Bolt EV owner and former professional TIG welder here... Looks like you got the concepts down and you seem conscious of them, but I would stick to the lay-wire method until you've had time to work on your wire feed skill. Best way to work on that wire feed skill is to learn on aluminum where you have to move fast and feed fast. Anytime you contaminate the filler wire with tungsten or oxidization, pick up your trimmers and snip it off. Don't be tempted to pull your gas away from your filler wire to inspect your work. Dealing with oxidization while you're practicing makes the process feel like you're running in place and not gaining any ground. Make sure your post flow is enough to keep the parts from oxidization. When you're new you tend to move slower because you don't have the muscle memory down and you get the parts really hot and more post flow is required. Difference between learning MIG welding and TIG welding is it takes a long time to get satisfaction from your work and requires a lot more persistence as it requires actual coordination and skill. Keep it up, it's a very valuable skill to have in your toolbox. Just don't tell anyone you know how to do it because you'll become like the guy with the pickup truck on moving day. Subscribing and looking forward to the results.
Thanks Brian, I really appreciate the tips! I definitely found the 'lay wire method' much easier, and you're right - especially for these motor mounts I was getting everything waaaaay too hot. I've got a huge amount of aluminum welding coming up when I do the cooling plates, so I'm looking forward to getting in a lot more practice.
@@BillCarlson Do the cooling plates really need to be welded? The cooling system should run at low pressure, so adhesively bonding plate layers is likely suitable. There's also brazing of sandwiched sheets.
One thing I would like to point out. On the motormouth plates I saw a few sharp inner corners. You want to round them up because under pressure this might cause cracks to start. I don't think you'll be producing enough torque to damage those plates, but better be safe than sorry. Also the B is for Build channel just got a Delorean and is also doing an EV conversion using the Chevy Spark drive train. GM actually will be selling kits to do just that. Looks like you might have influenced them. Or maybe is just a coincidence.
Thanks for the suggestion! I would like to remake the mounts using laser cut parts in the future and I'll keep this in mind when designing them to keep the corners rounded. I have been following B is for Build! I haven't watched the latest video, but their previous one said they were going to use the system shown off at SEMA which is the "Cruise and Connect" platform which is a Chevy Bolt drivetrain, same as me! I had reached out to GM multiple times after their announcement and they did not respond, sadly. I'll watch their video today and see if they have any updated info!
@@BillCarlson GM won't respond because they have no interest in individual projects. They'll likely contract with an aftermarket supplier for support whatever they choose for their conversion components. Ford has chosen AEM EV for their "Eluminator" product. And it seems unlikely to me that they will actually use any Bolt parts; it would make much more sense to use Ultium components.
In addition to rounding corners, gussets perpendicular to the plates in those brackets would be good to keep the welded joints from flexing to failure.
This is from a Fabricator by trade, I would have put a gusset on at least the long plate on each of the side mounts, removing a 5/8" to 3/4" triangle at the inner corner so dirt, water etc doesn't get caught there.
I like that idea a lot, Scott! I was thinking that on my next design I will 'square up' the two 'tabs' and then box them together. This first go-round I didn't pay attention to making the tabs hit the mount plate at the same angle, but it would be easy to adjust. Keeping a triangle in the inner corner open is really smart!
@1:40 - excellent use of a flashlight both to make detail more visible in a dark area, and to point out the specific part of interest. 👍 You should explain to the people at Munro Live how and why to do that. 🙂
I appreciate the humour of the welding skill comments, and I'm not at all qualified to assess anyone's welding, but really... I've seen far worse (in TH-cam, and in real life).
First time viewer of your channel. Usually I don't agree with electrifying classic cars, as I feel that you somehow rip their souls out, BUT in the case of the DeLorean I think that is a great improvement given of how unreliable and underpowered the original IC engine is. Also, I think that electrifying it, will only complement it's futuristic look.
Thanks Andrei! I agree completely - there are a lot of cars out there that I don't think I would want to do an EV conversion to, but the DeLorean is the perfect host.
