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Let's get to work!


Today’s the day.

22.2.22, or 22022022, equally good.  But the big news is project EV-750 has begun.  It’s day we got to work!  This is the first time a screwdriver was used in anger.  The first job, shed some of the weight.  In particular the aim of the day: take out the rear seats and a few easy to remove bits from the boot area.  We had no parcel shelf or spare wheel when we acquired the vehicle.  Who knows, maybe the previous owner also liked to remove weight.


We had some scales to weigh the components upon removal.  That charger kit in the boot weighs 4.7kg so out it comes along with the rear floor mats and the what I'm going to call the bottom boot shelf.  Below you can see the a compartment for the jack, tyre change kit and a bottle of tyre sealer.  So that along with the cover it is removed.


There is another little lid in the boot area, this one reveals the top of the rear strut.  Obviously that is just one more item to slow the car down when it accelerates, brakes or corners so that has to go too!  There is no gain to small.

Meanwhile Mr Tester has taken more trim off and revealed an interesting assembly /bulkhead/panel (below), there are strong suspicions what lies underneath is the on-board charger that we know lives somewhere within the rear of the car.


Time to remove the rear seats, it took a while to figure it out but the base of the seats actually just pull out vertically.  There are a couple of strong clips but they can be defeated by force.  For the back seat-parts, each has a couple of bolts to undo on each side.  There is a little panel by the seatbelts on each side that hides the bolts.



The center seatbelt is part of one of the seat assemblies and also it bolts to the floor.  It was removed with the seats.


We are now officially achieved what we intended to do, but the cover behind the rear seats is just too tempting to remove given the small number of bolts and the mystery lurking below it.


He's smiling because technology is what makes him happy.


So what we have revealed is the on-board charger on the left.  Bright orange high voltage wiring in the middle and some other powertrain components on the right which we will study later on.


At this point it's rude not to remove the panel on the other side.  It's just a few M10 bolts, literally no bother.  We need to treat any high voltage running gear with the lots of respect.


So then, how much weight have we removed?


In no particular order:

Charger lead kit 4700g
Seat belt socket plugs 422g
Bracket for seat belts 1272g
Jack 1969g
Jack kit bag 1291g
Bottle of tyre sealant 597g
Small interior trim parts (covers) 302g
Aluminum on-board charger guard 1403g
Boot bottom shelf 947g
2 x Rear mats 717g
Miscellaneous (toys and screws) 61g
Trim (on-board charger cover boot side) 1277g
Trim (on-board charger cover rear seat side) 1068g
3 x Rear headrests 1248g
Bottom rear seat 4700g
Small rear seat 7900g
Larger rear seat 12400g

Total: 42.2kg

Around the weight of an adult baboon.  It's a solid start, and not bad for an hour's work.

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