EV Fest Electric Vehicle Show just 23 days away!

EV Fest 2011 Electric Vehicle Show,
Toronto's Premier Electric Vehicle Fall Festival
- Sunday, October 23, 2011: 10 AM - 5 PM, 550 Bayview Ave. Toronto, Ontario (Evergreen Brickworks)

Tell your friends! Tell Your Enemies! You Banker! Barber! Butcher! Everyone you know that drives a Bike, Car, Motorbike, Truck, Convertible, Sedan, Hatchback - or Whatever - If they Drive They should come to EV Fest 2011!

Click this link to Register as a Guest for just $5! As a Family for Just $15! And - if you have 3 hours you can give to support making the show activiteis flow smoothly - from Exhibitor Arrivals and Load Ins starting at 7:00 AM - 9:30 AM, durring the Show from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, or after from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM for Exhibtor Load out - Then consider Volunteering and registering  before the Event for Free!

Anyone with extra time on their hands - who want to help me get my car ready again, leave comment below, and a note to me at robert-at-myelectricfly-dot-com! Thanks in advance!

Evaporust - tested on Roof Rust Spots

I did not get pictures, but I can say using EvapoRust on a roof is trickier than using small parts soaking in a container of the product!

Having to cover each spot of rust with a heavy plastic sheet film, and a pad of folded paper towel soaked with Evaporust tucked inside and the whole thing taped down to keep the solution in place and so it does not evaporate doe work, but it might take more than a few treatments!

I had about 8 or 9 rust spots, little bubbles in the primer I had already sprayed the roof with, and had sanded off the excess paint for better soution coverage, but had left each cover patch on for 1-2 days at a time. some Came Clean from rust quickly - other took a few cycles, with some sanding in between.

When each spot was clean, and no more rust visible, just metal color - I cleaned and prepped the surface, and quickly shot the area with Grey Rust Paint Primer again! As of now - there is just one of those spots left, but I think there are a few others I need to clean in the same fashion.

When I am confident I have taken car of the spots that I can see - I will give the roof a few additonal coats of Primer and Wet Sand it with #320 Paper and a rubber block or a hard sponge block and Wet/Dry Automotive Papers.

I will likely do that a couple times, then - take it to my local body shop for a couple coats of White Paint.

Somewhere in all this - I need to setup, drill the pickup holes and install anchor nuts for the future plan of a solar roof mounting system attach. Hopefully - I can do that as soon as I nail the last of the rusty spots, and before the block sanding operations!

The Bottom Line on Evaporust - it seems to work OK on this application. I will be testing it and comparing it to another similar product called Metal Rescue soon, on small parts I can treat by soaking, as it is intended for!

New Whitepaper Posted on my Website, August 18, 2011

Hey - we all want to know more about which battery is best, and so I have dug up details that I could and added another Whitepaper on my website - www.myelectricfly.com.

In it I compare 3 Cyclon AGM Metal Can cells, with 2 Headway LiFePO4 Cells. I think you will find some interesting discoveries, and come to the conclusion similar to that which I showed in my first Whitepaper on site, that Lead Acid Batteries are - in fact - more expensive than LiFePO4 - if you compare correctly!

The full URL to the page where the Whitepapers are listed is http://www.myelectricfly.com/whitepapers.php and they are called - 'Lead-Acid Battery Report' showing the published dates, and - in the case of the second one, the issue!

Hope the info is helpfull, and by the way - the rear windo job was completed, and the Insurance company did cover the bill! Also - we have new ways to approach the Insurance companies when asking for coverage on our EV Conversions in Ontario! Stay Tuned right here!

Electricfly Gets OK'd to fix!

This Past Thursday, my Insurange Adjuster for Western Assurance came to view the damage on my car (Finally) in front of the Body Shop! We are a Go! My attempt at saving time on thursday - by fetching a new hatchback from Discount Auto in Kitchener failed! The Part Looked the same, same style, car, etc., but did not match the specs of the hatch on the car!

The Metal frame above the glass - at center top, on my current one was 5.5" and on the one I picked up it was 4"!! The bolts mounting it fit, but it would not close!! So we had to go with fixing the current damaged hatch frame (Read - too much Bondo!) and adding a New Glass (Needed a new glass there anyway, and this is new, with the heater, and I saw on Monday - that it fits, but there is not window gasket or rubber wrap for the rear available, so we are going to go with painting it and working out a substitued sollution!

It is going to be painted White, and I will paint the roof white soon too, but need to clean up some now visible rust spots showing on the primer on the roof, first!

Electricfly Sheds Pounds, Suddenly!

On March 16, 2011, at about 2:30 P.M. - electricfly lost about 10 lbs all of a sudden when a Cube Van squeezed by where it was parked, pushing it forward 4-6" (Even though the brakes were on!), crushing the lower right corner of the Hatchback frame, and blowing out the back glass! With the Backwindow gone - it was about 10 lbs lighter!

That is based on the glass that I swept up at the time, compared to what I picked up today from what remained that I removed, and while I don't have the hard figures it would appear - based on the weight of theglass that remained, compared to the volume that blew out - that it should have been about 10 lbs!

We Still did the "electricfly Aero Mods" Event, and as the weather was a bit wet we mostly discussed possible mods to the car inside, until the end of the Event,when it began to dry out outside.

Today, I did some clean up on the Glass as I had finally some time to do so since confirming with the Insurance company that I am not at fault, and that they will cover the repair. In the process - I discovered that one of the two positive posts - the 'Traction' wiring - had actaully melted a significant portion of that post head, and it had 'drooled molten lead' down the side of the case, and onto the polypropylene ropes for the battery handle! (Good thing I was digging deep to vacuum out the shatered glass, or I might not have even noticed this one!)

I Alread had one copy of the new Power Battery High Rate AGM's that I was looking to switch the pack for while waiting on money for my Lithium cells, so I dissconected all th wires to the Battery #7, and swapped it out for the new AGM Power Battery! (Well - new to me and to Electricfly - actually a used UPS battery from an Industrial UPS set at work.)

Still need some washers to suit - since the bolt is an 8mm bolt instead of a 1/4" or 5/16" bolts as on the Trojan SCS150's installed before. Also - this means new nuts required as the exisiting wing nuts won't work, and the wiring lug end has a bit larger hole - more suited to 5/16" - hence the need for washers!

I will update with pictures later this week!