I was surprised that you held the drive unit up with only two of the mounts. It will be twisting out of position due to bushing deflection because the third mount is missing, but it looks like with the angle of the bushings and the small offset from mounts to centre of mass it isn't too bad for this stage. I was relieved to see that you're not going to try to operate it that way!
Could you have moved the motor to the right a little to give a bit more clearance? I'm assuming you plan to have custom half shafts made so having one a little shorter than the other would not be an issue,
That's a good idea! I ended up getting the shafts basically the same size, but they easily have 1/2" of travel so I could adjust later if needed. The whole thing barely budges when I hang myself from it, but I will throw a GoPro on that area and see what happens when I drive hard to make sure it won't hit.
I am curious how you are going to handle the instrument panel. Are you going to keep it original? How are you going to handle the information translation like battery charge level, speed information, regeneration kWh. Are you going to make that Analogue or going to Retrofit the Bolt EV's touch Screen? Also curious where you are going to mount the Charge Port. Would be cool to see you reuse the Gas Refill Port as the Charge Port.
Thanks for the message! I'm going to use the Bolt's infotainment touch screen and also the instrument panel. I am going to put the Bolt instrument panel inside of the DeLorean's binnacle - and probably fill in the remaining space with a 3d printed filler. I would like to make a custom digital dash in the future, though. Currently I have no set plan for the charge port! The DeLorean's gas fill port is under the hood, which is kind of a pain for daily charging. I might make a flip-down license plate or something? Still up in the air, but I'm interested in ideas!!
@@BillCarlson Grab an old Mr. Coffee, mount the charge inlet inside, flip the top for access, and label it "Mr. Fusion". Just kidding... unless you're willing to do that.
Do you want the motor centered R-L, or offset slightly to the passenger side to compensate for the driver's weight? Also, are mount holes in the frame rail tapped, or nuts on the outside?
@@usuallybefuddled5690 I left it as centered as I could get it. It's probably off by about 1/8", not enough to matter. The holes are through-holes with nuts on the backside or rivnuts.
It's not actually - there are electronic parking brakes on each rear caliper of the Bolt, and the "gear selector" box here literally does move an internal sensor that sets which drive mode you are in (PRND) - it also engages a mechanical parking pawl on the inside of the transmission. It is totally silly, but moving the gear selector in the cabin just tells this box to move into gear, which it does, and then it trips a sensor that tells the computer what gear you're in. Even though there are no physical gears moving!
@@BillCarlson Although the transmission parking lock is a form of brake, I should have said "parking pawl" rather than "parking brake". I had forgotten about this goofy switch setup on the Bolt... but it is a drive mode selector, not anything to do with gears, since gears are not shifted. There is a reason for this setup, emulating a typical automatic transmission selector: use of off-the-shelf components (the selector lever) and consistency between vehicles built on the same assembly line (which included the Sonic).
There is gusseting on the backside of that frame rail. It's kind of like two pieces of sheet metal that are each molded and then sandwiched and welded together with a bit of space in between. The stock DeLorean transmission mounts to the same rails in the same manner.
Totally agree! I don't live near a metal supply shop, so it's like a 5 hour round trip to get metal stock, otherwise I would have gone that route. If I ever remake this mount, that's what I'll do.
No, and I don't think I would attempt to remove the limit. It's based on the max RPM of the electric motor, bearings, and gears in the driveline - basically the max RPM of the motor dictates the max speed, and running it at a higher RPM means lower efficiency and greater wear. My goal was to be able to hit 88, for obvious reasons. ;)
@@BillCarlson How does the DeLorean overall tire diameter compare to the Bolt? The stock DeLorean rear was apparently 235/60R15, while the Bolt uses 215/50R17... nominally the DeLorean tires are a couple percent shorter, so the same motor speed limit will correspond to a couple percent lower speed. It sounds like 88 MPH is right on the edge of possibility.
hello sir how are you very hard working you have a lot of talent how to make an electric delorean version of electric Chevrolet when you had finished now delorean Nissan leaf
I honestly have no idea - you'd need to take the Lotus chassis and measure it in all dimensions to see if you can find space to mount the batteries and electric motor and everything. I had the DeLorean for about a year before I started the EV conversion - even though I was leaning towards the Bolt EV as a donor, I didn't actually buy it until I had a chance to measure the DeLorean inside and out. If it didn't fit I'd be out about $13k!
