Lots of Work on Left Foot

Today was a long but fairly productive day. I mainly concentrated on the remaining things to be done for the left foot.

First, I had to hack off one of the fasteners on each motor, so that they will fit inside the foot shells and battery boxes.



I found that if I followed the H&A drivetrain blueprints exactly, then the motor would collide with the inner part of the edge of the foot shell. I needed to move the motor inside the foot shell, by sliding the motor mount toward the wheels by 5/16", recycling previous motor mount screw holes. That necessitated a couple of changes.

First, I had to hack into the front wheel housing, to allow the large, 22 tooth gear some room.



Second, I needed to drill a new hole in the main bar and the motor mount.



While I was working with the motors, I decided to modify one of the shaft adapters, to get it to fit snugly near the base of the motor shaft. With this modification, the shaft adapter screws on very close to the motor, and later I can drill a 1/8" hole through the middle of the shaft, and pin the whole thing with a 1/8" steel pin.



Next, I cut the side of Craig's battery box that faces the foot shell, to allow the motor to enter into it from the foot shell. It feels like I'm vandalizing a piece of art here, but it has to be done.



I needed to trim some material off of the motor mount to get it to fit into the battery box.



With some iterative fitting and sanding, I was able to get the battery box to mount perfectly on the foot shell, and get the overhang of the drivetrain to fit perfectly within the whole thing (foot shell and battery box).



The modifications to the drive train mean that I will have very little room to tension the chain, but hopefully what I have will be enough. Of course, I still need to build up the chain first...



Despite all the cutting I did on the foot shells and the battery box, none of that is visible to the outside world, which is a relief!