[tylerwatts]

Congrats gdirwin
Any chance of some pics of the head unit above and docking please? Thanks

 

[tylerwatts]

Awesome news. Really love your build. It's been a long standing inspiration and I'd love to build a Rav myself some day.

Cheers

Tyler

 

[tylerwatts]

A Nissan LEAF EM57 motor is very small and compact. Not sure if it will fit nicely in there with the t-case however. There is a lot of aluminum casting that could be cut off to slim it down also. See the photos below:

That wouldn't clear the transfer case unfortunately, the max was around 8" but you could build a tunnel to move the motor over if the motor were short enough, though I don't believe a Leaf motor is.

I've wanted to convert a Rav4 for years though I'd go twin motor for AWD but if I kept the trans I'd fit something like a VW GTE electric motor inside the bell housing in a water cooled housing, no clutch and probably only keep 2nd and 4th gear, reduce resistance etc in the gearbox. But there a fair bit of machining work.

cheers
Tyler

 

[tylerwatts]

Thanks Electric Land Cruiser for posting the pictures. Now I know it's not too long and I can run reduction gears between the motor and transmission. Which will push the motor over enough to clear the transfer case. Thankfully I work in a shop with machining capability.

Tyler, removing unnecessary parts from transmission is possible? I was thinking that way also. As for motor choice the used EV selection is limited in Canada. We have only had Leaf and Tesla for any length of time, most of the others didn't have a presence here until recently. I want to use an existing EV system for reliability and hopefully simplicity. For the money I have to put into this I could have bought a compliance Rav4EV from California back in 2019, but no AWD. Current RavEV prices are ridiculous for a 10 year old car. But we don't do this for saving money do we, it's for the challenge.

@94Tracker I'm very curious of your plans, would you mind starting your own thread so we don't pollute Mr gdirwin's thread here? Love to chat with you there.

cheers
Tyler