From the monthly archives:

July 2014

iMIEV – Spinning the Motor & Wheels

July 22, 2014

Last week, I had made a date with my friend Tom G (who you might remember from the AC Dodge Neon project) to come out to my house and show me how to use a variable frequency drive. Tom has lots of experience working with AC motors and owns a few salvaged drives. I had […]

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Auto Parts Road Trip

July 21, 2014

This weekend, I found myself having a bit of fun building interesting Plug-in Vehicle projects. Recently, I’ve been chipping away on my diesel engine, updating the old glow plugs to new ones. At the heart of my DIY Hybrid Pickup project is a diesel engine, in this case one that I got from a 1976 […]

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Glow Plugs, Part 2

July 16, 2014

When last I left you, I had an engine with the glow plugs removed, and the remaining holes gunked full of carbon. Everything I’ve read so far strongly suggests reaming out the carbon when replacing glow plugs. I had looked online and found that a specialty reamer tool for glow-plug holes were over $50! I […]

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240D Glow Plug removal and inspection

July 15, 2014

The “Super-Truck” project is something that’s been in the back of my mind for a while. The whole idea is to build a plug-in hybrid pickup, which could run off diesel, battery electricity, and biofuels. Imagine if a Chevy Volt not only ran on bio-fuel, but could also haul firewood and tow a trailer! Too […]

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Dynasty IT Micro-Pickup NEV and Test Drive

July 10, 2014

This past weekend, a friend dropped off a Dynasty IT in my driveway. This IT is an adorable tiny pickup truck that’s in the NEV class. That means that it’s perfectly street-legal, but federal regulations restrict it by law to a 25 mph top speed, and use on streets of 35 mph and less. My […]

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