I updated http://www.evalbum.com/4841 with more information. Since I've had offline queries about my project, I thought I'd send an update for the records for the next person researching a conversion of this sort.
I had mentioned earlier that the "transmatic" belt-and-pulley CVT was very lossy, eating up 40A or more just to turn the transmission, no counting driving, mowing, or just turning the motor. I found out that the belts I bought weren't proper OEM replacements. Today I put in the MTD belts instead. The old belts were "deep V profile" and have a very sticky coating; the correct belts are "shallow V profile" with a smooth fabric coating. Now the belts use up 20A or less; they were a max of 20A the first moment I drove, before they had a chance to limber at all, and they seemed to get a bit better. Unfortunately, the bad belts caused some damage to the transmission, so it doesn't shift quite as smoothly, because the bad belts wouldn't entirely disengage. I know that this transmatic CVT is lossy; it's more lossy than a hydrostatic transmission let alone a fixed transmission. However, compared to the draw for mulching, the entire transmission loss is mostly around 10-15% and so I wouldn't gain a lot by going to a hydrostatic or fixed transmission. So I'm no longer in a hurry to find a hydrostatic or fixed glider to convert next winter. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
