Our First Attempt to Build An Electric Amphibious Vehicle led to Miserable Results

easy easy [Music] oh yeah actually if you move that yeah and duck we could probably if you move just move that John I keep popping that's not empty Rich okay you know what Chad oh I want to put this down oh he's on he's on two wheels right now we just decided to pull the Argo Max into the shop Chad's working on what he knows how to do best carburetor Tings John is doing what he does best nothing always work on the Mini Cooper John's putting some air in the tires to see uh if they hold air with all that torque I think Ali was riding it and snapped one of the chains when the chains is missing but this works exactly how the shirt does a matter of fact it's actually owned by the same company now so we need to get a replacement chain like that one on this side this thing pulled pretty hard for only having like what five wheel drive yeah so are any of these wheels idlers or no but they all driven Wheels they're all driven Wheels man this is wild that was a wild time what an idea foreign [Music] all right what happened the Chain's grabbing something on there [Music] is a second I guarantee it I guess so because it's not a movement when I try to get down here [Laughter] what happened [Music] well well well what do we have here right now we have a stripped down Argo uh this is the bottom half and the top half with the fuel tank is on the other side next to the bike and this is actually very reminiscent of the sherp all chain drive here that's the uh the transfer case transmission whatever you want to call it and over here on this side is the 14 horsepower b-twin Vanguard at this point what I want to do is something similar to what I did with the Harley I want to take off this sprocket uh the drive belt shaft take that off and to put that on the electric motor so it could connect to this portion of the drivetrain before I had this in neutral like an idiot and I was spinning this over and over again wondering my hands were very ashy wondering why this wouldn't spin there you go boom you go with Ford and reverse and now it's uh it dries the actual chains over on this side we have to get a new chain over on this side a couple teeth are missing from that as well so so we have to run a new chain from here uh so this to the sixth wheel is actually still driven because without that wheel it's a dead wheel and when you try to turn it doesn't work so what I want to do now is attempt to get this uh belt sprocket off to mount it to the electric motor and also connect to here there goes the hair she goes there you go yep you're good let's let it happen so right now we're just uh dumping all the water out of the city El now you might remember a couple years ago we did the electric conversion on this or rather we upgraded the existing electrical conversion on this uh to run on several drill batteries uh unfortunately this city em at its demise I was rolled over so while we removed the top glass and right now we're just kind of harvesting the remainder of the components in here to do the Argo it's almost impossible to find parts for these all the parts are from people overseas that don't necessarily speak English and uh the import fees for a lot of these things like the body uh with the fiberglass body is a super out of control so what we need to do is uh we actually made this face plate already to fit on the motor we're going to use so we're going to attempt to remove this face plate to use on the Argo uh we're going to remove the remainder of the drill connections maybe we'll make this one drill power two maybe probably not honestly but unfortunately once we remove this this will render the city El useless because the the axle shaft goes through this so uh it's going to be a tough and sad time but uh you gotta do you got to do so hey Joey just gonna work up oh what do you think what's going on oh here it comes you do that every time I'm not going to give you the code to this place Linda how are you doing well fine but I feel offended I was doing better earlier anyways yeah so we're here what brings you to the area this time you wanted me to come in today you're looking for I definitely didn't say that no no no I I never I never would say something like that why is HPV back we already I already did a video on this you did yeah when we did it on the um remember on the water and you almost drowned that time um yes that was that was that was classic we actually found the copper come here I'll show you ready wait that was it that was it right there see that massive are you kidding me you're supposed to be a plug there that's what sanky the first time I almost lost my life over a freaking over a tiny little hole yeah yeah no that was yeah we went out pretty far that was pretty amazing and by we I mean you I watched you kind of go out there I had my life jacket on so that was okay I was I was very proud of you but yeah no this remember that old engine that was in there that was hard to start before so this giant Behemoth is out and we're gonna replace it with that electric motor that was originally in the city EO hi John John's behind you by the way I don't know where it's drunk I don't know where John came from [Laughter] I was actually kind of funny was he here but he was here the whole time John was there the whole time yeah so yeah you always do this so we're gonna try to make well you my assist making this electric yeah so we took that engine out and we're gonna make some custom brackets to fit this electric motor in here the problem with this electric motor is that usually there's like a base that it kind of goes on unfortunately with this motor it's like a face mount so it's like a side profile Mount so it's a little bit more tricky to do but only that but this bracket is aluminum and this is not aluminum and you can't weld the two so we gotta get we gotta get drill happy drill not supposed which is good because if we actually uh cut you don't really care about any of this but anyways yes I'm like why am I even going on I just want to make this like a pool because it's about to get hot yeah okay we can do it super Rusty so like I'll clean it yeah can you take all this stuff out and I'll just clean it and then we could turn it into a pool yeah yeah what I could do is I could take out everything that makes this an ATV and I could turn into a bathtub I could do that for you I want a pool oh I just said hot tub hot tub he just kind of he's gonna go away [Music] oh [Music] dude what oh the bearings bearings yeah shot me in the chest guess what but Joey has a safety glass too so it's fine that's why we wear safety goggles did Bray hit you in the chest it's like a BB gun Jesus John can't bring me anywhere John is a great asset to us at the Richmond builds Channel at the shop he does so much for us we're gonna give back to him by giving him a free haircut with our manscape trimmer let's go do it now thank you fully adjustable right there you can even remove the top of it for a closer shave what the now you're familiar with manscape for trimming the nether regions right well guess what the beard hedger trimmer has a powerful 7200 RPM Motor and a titanium coated t-blade that can cut through the thickest of hair in a single stroke that was one swipe One swipe whether you prefer a five o'clock shadow or a flowy Lion's maid you can choose from 20 different hair cutting lengths with the zoom wheel that only uses one guard this bear trimmer is waterproof cordless and rechargeable so you can trim in the shower to save time and create less mess you don't need to use the same trimmer anymore for your private as you do your face and no one really wants to do that ever there is even a dermatologist tested beard care products to help you grow and nourish a magnificent beard or Apache one that still looks and smells better than before manscape beard oils infused with sweet almond sunflower seed and jojoba seed oil whatever that is a jojoba jojoba who knows so get a beard hedger kit it comes with all these goodies like shampoo conditioner oil bomb travel case and a gift to help you get more Olive Garden dates simply go to manscape.com today and get a 20 off plus free shipping when you use promo code richr at checkout that's 20 off plus free international shipping with promo code richranscape.com so I'm looking at the old footage of the Argo and I realized something why am I wasting so much time trying to make a belt drive and keeping the stuff when there's literally already a sprocket shaft on the transmission and I'm sure it's a common size so I took the belt sprocket combination off and I measured it with the digital caliper and sure enough it is a common size 22.6 millimeters is the shaft size so if I go on the industrial supply store it's local to me's website and go to sprockets let's see I want to fix bore I want a 50 Series chain if I do the math 22.6 millimeters to inches is about 0.889 and if you paid attention in math class that mostly closely corresponds to 7 8. ideally I like to have a larger sprocket but those weren't available for pickup and it would take a week to ship so let's get a more common sized tooth okay got this one ordered the socket it should be ready in an hour let's take the Hellcat I also want to talk about how awesome this car is I don't talk enough about the Hellcat but the sounds that this thing makes are just amazing listen to this [Music] it's funny because when people are in front of you they hear the supercharger wine they always look in their rear view mirror and a lot of the times they actually pull over at the side of the road because I don't know what's behind them again what an awesome piece of Machinery this is I can't get enough of this okay I got the chain [Music] let's see if my measurements are correct [Music] like a glove these are out from the bottom of the motor and these are going to support the brackets for the new electric drivetrain so these are actually really important if you go over here thank you so right here it's interesting I didn't think they would have rubber isolated mounts but that's a really smart idea because that thing vibrates like crazy I'm sure but there's nice rubber isolated mounts so it doesn't transfer the rest of the body we have these so hold straight up can I get in your way again yes please okay [Music] hey the big question is now where do you mount the batteries so I was thinking this answer is obvious right you mount them to the side but thinking about it do we want the batteries that low because we have to test this thing in water trying looking good yeah it looks nice man thank you I want to open this up uh separate the plastic from the heat sink just to make sure that no water got on the inside of this because if water gets on the inside of this and it's not going to work there doesn't seem to be much corrosion around these terminals that's slightly concerning for either way I want to get inside to make sure that we're not going to run any problems later whatever you do oh this is clean it was clean baby and it's clean yeah that was just that was just external surface rust couldn't I seal to it dude look at that this is a really nice seal in case you want to see the inside of this that's a really nice Rubber seal so this looks really good I'm gonna put the top back on seal it back up and then send it up all right get your gloves on I gotta work foreign what is that my charger bag isn't it cute this is a fanny pack no it's a shoulder bag what's in here I don't care what's in it I mean there's a strict Rule now there's a new rule Since You've Been Gone no fanny packs or shoulder bags I'm sorry Linda