What is with that HVAC control panel!? That looks oddly complex...
What is with that HVAC control panel!? That looks oddly complex...
Yeah, it kind of is- the car has a lot of options, but unfortunately it’s kind of limited in how you can use them…
AC on this car is NOT an optional feature pretty much no matter where you live. Even if you live in Siberia, if there is sun outside you're likely going to need the AC running at some point because it gets quite hot in the car and you've got only a microscopic window to roll down. Back when The Dancer and I were dating, we went up to Cinci to Kings Island in the summer- the line to get in to the parking was LONG and slow, so we popped the doors and were just creeping along with the doors up to have cooler air blowing through so I didn't have to run the AC when just sitting idling.
Heck yes! More comment on your other thread.
In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :
ooohhh... I didn't realize from the other picture that the main knob had words and icons that were the same thing. I thought it had 14 different functions that were oddly spaced.
So I was thinking earlier today about the placement of the battery packs for the conversion- and specifically if placing them up front in the 'frunk' space above where the original fuel tank was located was actually a safe place to have a battery box or not.
The train of thought that led me to this was because I was thinking about the airbags on the iD.4 and how it would be quite nice to be able to get the steering wheel and passenger front airbags working so there'd be extra protection in the case of a crash. The DMC was originally conceived (coincidentally, so was one of the only other gullwing cars, the Bricklin SV-1) as being a vehicle with the cutting edge of safety features (the original prototype for the car was called the DSV-1, for DeLorean Safety Vehicle). And by and large for a car designed and built in the early-80's it is pretty safe- the very front of the frame (which is what rusted through and I have to replace and, by and large, kicked off this whole project) was nicknamed the 'Crumple Frame' because it was designed to fold in a crash to absorb energy much like modern-day frames do, and the steering column is designed to collapse in a crash to protect the driver even further. But... it is still a 40-year-old car, and quite lacking in a lot of modern safety features, and having the additional protection of airbags would be nice. Also, likely nearly impossible to actually implement with the sensors necessary... but fun to think about.
But, thinking about putting the airbags into the car got me thinking about the rest of the safety features (like ABS, which I would also love to be able to implement) and the collision-avoidance features of the iD.4 (the blind spot monitoring shouldn't be that difficult to keep working, especially if I end up trying to use the iD.4 side mirrors on the car, but things like the adaptive cruise control may be a bridge too far). And then I got to thinking about everything else on the car with regards to safety and my brain latched onto the fact that pretty much every electric conversion I've seen places as many battery modules in the front of the car under the 'hood' in the original cargo space and where the fuel tank went.
Here's a screenshot from one of Bill Carson's videos on his Bolt-powered DMC:
As you can see, the battery box (which is an angle-iron/steel welded up box with the batteries and cooling inside) is mounted relatively high and sticks up well above the frame.
This worries me... something to remember is that unlike a 'normal' car, the DMC does not have a traditional firewall bulkhead in front of the cabin- since the engine is in the rear, there wasn't as much protection needed for a crash to keep the engine from getting pushed into the cabin (I will note that there isn't a metal firewall in the back of the cabin either, but I believe the design intent was that in a rear-end crash that the engine and transmission would be pushed under the cabin). So- if the car takes a solid enough hit in the front, it's quite possible that the rather heavy (I believe each module weighed 70lbs or so and there are I believe 4 in the front pack, plus the steel of the frame and the cooling plates- I'm going to guess at about 400lbs) and rigid steel box could get pushed back and into the passenger compartment.
I'd prefer to at least try and keep the batteries up front within the frame space where the fuel tank is supposed to be... but it's a VERY inconvenient and odd shape (triangular) so I think that you can at most fit 1 module in the space where the fuel tank went. So, I may have to settle for trying to keep as much of what I end up using up front below the frame as possible and see if I can design the mounts and locate it such that in a front-end collision the battery will go down and/or hit the frame and not be able to be pushed into the cabin.
wae said:In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :
ooohhh... I didn't realize from the other picture that the main knob had words and icons that were the same thing. I thought it had 14 different functions that were oddly spaced.
Yeah, it's a bit confusing... no clue why they thought both were necessary.
If I may opine: I'd stop short of adding airbags, that's a whole can of engineering that's designed as one part of the vehicle's safety systems as a whole, to work together in that specific vehicle, and transplanting them to an older chassis that has none of that sounds like an experiment I don't want you to be the guinea pig for.
Patrick said:If I may opine: I'd stop short of adding airbags, that's a whole can of engineering that's designed as one part of the vehicle's safety systems as a whole, to work together in that specific vehicle, and transplanting them to an older chassis that has none of that sounds like an experiment I don't want you to be the guinea pig for.
