Yugo Greg, Part III · 27 May 06

Last we looked in on our intrepid electric Yugo-naut he was trying to resurrect a dying motor. Despite his near-super powers the motor had its mind set on an early retirement.

To help the cause we gave Greg a free motor (well, free except for the crazy shipping fees). He has been breathing new life into his Yugo EV since.

The motor, as originally installed in Atom, had a belt drive on the shaft. Greg needed to make some changes to get it ready for his setup:

Today I took the motor apart and inspected the innards.The commutator had a dark look to it, but it cleaned up just fine. The brushes have hardly any wear on them. This motor has 8 brushes, where the old one had 4.

The bearings are fine as well.

Since this motor has a 1 1/8” diameter shaft, I had to get a new sprocket/hub setup. $10.00 items. I machined the drive end housing to be flat and match up with my original adapter plate. Then bored the plate to center the motor with the trans input shaft.

The end of the shaft doesn’t stick out as far as the other motor, so I eliminated one 1/2” spacer plate. I machined the bearing boss on the brush end housing, so a motor mount will fit on it square.

Wired the motor for CCW rotation and did a 12 volt run up on it. Runs fine and smooth. Sanded off some rust spots on the fields and the armature, but nothing major. The brush end mount will need to be adapted to the new size, but should not take long.

The motor went together fine and the machining for the adapter plate must have been good as it all slipped into the bellhousing just fine.

Machined the end housing for the mount, Also machined the mount plate for air circulation . How do you like the hospital hoist? Got it for $20.00 and it is all chrome.

Put the engine on a bucket and then reached in with the hoist, after letting the car down on the motor. I had to lengthen the braces but got in today. I need to drop the crossmember a bit. Shooting for test drive on Friday.

I had my Yuglet all buttoned up for a road test at noon today (May 19th). Putting the motor in didn’t require any major changes to the engine compartment.

I took it for a spin with a fully charged battery pack.

Top Speed in 5th gear = 35mph.
Total miles run before pack got low = 3 miles.

I guess I will have to add 2 more batteries to get up to 72 volts.

I would guess I am only getting about 4 HP with the 48 volt system. The controller is an Alltrex 4834 and rated at 300 amps. The battery pack, when fully charged, shows 60 volts. Motor temp was still room temp, after the test run.

Am thinking I should add the second battery pack and run a solenoid and diodes to give it a 72 volt shot while cruising. This would not affect the controller, but would get me up hills etc.

Great pickup from 0 to 30 in 4th gear.

I don’t know just how much my controller will handle. It is rated at 24/48 volts, but it handles 60 volts all the time, when batteries are fresh…

Great to see the motor put to good use and thanks for the update Greg. If you want more information on Greg’s Yugo here’s the first and second articles, along with his entry on the EVAlbum.

Copyright © Jerry Halstead 1995-2011