WEEK 5: CNC routed rotor, Stripping Engine out of Car

This week was rather short with only 2 school days for me, I worked on setting up a cut file to cut a test steel rotor on the CNC router. My teacher Jared suggested using a rebate (in-cut) into the steel for the magnets to sit and align in which I thought was a great idea.

At present, the trouble I am having cutting out is the router bit getting too hot when cutting and requiring more water cooling if cutting fast. Because the CNC bed is lined with MDF (a soft absorbent manufactured wood), it tends to absorb the cooling water and swell up, causing the entire steel piece to move and mess it up.

Anyway, on Thursday afternoon I spent several hours after school cutting out the test steel rotor, which was looking good so far until I noticed the steel strip was being warped up quite a bit because of the MDF wood swelling up. I was close to finishing but will probably have to do the last few passes next week. Then I will try roll it and see how the magnets fit and if the internal diameter is right. For this test I used the exact diameter and lengths to calculate the cut file for the rotor, so I will see if I need any less or extra once I cut it out to determine what I need for the final product.

Also I had a buyer of the engine of my Toyota MR2 come round and have a test run of it. I agreed to do the engine swap over the weekend into his Toyota MR2. They brought their car over on a large truck which dropped it off down our driveway for me to get stuck into.

I first had to remove the engine from my car, which I took many photos beforehand in case I get stuck somewhere later on. This is by far one of the trickiest parts, I had to break many bolts loose holding both rear axles on, then had to remove the entire subframe of the car, then the exhaust muffler and manifolds had to come out, which the bolts were rusted over and stripped. I ended up drilling them out which worked fine.
I then had to disconnect everything, and I mean literally every single hose line, vacuum lines, coolant lines, clutch lines, shifter lines and of course all the wiring harness from the ECU.
Once everything was disconnected, I then loosened all the engine mounts and prepared to drop the engine out by lowering it to the ground and jacking the car up over it.
This worked well and after midnight on Sunday, I managed to have gotten the entire engine out and rolled out under the car.

The next day - Monday (week 6) I gave the entire engine a good clean for an hour so it would be way less greasy to work on.
The next few tasks were swapping some components from his old engine which are fairly new to the engine out of my Toyota MR2. I ended up swapping the alternator and water pump over, and after taking off the cam belt cover, I loosened off my old belt and tightened his newer belt on. After some more cleaning and sealing, the covers were back on and then my next job would begin.

As I had to swap the transmissions over as well, I broke all the bolts free with the breaker bar on Monday night in preparation to split the engine and transmission the next day.
On Tuesday morning, I woke up early to do 2 paper runs first before getting into splitting my transmission from the engine which went well and only took about an hour.

On Tuesday night at 11pm, I then spent a good 5 or 6 hours getting the engine entirely back together, which included a quick clean of the bell housing and mounting area, and removing the starter and clutch lines to get his transmission lined up. I was also considering swapping his clutch flywheel assembly over but since this is a risky job, and both assemblies look fairly the same in wear, I decided just to leave the clutch flywheel assemblies how they are. After finally managing to get the transmission loosely bolted together and the spline fit to the clutch plate inside the bell housing, I then fully bolted the 2 together, which was quite a tedious job as many of the bolts are hard to reach. I then put his starter motor back into the transmission and connected the clutch lines and engine mounts back on with their bolts. Finally I jacked up his Toyota MR2 as high as possible and rolled the engine underneath in preparation to install it into his car. As the weather is supposed to be rainy for the next few days I covered it with tarpaulins to protect it from the rain before I get back into it!

Anyway a lot of fun and pain and very late nights over the long weekend but I managed to get a lot done so I'm happy. I am also excited to now start designing the motor transmission layout for my electric conversion and get stuck into it.