Solar Powered Electric Vehicle

This will be my last day playing in the dirt and grease.

With the engine removed and the gas tank drained from earlier, I proceeded to remove the fuel tank and fuel tank components. I wondered what the fuel tank would look like when it was removed from the car.

As it turns out, the fuel tank is about 5 ft long and is strapped lengthwise from the front to the back of the car. To remove it, the parking brake brackets need to be removed first. There were 6 hoses that connect to the fuel tank from the engine compartment as well as 2 wire connectors that also need to be disconnected from the console inside the car.The manual does an excellent job explaining the steps that need to happen before the fuel tank can be removed.

All the other fuel system components including the gas tank filling tube were then removed.

I intend to put the electric plug where the gas tank cap used to be:

The remaining radiator hoses from engine compartment were also removed.

I then wired the air conditioning compressor inside engine compartment.

Before pushing the car back out in the driveway for pressure washing, I made sure that I replaced parking brake cable (don’t want to have a runaway car). And of course the wheels need to be put back.

After rolling out the car, I made sure that I covered all the exposed lubricated areas and power washed the car inside and out.

The dirty part is done!!!

My plan of attack to get the stubborn engine out is as follows:

1. Jack up the frame as high as the jack stands will let me. Must be careful not to jack up one end of the car too much as the car could potentially tip over.
2. Get under the car and remove as many components to make the engine/transmission block as small as possible.
3. Drink some protein shakes and drag that engine out!!

I ended up removing the following components:

• Exhaust manifold
• Oil distributor
• Front and Rear transmission mounting brackets
• Air conditioning compressor bracket (Another reason to remove this was to prevent it from getting damaged as I drag the engine across the floor, I may need to use it later)
• Oil filter and oil filter receiver bracket (not pictured).

The moment of triumph!!! I finally dragged it out!!!

Another workday! Time to take out the engine! Right after work on Monday, I change into my dirty gear and went into the garage; Steve also came over to help. We hooked up the engine hoist to the 2 engine hooks on either side of the engine block. The manual suggested that for better balance, one should remove one of the bolts that connect the transmission to the engine and hook one end of the chain on that bolt. It sounded like too much unnecessary work, so I just used the engine hooks.

Once secured, we started to raise the engine hoist to lift the engine up ever so slightly so that we could remove the 4 mounting bolts keeping the engine and transmission block in the car frame. After the removal of the 4 bolts, it became clear that a few more items need to be removed before the engine will have a clear path to the floor. I removed the firing coil, the alternator bracket, and the right mounting bracket.

It is very important to make sure that the clutch cable and throttle cable assemblies are wired out of the way so that they don’t get damaged during the engine drop.

With some maneuvering, the engine finally hits the wooden dolly placed under the engine. Yay!

My joy was quickly subdued by realization that there was not enough clearance between the car and the floor to pull the engine out. DARN!! Even taking the dolly out of the way didn’t help! It looks like I will have to take some more pieces off the engine/transmission block in order to get this thing out!

Since the engine and transmission assembly is pretty heavy, I built one of these dollies with some scrap wood I had in the garage.

The air condition compressor is mounted to the engine so I needed to remove the compressor first before I can remove the engine. However, since the air conditioning system could still potentially be charged, I did not want to break the line and release the refrigerant into the atmosphere. The whole point of this project is to be greener, right? I called around unsuccessfully to a few local auto shops as well as heating and air conditioning experts and ask if they would do on-site AC discharging. This makes engine removal a little more tricky because I now need to be more careful when I lower the bulky engine so that I do not catch the air conditioner compressor and AC lines. Definitely a lesson learned here for future conversions: I need to get the air conditioning refrigerant discharged while the car is still running! After I removed the bolts mounting the AC compressor to the engine, I used a wire clothes hanger and wired the AC compressor to the frame so that there is not too much stress on the AC lines.

The engine will actually be removed together with the transmission, therefore, we also need to remove the rear drive axels on both sides and the clutch cable assembly from the transmission. IMPORTANT: make sure you mark and save the clutch cable assembly pins, you will need this later.

The alternator looks like it would be in the way when dropping the engine/transmission assembly, so I removed the alternator and the alternator belt from the engine.

Before attempting to remove the engine, I went on to drain the remaining fuel from the gas tank. I thought I would have had to siphon the gas out of the tank, but was pleasantly surprised to find a 3/8″ ratchet hole under the gas tank. Removing this plug and removing the gas tank cap (to prevent a vacuum from forming in tank), I was able to drain about 5 gallons from the gas tank.

Time flies when you are having fun, since it is getting pretty late, I decided to delay the removal of the engine yet another day.

I started to remove the greasy and dirty internal combustion engine and the related components that I will not need in the electric vehicle today. First, I needed the following tools/supplies; my EV friend, Steve, had most of these tools and brought them to help me with my first day on the job.

1. 1986 Toyota MR2 maintenance manual
2. Hydraulic jack
3. 4 jack stands
4. metric socket set with breaker bars
5. metric wrenches
6. drain pan and a few gallon milk jugs for holding fluids like engine oil and coolant
7. gas tank to hold the fuel that remained in the car
8. engine hoist
9. rags/cardboard for cleaning and catching spills
10. nitrile gloves, set of old clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty.
11. masking tape, plastic zipper bags, and permanent marker: for labeling cables and wires and bagging loose parts that you might need later.
12. a notebook to take down notes and diagrams on how things fit together and important measurements.
13. Air tool and socket wrenches for removing the wheels and drive axels.

I found the Toyota factory manual for the 1986 MR2 for $90 on ebay and Chilton’s manual was $20, so I went with the latter. As it turns out, this manual was very helpful for someone like me that doesn’t have any experience working on cars.

After jacking up the car, the first things to get rid of are the fluids that we will not need anymore in an electric car: engine oil,engine coolant, and fuel. Since the MR2 requires that the engine be lowered out of the car rather than lifted from the top, I needed to make sure that I jacked the car high enough so that the lowered engine will clear the body of the car.

Engine oil

Coolant: To fully drain the coolant, three plastic covers underneath the car need to be removed to expose 2 more drain location in addition to the drain plug near the radiator fan in the front of the car.

Since we will not be needing the cooling system anymore, we removed the radiator fan/coil and radiator tank.

For easier access under the car, the four tires were removed.

Before we can remove the engine, many components need to be disconnected/removed from it. The 12V auxiliary battery was first disconnected and removed. Next, the main wiring harness was disconnected from the engine. I tried to label connectors as I pull them from the engine so that if I need to reuse a connector, I will remember which wire to use. I ended up cutting the wires to the starter because I had trouble getting to the connector, I won’t need that component anyway. In the process of disconnecting the main wiring harness, we also removed the air flow meter and the intake manifold from the engine. The accelerator cable and bracket was also disconnected and the cable labeled and taped to the hood to keep it out of the way. The speedometer cable, which is connected to the transmission is also removed, labeled, and taped to the hood to keep it out of the way. After removing the speedometer cable from transmission, it is important to cover opening on the transmission where the speedometer cable used to be. Aluminum foil works great, per suggestion from Steve.

I decided to drain the fuel tank on a different date since it was getting late and Steve and I were working in a closed garage and I had a water heater with a pilot light in the garage (next time, I will drain the fuel first!!). Steve did manage to disconnect the fuel rail from the engine. He had to be very careful not to cut any of the fuel lines since I still had 1/4 tank of gas left.

After carefully navigating the fuel challenge, we ran into another issue, the air conditioning system was potentially still charged! Since the air conditioning compressor is mounted to the engine, I need to decide what to do about the air conditioning system before I remove the engine. We removed the exhaust system and called it a day.