@@BillCarlson thanks for the reply! I'm going to look into it as I think it would make an excellent donor vehicle. I like the fact the body can be completly removed to access everything. Also not sure about what parts on this prototype car are functional but it's cheap so i think it would be a fun project if the dimensions work. Thanks again and really enjoying learning from your project!
@@landonreidmiller4974 I'm surprised that a one-off prototype vehicle would be cheap, but I say if you can get it, go for it. Keeping the drivetrain as-as in a Lotus Evora would be sweet! Beautiful cars!
@@BillCarlson I am too, they are asking 10k but I'm sure I could get it for much less since its technically non-functional and lotus isnt a huge name. Even if I didn't do the conversion it would be a cool piece of automotive history I wouldn't mind owning. I really think the evora is great platform for the conversion though so I may get it and make an attempt. I really appreciate you documenting your conversion because I think it will be very similar to the DeLorean conversion. I'll keep you updated!
Bolt EV owner and former professional TIG welder here... Looks like you got the concepts down and you seem conscious of them, but I would stick to the lay-wire method until you've had time to work on your wire feed skill. Best way to work on that wire feed skill is to learn on aluminum where you have to move fast and feed fast.
Anytime you contaminate the filler wire with tungsten or oxidization, pick up your trimmers and snip it off. Don't be tempted to pull your gas away from your filler wire to inspect your work. Dealing with oxidization while you're practicing makes the process feel like you're running in place and not gaining any ground. Make sure your post flow is enough to keep the parts from oxidization. When you're new you tend to move slower because you don't have the muscle memory down and you get the parts really hot and more post flow is required.
Difference between learning MIG welding and TIG welding is it takes a long time to get satisfaction from your work and requires a lot more persistence as it requires actual coordination and skill. Keep it up, it's a very valuable skill to have in your toolbox. Just don't tell anyone you know how to do it because you'll become like the guy with the pickup truck on moving day.
Subscribing and looking forward to the results.
Thanks Brian, I really appreciate the tips! I definitely found the 'lay wire method' much easier, and you're right - especially for these motor mounts I was getting everything waaaaay too hot. I've got a huge amount of aluminum welding coming up when I do the cooling plates, so I'm looking forward to getting in a lot more practice.
@@BillCarlson Do the cooling plates really need to be welded? The cooling system should run at low pressure, so adhesively bonding plate layers is likely suitable. There's also brazing of sandwiched sheets.
Great Scott!!!! You might want to visit the LEGO store today, Bill. No joke!
Ordered it online last night. ;)
@6:00 nice use of another view angle cut in to explain what you're saying. 👍🙂
One thing I would like to point out. On the motormouth plates I saw a few sharp inner corners. You want to round them up because under pressure this might cause cracks to start. I don't think you'll be producing enough torque to damage those plates, but better be safe than sorry. Also the B is for Build channel just got a Delorean and is also doing an EV conversion using the Chevy Spark drive train. GM actually will be selling kits to do just that. Looks like you might have influenced them. Or maybe is just a coincidence.
Thanks for the suggestion! I would like to remake the mounts using laser cut parts in the future and I'll keep this in mind when designing them to keep the corners rounded. I have been following B is for Build! I haven't watched the latest video, but their previous one said they were going to use the system shown off at SEMA which is the "Cruise and Connect" platform which is a Chevy Bolt drivetrain, same as me! I had reached out to GM multiple times after their announcement and they did not respond, sadly. I'll watch their video today and see if they have any updated info!
@@BillCarlson GM won't respond because they have no interest in individual projects. They'll likely contract with an aftermarket supplier for support whatever they choose for their conversion components. Ford has chosen AEM EV for their "Eluminator" product.
And it seems unlikely to me that they will actually use any Bolt parts; it would make much more sense to use Ultium components.
In addition to rounding corners, gussets perpendicular to the plates in those brackets would be good to keep the welded joints from flexing to failure.
