1994 Honda Civic Conversion to Electric: Front Battery Rack

Before I can mount the motor and transmission into the car I need to fabricate the front battery rack. It's much easier to put in the front rack without the motor/transmission. This is to ensure the rack and motor/transmission do not interfere and gives me more room to make the rack. I am following Tim Kutscha's blog, http://civic-ev.blogspot.com/ and his open source ev kit, http://groups.google.com/group/civic-ev-kit?pli=1, see it for detailed instructions.

Before beginning I highly recommend buying a good set of drill bits. I started this project using an old set I've had for years, mostly used for wood and plastic. Those bits quickly turned into dull metal sticks. I bought a nice set of cobalt bits and life is good again.

I am making the rack out of 2", 1.5" angle iron and 1" wide flat steel which I purchased from my local building supplier. The plan is to cut the 1.5" angle iron to 7" long, drill bolt holes and bolt to the front two tow hooks. The flat steel piece will be used as a vertical support. The 2" angle iron provides an anchor for the flat steel. The picture below is on the driver's side.

This is done on both sides of the cars.

Once the two side supports are in place I cut 1.5" angle iron to span the width, approximately 35 inches. I drilled holes and used 5/16" bolts with nylok nuts. These are spaced to the width of the batteries. Since I have not chosen a battery yet I only drilled and bolted the most forward angle iron. I'll wait to drill the holes for the other angle iron.