It's definitely something that isn't going to be anywhere near a priority and almost certainly won't ever happen- there's more than enough other stuff to figure out how to get working and I'm guessing that even if I tried I probably couldn't get all the sensors working properly for it.
So one of the things I hope to get started on while I'm waiting to be able to haul the iD.4 here to actually start working on its side of things is the repairs to the DMC's frame. I've for a while been looking at trying to find a sheet metal brake to be able to bend up the parts myself, but so far I've not had any luck in finding one capable of bending up the 16-gauge cold-rolled steel that the frame is constructed from that wasn't over $1k. There is a Makerspace here in Lexington that, if it's got the same/similar equipment as the on here that I was a member of back when I was working on the Rampage, should have all of what I'd need to fabricate the parts. The difficulty: it's $130/month to be a member (it was like 1/5 that for the one I was a part of before). Also, their webpage actually doesn't say anything about metal fabrication- so it's entirely possible (but ridiculous IMO) they don't had any metal fab equipment.
So, I decided that I needed to look into some of the online fabrication companies- I know that Bill Carson has used SendCutSend for a LOT of things on his Project Lightning Bolt-based DMC conversion, but have never really looked at it in detail and seen just what it costs vs. what just the metal alone would cost if I were to try and fabricate things myself. I decided that this would also be a good opportunity to check out some of the other free CAD options and downloaded FreeCAD (and, eventually, the SheetMetal addon) and used it to design two of the sections that I will need for repairing the front suspension box:
One is the internal bracing inside the box which has 4 76-degree bends, and the other is the lower plate of the box which is essentially just a sheet with 5 holes drilled in it (something that I should be able to do without much issue, but was a good check for pricing).
First, what it would cost me to buy just the sheet metal from Metal Supermarkets (they note that their online prices aren't the same as in-store, but I figure it should at least be close...):
So, it would cost me about $66 to get the flat sheet metal to make these two parts including tax and picking them up from the local store after they cut them to size.
Next, I uploaded the STEP files for the two parts to SendCutSend and went through the process (confirming what would be done to each, etc.) and got a quote for the essentially ready-to-weld parts from them:
For both parts shipped to me (no idea if it includes tax or if it would need to be added) it's just under $80. The lower closeout plate- which just needs 5 holes drilled- is just $6 more expensive than the bare metal, and the bent part is a bit over $11 more. Most of the parts I'm going to need aren't going to need 4 bends like the brace- most will need just 1 bend and at few will need 2 (some of which will depend on whether I try and design the repair parts with 'lips' to mesh with the old part or plan to just weld on a flat piece to bridge the gap between the original and repair part).
Honestly... that's not nearly as bad as I was thinking that the price difference would be. In all truth, on a larger scale (i.e., all of the parts needed) I would probably not be having the lower plate which only needs holes drilled through it made by them and would just get the plain sheet and drill the holes on my drill press- but even that isn't terrible and would (assuming I don't berk up the CAD) mean that I'd not have the risk of accidentally drilling a hole in the wrong spot and ruining a $30 piece of sheet metal.
I did also look into some of the other companies that came up when I searched SendCutSend for comparison- and none of them were even close... for just the flat plate with the holes they were quoting like 2x what SendCutSend was charging. There is another option- I know that we have a shop in town that could make the parts for me as I've dealt with them in the past (or at least we did a year or two ago when I had to make the aerial spiral for The Dancer's nonprofit). But a) I'm not betting that they'll be able to match SCS's prices and b) I also know that they're much more old-school and I'd have to convert the CAD files to drawings and print them out. They also have very odd and unpredictable hours (the owner basically just works when he wants to unless they have a big job)- so it would obviously be a lot easier to have SCS do it, though if I needed something FAST and could catch him there it would be a good fall-back.
The SCS value really comes in to play with more complex shapes, especially cutting. You picked something that would be fairly trivial to fabricate at home. Right now, I have on my desk a few pieces that have very precise (and large) holes in them that woud be a real PITA to fabricate accurately. From SCS, they were a couple of bucks.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Yeah, the more complex shapes of the rear cradle are where I'll absolutely be having them make the parts (or making the parts for a replacement one if I end up going that route), but even with the simple ones it ends up being fairly reasonable.
Didn't get much done on the DMC over the last few days- but I did manage to get the engine stands swapped out such that I had identical ones on both ends and could link them together with a length of pipe. I also inadvertently figured out that I may be able to hang the frame from the rafters of the garage if I need to get it out of the way- I'd need to work out a better way than the ratchet straps that I used to suppose the rear of the frame while I swapped out the engine stands, but it would give me a way to get it up and out of the way to be able to use the space where it currently is (if tilting it to the side like I have it now doesn't give me enough) without having to move the frame outside.