This is from a Fabricator by trade, I would have put a gusset on at least the long plate on each of the side mounts, removing a 5/8" to 3/4" triangle at the inner corner so dirt, water etc doesn't get caught there.
I like that idea a lot, Scott! I was thinking that on my next design I will 'square up' the two 'tabs' and then box them together. This first go-round I didn't pay attention to making the tabs hit the mount plate at the same angle, but it would be easy to adjust. Keeping a triangle in the inner corner open is really smart!
@1:40 - excellent use of a flashlight both to make detail more visible in a dark area, and to point out the specific part of interest. 👍 You should explain to the people at Munro Live how and why to do that. 🙂
I appreciate the humour of the welding skill comments, and I'm not at all qualified to assess anyone's welding, but really... I've seen far worse (in TH-cam, and in real life).
First time viewer of your channel. Usually I don't agree with electrifying classic cars, as I feel that you somehow rip their souls out, BUT in the case of the DeLorean I think that is a great improvement given of how unreliable and underpowered the original IC engine is. Also, I think that electrifying it, will only complement it's futuristic look.
Thanks Andrei! I agree completely - there are a lot of cars out there that I don't think I would want to do an EV conversion to, but the DeLorean is the perfect host.
The title of the episode brought me here, but the music starting at 15:14 stole the show and kept me coming back time and time again.
I was surprised that you held the drive unit up with only two of the mounts. It will be twisting out of position due to bushing deflection because the third mount is missing, but it looks like with the angle of the bushings and the small offset from mounts to centre of mass it isn't too bad for this stage. I was relieved to see that you're not going to try to operate it that way!
Bob, I was impressed indeed. I've just binged all 12 videos of the series and looking for more. You've got a subscriber from Sri Lanka...
Yap no dimes, but hey they work. I was a 30+ year ship builder I've seen worse. Love the music.
Thanks!
Great job! I’m so excited to see the progress! Keep up the good work!
Looking Great! I have no welding experiance, so the welds look good to me!
Joy!
12 days and no new video. So cruel.
The wait is impossible.
Fantastic effort!
Could you have moved the motor to the right a little to give a bit more clearance?
I'm assuming you plan to have custom half shafts made so having one a little shorter than the other would not be an issue,
That's a good idea! I ended up getting the shafts basically the same size, but they easily have 1/2" of travel so I could adjust later if needed. The whole thing barely budges when I hang myself from it, but I will throw a GoPro on that area and see what happens when I drive hard to make sure it won't hit.
I am curious how you are going to handle the instrument panel. Are you going to keep it original? How are you going to handle the information translation like battery charge level, speed information, regeneration kWh. Are you going to make that Analogue or going to Retrofit the Bolt EV's touch Screen? Also curious where you are going to mount the Charge Port. Would be cool to see you reuse the Gas Refill Port as the Charge Port.
Thanks for the message! I'm going to use the Bolt's infotainment touch screen and also the instrument panel. I am going to put the Bolt instrument panel inside of the DeLorean's binnacle - and probably fill in the remaining space with a 3d printed filler. I would like to make a custom digital dash in the future, though. Currently I have no set plan for the charge port! The DeLorean's gas fill port is under the hood, which is kind of a pain for daily charging. I might make a flip-down license plate or something? Still up in the air, but I'm interested in ideas!!
@@BillCarlson Grab an old Mr. Coffee, mount the charge inlet inside, flip the top for access, and label it "Mr. Fusion". Just kidding... unless you're willing to do that.
Do you want the motor centered R-L, or offset slightly to the passenger side to compensate for the driver's weight?
Also, are mount holes in the frame rail tapped, or nuts on the outside?
@@usuallybefuddled5690 I left it as centered as I could get it. It's probably off by about 1/8", not enough to matter. The holes are through-holes with nuts on the backside or rivnuts.
@2:01 you know that's the parking brake actuator, not the gear selector, since this transaxle doesn't shift gears (or even go into neutral), right?
