a much more overarching problem with this engine and I feel like it's starting to get a bit serious