Suspension fun, aka How much do those batteries weigh?

If you studied these UB121100 batteries at all, you'd learn they're about 70lbs each.  Since there are 26 of them, that's a total of about 1800lbs.  Add cables, the frames that Dad built, you're talking 2000lbs added.

You're probably thinking, what in the heck!?!?!  That's just an S10 body - it can't handle that!

... or can it...

Consider:
-  As it was a "factory" electric vehicle, the GVW was already more than the 4200lbs than a short-bed S10 was back in the mid '90's.  The side of the door shows it in fact - 5400lbs.  So we're good legal-wise.
-  Because they knew there would be weight, they put an extra leaf in the leaf spring - Very nice of them, but not nearly enough to deal with an extra ton of weight.

So what did we do?

1. First, we use very, very strongest, ultra-duty coil over shocks we could find that would fit an S10.  Dad, if you remember the exact name, put it in the comment below.  Here's a picture though:

Notice it connects directly to where it would normally connect, nothing special here.

2. Next, he installed a helper spring.  It was quite noticeable, but he painted it along with all the regular leaf springs black, so you can't see it too well.  Here is a better angle:

The helper spring is the one at the bottom of the spring that is bent.  It connects to the rear part of the spring.  This is an after-market product you can buy just about anywhere, here's an example.

3. Finally, he built his own spring shackle, which you can also see in the picture above - it connects the frame to the back of the leaf springs.  The truck had one in there already, but it was short and didn't give enough clearance over the rear axle & differential.  So Dad made an extra heavy duty one out of 3/8" steel and 1/2" steel, about a foot long.  one thing to note - if you make your own spring shackle, you have to make it extremely sturdy, including a plate back there to prevent them from twisting.

There you go!  Do these three things and you too could have an extra ton of batteries, yet still have plenty of suspension in back.  Here's how it looks from afar

Lastly, if you're reading this thinking about a conversion, staying within the GVW is actually still doable considering you will lose lose the engine, the gas tank, and several other things, but adding these batteries plus a motor and controller et al.  Maybe an extra 1,200 or 1,500 over stock.  I was looking at this for the '91, and I think we still could have stayed just under the GVW, even with two people in the car.

OK, but did you get it running?

It was a long, arduous journey - but it is running!  All thanks to two people:

Person 1:  First and foremost, there's my Dad, Jerry who has put in probably 1000 hours over the past several months, building battery cables, hunting for parts, testing various ways to get it running, building and managing the batteries, shipping the dolphin, etc.  Too much to recount.  He has been relentless trying to get this going, even after many of us (myself included) were ready to throw in the towel.

This was quite an accomplishment - Esp. for someone who has never worked on a true electric vehicle!

Person 2:  All hail Mike Phillips, our mentor and master, to get this up and running.  There is no way on the face of the earth that we could have done it without him.  The dolphin itself had been thoroughly wrecked and abused, and Mike is perhaps the only guy on earth who could have fixed it.

In fact, in order to fix our dolphin, Mike had to solve a long-standing problem that has been affecting the entire USElectricar community for years!  Amazing.

And then on top of that, he's spent countless hours advising us over the phone, getting it up and running.

Where the heck do all these batteries go?

Where to put these was a real tough one.  Here's what it looked like with the frame connected at the back:

Notice it is connected to the boxes that came with it, over the differential.


Here is what the original boxes look "full" of 14 batteries, 7 on either side:

For each original box, there is:

• One on its side underneath the cab (AGM batteries are sealed, so they can go on their side, they don't care), but with a little left outside so we can see the face.
• Then there are two that are upright (note the little notch on either side of the box frame?  That is so we can pull them out - there is very little wiggle room).
• Next are two stacked batteries on their side facing back, and
• finally on the right there are two stacked batteries facing forward, rear against the back of the box. 

We wanted to leave room so we can access and maintain the face of all batteries without killing ourselves.


Next, the rear battery box, where 10 all tolled are stored:

As you can see, two go directly over the rear axle, and then 8 are behind the rear axle.

So where are the other two batteries (to total 26)?  Dad built a little frame that goes on either side of the original boxes, just beside the frame.  We tested it and saw that the bed will just go on the outside of it.

Here's what the final version looks like overall:

It's not quite done, since we need to put some protective sleeves over exposed batteries, but they're all in place at this point.

Update

Wow. Almost a year. I'm terrible!

BATTERIES:

We chose Univeral Battery UB121100. Some people in the yahoo group were using them, and I got a good deal on them - $110/each. They're 110ah AGM batteries, 12v each. They're huge - like 67 lbs each! The brought them on a semi thinking we were a business, but when they saw we were a house back in the woods, they took them back to the shipping location. So Bob & Dad had to go there and load all the batteries by hand into Dad's truck! Ugh...

BATTERY BOX

The existing boxes were not in the best shape, but mostly just needed cleaning up:

...But the main problem was that there was no way we'd fit 26 of these monster batteries in there. The original "hawker" batteries were way smaller.

So Dad cleaned the boxes up, and built another battery frame/box that would attach over the rear axle & differential, and go all the way back to the very rear of the frame - Here it is on saw horses: