Here is a quick update to keep you all in the loop. It’s late and I need to be up early for the transport delivery so ‘ll warn you now that you may find a few typos here.
I hear that my Tesla was on a truck in Seattle today and is supposed to be delivered tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. I’m excited to get it! Of course I haven’t been completely idle waiting for it to get here. I ordered and received a Tesla Universal Mobile Connector so I can charge it as soon as it arrives. I’m still awaiting the Tesla jacket I ordered but I’m glad they shipped the important things first. I also got the extra key and the J1772 adaptor from the previous owner. Thanks Joe!
I’ve been doing rough planning for the last few months. One of the critical dimensions involves fitting the almost 28″ tall Tesla tires under the Vanagon front end without jacking the van up higher than it already is. I’d prefer it to be lower to match the lost ground clearance. The Stretch had Syncro (4WD) suspension with a low of 9″ of clearance while the Tesla I measured on the “Very High” setting was 6″. I also hope to avoid having the top of the front suspension strut higher than the bottom of the front seats, as that could get rather uncomfortable. I’ve attached an image that I made to check out how it may fit (above). Being low tech at times like this I just printed up scaled photos of the two vehicles, cut the Tesla one in half and put them on a small light box that was handy. So far it looks good, but it’s going to be tight. I’ll take a long look at the rear brakes when the Tesla gets here to see if there is any way to drop the wheel size down to 18″. In that case I might use use a 245/45-18 like the Conti PureContact with an OD of 26.7″ allowing the whole Tesla pan to sit higher in the van. I’m trying to avoid any lower profile sidewalls since even these are pushing it for the rocky dirt roads that the Stretch likes to visit.
Yesterday Tony and Brandon came down from Portland to pull the TDI engine and Porsche transaxle from the Stretch. Tony has plans for them in his own Westfalia and I’m happy to have them out of the way. Since mine was running well before it threw a rod, with all the wiring, intercooler and custom transmission mounts it should give him a good head start on his project. I’ve been preheating the floor of the Garage Mahal just for this event and I’m glad I did since we’ve had record cold and snow buildup here in Corvallis. The attached 3 minute video covers about 7 hours of work.
That’s it for now,
-Otmar
Yay! Looks great Otmar! That time-lapse turned out really good.
Thanks Brandon, I liked the result as well. I cut most of the slow periods and was about to post it without sound when I noticed YouTube offers audio tracks. Not bad for the very short time I spent on it. 🙂
Hiya Ot- The time lapse was fun! I’m a video editing noob. Was the time-lapse a feature of your camera or of your video editing s/w? cheers, Andrew
Hi Andrew, I’m just learning this stuff. I started with a GoPro, but the files are huge, cards fill up and I got tired of waiting for things to process. The alternate I used is a Brinno TLC200 time lapse camera set at 2 seconds per frame. It was quick and easy. I loaded the Brinno file into iMovie and selected the less boring parts. At 6 minutes it was still too slow so I doubled the speed before exporting it directly to youtube. Youtube then gave me the option of adding music.
I am sure you have seen Bernd Jaeger’s custom syncro ralleybus. He seems to have the wheel clearance you might need. Here sare some pice I posted this evening, including one of his custom frame and suspension – although from a distance. But I am sure he would be happy to share. He’s the only other person to have grafted a T3 body onto a different vehicle that I am aware of.
http://syncro.org/syncro-news/