Breaking in the batteries

Trip meter @ 51 km, so I drove 29 km in the ute today.

I just drove down to Harwood towards the end of the Otago Peninsula. I stopped in for a while at the home of my former colleague Mike Stewart. I took Mike for a tiki-tour around Harwood township to show the conversion off. Mike was an important figure in the conversion because it was his MIG welder that glued the motor mounts and battery racks together. I borrowed his welder for 3 months solid. I am not sure quite how the conversion would have gone without that MIG welder. It certainly made my decidely rusty welding technique look spectacularly good and saved a massive amount of time during the crux of the conversion.

His Baby Austin restoration is going well, chassis together, suspension mounted, gearbox and engine installed, steering complete to wheel. He now has the body to build out of aluminium, working from cardboard patterns.

The trip down to Harwood was also to test the new brake booster system. The good news is that enlarging the hose from the vacuum reservoir to the booster to 10 mm diameter, and by connecting the vacuum reservoir directly with the booster, the ute now has very good brake function. And it's all good news since the brakes performed faultlessly through the twisty road down to Harwood. I wish I could say the same about the rear spring suspension. Stiffening up the leaf springs for the weight of the rear battery pack was great for curing the droopy tail effect. However, the stiffness was pretty tangible while driving through the roadworks and the more undulating road surfaces beyond Portobello. I had to keep reminding myself that the road noise is all the louder in the absence of the engine noise. My dodgy carpentry on the drop sides was squeaking, a lot.

The other thing noisy was the booster pump. I am getting use to it, but almost every use of the brake is accompanied by an answering drone from the pump lasting about 5 seconds. It's going to be hard explaining that to people at the traffic lights in summer with the windows down...

The batterypack and controller performed flawlessly on my more extended trip. The controller was barely warm when I popped the bonnet half way through the trip. Maybe the big heat sink and dual cooling fans are doing their job well? The Curtis State of Charge gauge showed just on half empty charge at the end of the trip. I'm hoping that I get more range for what was effectively a flat, widening drive with two repetions of three hills. Time will tell once the batteries are broken in (whenever that's going to be?).

Great trip. Nothing fell off. Ute returned under its own power! The next test is the compliance inspection, hopefully this week coming.