It's not actually - there are electronic parking brakes on each rear caliper of the Bolt, and the "gear selector" box here literally does move an internal sensor that sets which drive mode you are in (PRND) - it also engages a mechanical parking pawl on the inside of the transmission. It is totally silly, but moving the gear selector in the cabin just tells this box to move into gear, which it does, and then it trips a sensor that tells the computer what gear you're in. Even though there are no physical gears moving!
@@BillCarlson Although the transmission parking lock is a form of brake, I should have said "parking pawl" rather than "parking brake".
I had forgotten about this goofy switch setup on the Bolt... but it is a drive mode selector, not anything to do with gears, since gears are not shifted.
There is a reason for this setup, emulating a typical automatic transmission selector: use of off-the-shelf components (the selector lever) and consistency between vehicles built on the same assembly line (which included the Sonic).
Is the sheet metal frame rail side really suitable for mounting the drive unit at those locations without any gusseting?
There is gusseting on the backside of that frame rail. It's kind of like two pieces of sheet metal that are each molded and then sandwiched and welded together with a bit of space in between. The stock DeLorean transmission mounts to the same rails in the same manner.
A short piece of thick-walled tubing would have been so much less work than that stack of tiny plates...
Totally agree! I don't live near a metal supply shop, so it's like a 5 hour round trip to get metal stock, otherwise I would have gone that route. If I ever remake this mount, that's what I'll do.
Just wondering if you’ve figured out how to disable that 91 mph speed limiter on the bolt drivetrain.
No, and I don't think I would attempt to remove the limit. It's based on the max RPM of the electric motor, bearings, and gears in the driveline - basically the max RPM of the motor dictates the max speed, and running it at a higher RPM means lower efficiency and greater wear. My goal was to be able to hit 88, for obvious reasons. ;)
@@BillCarlson How does the DeLorean overall tire diameter compare to the Bolt? The stock DeLorean rear was apparently 235/60R15, while the Bolt uses 215/50R17... nominally the DeLorean tires are a couple percent shorter, so the same motor speed limit will correspond to a couple percent lower speed. It sounds like 88 MPH is right on the edge of possibility.
When are you posting the next chapter? This is cruel, Bill.
Sooooon! Editing it right now, actually!
Great stuff.. any comment on DMC making an electric? Thanks Bill, hope you're doing well.
Comment everyone!! Helps Bill win the algorithm.
I had a short sneak peek video about two months ago - but this is the full edited video showing the process of designing and fabricating
I'll believe it when I see it :)
hello sir how are you very hard working you have a lot of talent how to make an electric delorean version of electric Chevrolet when you had finished now delorean Nissan leaf
Looks freeesh
I would like to do this same conversion with a bolt and a lotus evora 414e prototype donor car I may buy. Is this possible?
I honestly have no idea - you'd need to take the Lotus chassis and measure it in all dimensions to see if you can find space to mount the batteries and electric motor and everything. I had the DeLorean for about a year before I started the EV conversion - even though I was leaning towards the Bolt EV as a donor, I didn't actually buy it until I had a chance to measure the DeLorean inside and out. If it didn't fit I'd be out about $13k!
@@BillCarlson thanks for the reply! I'm going to look into it as I think it would make an excellent donor vehicle. I like the fact the body can be completly removed to access everything. Also not sure about what parts on this prototype car are functional but it's cheap so i think it would be a fun project if the dimensions work. Thanks again and really enjoying learning from your project!
@@landonreidmiller4974 I'm surprised that a one-off prototype vehicle would be cheap, but I say if you can get it, go for it. Keeping the drivetrain as-as in a Lotus Evora would be sweet! Beautiful cars!
@@BillCarlson I am too, they are asking 10k but I'm sure I could get it for much less since its technically non-functional and lotus isnt a huge name. Even if I didn't do the conversion it would be a cool piece of automotive history I wouldn't mind owning. I really think the evora is great platform for the conversion though so I may get it and make an attempt. I really appreciate you documenting your conversion because I think it will be very similar to the DeLorean conversion. I'll keep you updated!
That's a piss poor job of welding, you pass for Tesla 🤣
Good to know I have a backup job if I need it :D