What I really need is a) a bigger garage/workshop and b) a lift, so I can have the body up on the lift and the frame below. But... that's not happening anytime soon. If we figured we'd be living in this house for the rest of our lives then I'd definitely be looking to raise the roof of the garage and put in a lift, but we're unlikely to stay here that long because it has far too many stairs.
Alternative to a lift is something like a rolling gantry and a chain hoist.
I keep talking myself out of this, but I feel like one day I will fail to make a convincing argument and will defeat myself
I have a garage with the ceiling height necessary for a true lift, but the door hardware would need to be updated to raise the bars much higher, and swap the opener to the wall mount type. That plus the cost of the lift itself puts that option out of reach for a while. This would lift up to about 10' and some change, and lift up to 2k lbs.
This very nearly happened when a standard cherry picker proved to have trouble reaching the engine in the absurdly long front end of the Monte Carlo.
In reply to 4cylndrfury :
I could see that being useful in some situations- for now though I think I've got it reasonably well managed. In most cases I think just having the frame on its side on the 'rotisserie' gets me enough space to work on things better.
Holy forking shirtballs!!! 
I had posted in the DMC forum asking about how the original frame had been assembled since there aren't obvious edge/end welds on the majority of the parts so I figured much of it was spot welded- and as a result of that question one of the members there posted a link to an absolute treasure trove of photos of the original manufacturing drawings for a good bit of the frame! For example- these are the two parts that I had modeled up in CAD when I was looking at what it would cost to have SCS fabricate the parts:
It's not a complete set of drawings- and sadly it's missing a lot of the rear cradle parts- but it's better than what I had and will serve well confirming my measurements from the frame itself.
dang that's a cool find!
Holy carp... if yesterday's find of the drawings for the frame was a bombshell, this is an absolute berking nuke. A looooong ways ago- back in late 2020- one of the DeLorean owners had posted a 3D PDF of the ENTIRE DMC-12 chassis/frame. He had spent a lot of time manually measuring a good frame and created a full 3D CAD model of the entire frame, but hadn't wanted to share the full CAD model since there was a chance he might use it to make his own reproduction frames. I had downloaded it and looked it over and was thrilled, but the 3D PDF viewer was a) pretty limited and b) you can't really edit anything or add anything to the PDF (say, trying to design battery boxes, motor mounts, etc).
I had largely forgotten about it until the last few weeks when I've been working on getting the models for some of the frame sections that need to be replaced created to get things ordered from SCS. I initially found that, annoyingly, I could not seem to get the 3D PDF to open in anything except for having the Mac emulate an iPad and run an iPad app for viewing 3D PDFs. So, not helpful. But this morning I decided to dig a bit deeper since, unfortunately, the detail drawings for the engine cradle parts are not in the cache of drawing pictures that I posted about yesterday. And I hit the jackpot- I found that in the last few years another company had acquired the rights to the 3D PDF code/software and had created their own add-on to Acrobat that allows you to export a 3D PDF in standard CAD formats like STP. Oh, and there's a free trial. As a result:
That's the entire frame in FreeCAD- complete with individual parts that can be selected, measured, and such. It's not perfect at the moment- both in what I can do with it and the model itself- but it's a massive help in being able to create CAD models of parts for repair.
For example- this is the lower closeout plate for the engine cradle, which is one of the things that will need to be replaced on my frame:
It's a pretty complex shape with those curves (which are not symmetric front/rear...). But the model is also lacking some pretty crucial features- there is a 'bump out' on either end of the wishbone-shape for where the LCA's attach to the structure above the plate so they can rotate down further than if it were missing the bump. On the stock frame, there are also 2 'bumped up' ribs (I'm blanking on the technical term for them) on each side to add bending strength to the flat sheet (if my structural engineering knowledge is correct) that are missing from the model as well. The latter is not as much of a concern- I'm likely to do what the DMCGo does and just weld on ribs/'fingers' instead of having to bump the metal out, but the relief for the LCA's will be needed- but can probably be easily added in. I'm guessing by simply cutting out the flat plate where they go and adding another bent 'cap' part that would be welded on- which is again how it looks like the reproduction part (shown below) does it.
Nice find! I'm not even sure you need an add-on to export a 3D PDF to a different format - I've extracted 3D models from a couple of PDFs (which we own the rights to) and I don't recall having to use any external or additional software. I do have the full-fat version of Acrobat, though.
That'll really help you with the frame modifications.
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