Conversion

I am trying to figure out how to fit the battery. The original plan was to put 32 cells arranged as 2 rows of 16 in the bottom of the battery compartment. However, they don't fit.
At the rear, welding lugs from the frame's rear casting are protruding. I am prepared to grind some of that away to make the cells fit side by side.

Received the battery. 42 CALB CA66Fi cells, 66Ah. 32 of them go into the battery compartment standing up as 2 rows of 16 and the remaining 10 will be stacked flat on top, most of them where the impellers used to be. Unfortunately the supplier forgot to send the interconnects. Next week then...

After having been convinced by Matt Lacey's Li conversion videos that a Li conversion is quite managable, I started looking for a 2nd hand VX1.

By good fortune, I ended up with a VX1 from the former Australian Vectrix importer and distributor. The bike is ex-demo/showroom and I have been told it has done less than 500km. It has a few marks and the chrome plated surfaces have brown corrosion spots. The battery could find a new application as a zero-volt reference if it were not so heavy, and since the plan always was to convert to Lithium, I did not even attempt to revive it.

Well another 3 weeks have passed, I am still not riding YET. Other, more important things have taken up every spare minute. The garden is in,

my oldest graduated from high school

went to Cedar Point Park in Ohio,

Well it's been about 3 weeks, and I haven't touched the bike for about 2 of the three. I finally had to stop neglecting all the other things I should be doing, so the bike has been back burnered for a while. I have completed the fabrication of the battery rack. Final welding still needs to be done.

Well this is my third EV project. I was so encouraged by the results of the Kawasaki 4-wheeler conversion, that I knew a daily driven street vehicle was within reach. I sold my ICE race car last fall, and decided to devote the $ to an electrtic vehicle. I calculated and researched cars, and decided that a car at this time was not within reach financially. With permission from my wife, I decided on an electric motorcycle. I researched this forum, the Austin EV website and many other links to nail down the voltage, frame and bike size.

After experimenting with an EZ-GO 36V golf cart, an Elec-Trak E-14, and a couple of electric scooters, we decided to go for a real conversion.

1985 Bridgestone MB-1 BEFORE Conversion:

(Note: I will be adding some diagrams and photos as the project progresses and I have time to add them)

Not fully refined but a working proto-type

How It All Began