Drilling new holes
I decided that I definitely wanted to fix the orientation of the holes that mate the motor plate and the transmission plate. I opted to have a machine shop do that, since the alignment of these holes is critical. I took it down to a cool shop here in town, Martin Willis – The Machine Shop. The gentleman that helped me is in the middle of the photo on their front page. I gave him a $50 bill, and he drilled the proper holes for me.
Leaf motor adapter plate
Other Parts
I will be using an M10x1.5 tap for mating the two plates. Fine threads in aluminum make me nervous, so I opted for some beefier ones. I picked up some M10x1.5x150mm threaded rods on Amazon. One end will thread into the motor plate, while the other will pass through the transmission plate. A nut on that end and some Loctite on both ends will keep everything mated. This all has to wait for the shaft coupler, however, which should be shipped at the end of the month. I will dry-fit everything and take a few pictures so that you can see what it will look like.
One last thing…
I was planning on using second and third gears for this conversion, but Paul has agreed to flesh out field weakening in his software. I will help him test it, but it will allow us to increase the speed of the motor beyond what the voltage would normally allow. This will let me stay in second gear the entire time by simply spinning the motor faster. No shifting!