Maggie is becoming an EV

THESE ARE PERSONAL PAGES I AM USING TO CHRONICLE THE MAJOR STEPS IN MY EV CONVERSION.  

Maggie is a 1955 MG Magnette ZA which i saw for sale.  I immediately fell in love with.  She's beautiful. 

Maggie is an unusual MG and a variety that I characterize as an experiment as MG was trying to determine what was in its future.  As a 4-door, it stands out in the MG line if one looks back to the 1950's.  There were several models.  I had the first, a "ZA".  It's not much larger than a modern MGB.  

I had seen pictures of 4-door MG's in the past.  Before Maggie, I already owned a '67 MGB and a '55 MG-TD.  The 4-door models I had seen were like little station wagons.  Maggie is totally different, although not much bigger than an MGB.

After purchasing Maggie I found out that she was the subject of much chatter on the web.  The chat started with questions about the model.  The front fenders turn out to be from a later model ZB.  As I got into working on her, I found curious details.  An example would be that the engine serial number plate had been cut off.  Many things had been tampered with or broken.  And then that silly looking fender mirror.  At least I had a good title.

But here's the real start of the story:  I decided to convert Maggie to an EV, an electric vehicle.  I did some research on sourcing, and made a decision to put my trust in EV West, Inc.  Founded in 2014, I liked a lot I could see on their website.  I liked the discussions I had with the marketing department.  The selection of what must become a partner to my project was really personal matter.  If the reader is thinking of a similar project, I'll leave the selection of a vendor(s) to the reader's own personal selection.

​EVW recommended that I read "Convert It!" which I did.  I have both the soft cover edition as well as the Kindle version.

I made inquiries and came to select EV West as the source of a kit of that I could use.  They provided custom adapter services as well as all the parts I would need to install an electric motor and the required support components.

​The kit included the exact components shown in the schematic below.  The salesman had a bill of materials that exactly matches the schema with one exception.  I used the schema to check of the items received and I discovered the shipment apparently missed the 12V contactor.  I was told that the engineers determined the kit only needs one contactor and the schema would updated at some time in the future.  This worked for me.

The copy of the schematic is what I used to check each line of the invoice below.  This was where I determined that the components purchased were exactly what was pictured in the schematic. With the note regarding the 12V contractor, the match was perfect and this will serve as my assembly and wiring guide. ​

This is the main invoice data which transcribed into this spreadsheet form so I could number each line and make the schematic with the number.  

I decided not to show the item prices here.  The current prices for these components from EV West is on their web site.  The total of this page was $17,018.83.  With shipping, battery boxes, adapters and tools, I'm into the project just over $23,000. ​

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