For reasons explained in the pre-work section of this web-site, I ended up with a drive-train design that has 2 Siemens Azure motors in tandem. To make that work in the original setup they have to connect into the original drive-shaft, and that means I had to Siamese-twin the motors. That is actually really complex, because these motors were never designed/built to accommodate that.

The short version of the story is that I found a coupler that mated to the spline on the output-shaft of the Siemens motor, and I figured out how to cut that same spline into the back-side of the shaft on motor #2. I don’t recommend anyone try this at home, it was very not fun, but I got it there. I also made a mating adapter plate so I could bolt the motors together, and it is the exact thickness needed to “hide” the spline adapter. The combination looks like

Then I added the (bolt-on) TorqueBox gear-reduction unit, and the whole power-plant looks like

To make this happen, the motors are supported in the middle where they join up and at the gearbox end (and they’re in with anti-vibration mounts etc). There is no support at the front of the car / at the back-end of the secondary motor. Theoretically this is all fine, and at the same time it does make me nervous. If the motors get out of line with the drive-shaft, it could start to try and make the motors “fling around”, and that would be the end of that chapter. I don’t see how they could / why they would, but the doubt lingers. In the mean time, for now, it is all in place and looking solid.

That motor/gearbox setup, just by its lonesome, is a little over 46.5″ (1.20 meters) long. Because, on a project like this, you’re working with Other People’s Parts, you’re also stuck with Other People’s Dimensions, and fitting a powerplant this long was actually really tight, even on a car that’s the size of an aircraft carrier. Cutting the driveshaft etc would go against the no-hacksaw premise, so it has to fit between the first U-joint in the driveshaft and the steering bits in the front of the car. I got it to all fit by literally 0.4″ (1.1 centimeter) which is really an achievement considering everything I had to stack together.

The bracket/frame installed overtop of the motor is for the front battery box. It also holds the hydraulic pump for the power steering (large black one, top left) and the vacuum pump for the power brakes (small grey one, bottom right. By the time all of the power cables and coolant hoses get routed through this space it will be seriously crowded, but it’s looking sharp right now.