I'm sorry it's Gotta Go sh I'm sorry it is trash sorry kiddo it's time so what almost perfect look at that oh that's pretty close that's pretty close usually would use our laser level for this but we don't know what that is this is pretty much good to go my only concern I was kind of hemming and hawing about this not being a large enough sprocket but I think the the power of the motor and the RPM that they can achieve will definitely you know make up for that so we'll do that I'm gonna get another sprocket here just in case just so we're not wasting time kind of fledging back and forth but I also have to go into controller settings and set this to go to Max RPM which is about 6 000 which it actually might already be there from the city El so I think we're kind of in pretty good shape also the orientation of this is already spinning forward so I don't have to go into any of the uh reverse and forward settings on this so I think we're we're doing pretty good so far pretty good not bad for a budget and it's got some tools ready to I need to how to get the uh I got some gloves Linda Linda Linda [Music] is it an on button for you somewhere oh hey hey Linda hey what you need the yeah all right so we're clearing some space out in the shop uh right now the hovercraft is getting loaded up to head to Matt and I have to take care of the city El I probably have to cut that up in pieces and uh here's the hovercraft right here getting taken away oh do you ever steer or smack us and say that's not going anywhere that's that's not going anywhere that's not going anywhere that's not going anywhere I'm not going anywhere yeah smack it man that's awesome I'm gonna try that yeah that's how you know the load's secure exactly even D.O.T is going to ask you hey did you flick it and say it's not going anywhere you say no they'll find you yep that's dude that's that's faster than my house I mean I'm not super tall you know yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah lay right across there oh that's awesome that feet right here head oh insulation for stuff no one could see you see yeah that's cool anyone ever harass you uh no no I've never had an issue [Music] [Music] foreign hard part about troubleshooting things like this now because this is mostly electronic it makes it slightly easier to troubleshoot you get warning lights on the control that corresponds to certain codes that you can get to diagnose what's going on with the controller unfortunately this control that I use in the city El isn't giving me any signs of life there's no flashing Arrow lights there's really nothing when I hook it up directly to the battery usually what happens when it gets 72 or 96 volts you'll get the display light and it'll tell you hey the wiring harness is not connected it'll give you some life unfortunately I'm not getting anything out of this one what we're going to do next is I'm going to swap in a different control that I happen to have hook up the battery to that to see whether or not I can get life out of that controller [Music] okay well this was fun unfortunately I've determined that this motor is in fact bad this will not freely spin anymore unless I give it a death gorilla grip and even then it barely turns as it is at first I thought it was the spacing of the motor from the back plate uh so I loosened all the bolts just to make sure it wasn't pressing um against the sprocket but it is not in fact doing that this controller works fine for some reason the other control did not work I feel like everything from this the city El unfortunately did not work and these are the games we play you know these are the things that you run into when you're trying to build something and unfortunately most of this equipment did not work uh this did work this larger controller the smaller controller did not work that motor does not work so unfortunately it seems like we have to upgrade to a larger motor to make this thing actually work either that or I could reach out to the company to get a replacement unit motor and controller just to give you guys ahead of what we do here there's more multiple batteries we tested all these batteries these work fine the second thing we were going to try was using drill batteries again unfortunately that is not going to work because these provide a much higher amp amp hour rating than these smaller drill batteries but even still I'm kind of bummed I feel like I let you guys down unfortunately I really want to get the wheel spinning on this to see if we could test the uh the chain rocket sizes to see if we could get decent acceleration out of it this will have to wait the following week while I work out the motor and controller issues unless I upgraded the Harley motor unfortunately that's a very very large motor as a lot of weight and I think it actually may overpower this system that we have to redesign this entire plate so I thought it was going to go well it didn't go well unfortunately but again these are the things we run into sometimes what's up guys I'm really really sorry about this week I really wish I could have got it going for you guys unfortunately something came up with the controller and motor and it didn't work out that way but I appreciate you guys watching anyways it's gonna wait till the following week because right now I am in Florida with Florida man there is a man in the parking lot he is uh drinking a beer uh Barefoot and he's also um smoking a cigarette these are the people I am with right now so I'll see you guys next week

Channel: Rich Rebuilds

Views: 223,312

Keywords: tesla, cars, teardown, mechanical, salvage, rebuild, how, to, fix, whats, inside, ev, repair, electric, vehicle, how to fix a tesla, salvage repair, 6 Wheel Drive

Id: q_Gx8pT7wtw

Length: 22min 59sec (1379 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 30 2023