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Land Rover 88" Series 2A, Nissan Leaf conversion.

21K views 49 replies 13 participants last post by  dcproven  
#1 ·
Hi, I will describe my Land Rover conversion using Nissan Leaf parts from a Junk Yard in Norway. It is a 1970 Series 2A 88" SWB Land Rover.
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It all started in Mars 2021 when I first bought the vehicle.
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Petrol engine and gearbox working fine but the chassis were heavily corroded and I had to order a new one from the UK.

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Engine and gear box are easy to remove once the body is lifted... The gearbox wasn't clean after 50+ years...

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I had the body hanging so I could lift it up and down when I was trying out different setups for battery and drive train. This made it much easier to realize what worked and what didn't since I don't have such advanced tools as 3D scanner or CAD program, yet. I think I have lifted the body a hundred times by now!! 😅
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One of may trials with carbon boxes trying to figure out how much batteries I can fit under the bonnet.
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New galvanized chassis arrive from the UK.
 
#6 ·
Welcome.
this will be is a nice conversion to follow.
Wath will you do with gearbox.
Thanks, I don't know yet. I am struggling allot with the transmission solution still and will come back to that later in this thread. You can see some of the discussion in the "Land Rover 1965" thread. It will be either:
  • Double motor
  • Motor direct to transfer
  • The Nissan Leaf gear box mounted alongside with changed gear ratio.
 
#14 ·
Now back to the discussion about the transmission. I have been struggling with this for a while and are currently looking at three different solutions:
First the Transfer case solution. I have a LT 230 box that can be renovated and set up with 1,67:1 high and 3,3:1 low gear. It is also shorter than the original transfer case. (not lighter?)
It also features the normal diff lock and hand brake. (I would replace it with a disc brake. I have here made a rough line up in the frame and could either connect it with a motor through a torque tube from the front or rear using the PTO. (Not both at the same time!).
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The motor ends up in the engine bay if mounted in the front. (With less space for batteries as a result.)
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Or under the middle seat if it is mounted behind the transfer case and connected to the PTO. As you can see it will not be trivial to connect the 3 phases to it. As I see it there is not space enough to lay down the motor on the side either? (turn 90 degrees.)
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The LT 230 box is also hard to fit. I might have to lower it more which means lower the beam underneath it.

This setup with one motor either in the front or rear, would give me the following spec:

Max motor speed
5 000​
rpm
Max motor torque
250​
NM
Transfer gear Low
3,3​
to 1
Transfer gear high
1,67​
to 1
F/R axle
4,7​
to 1
Wheel circumference
2,5​
m
Vehicle max speed L/H
48​
96​
km/h
Wheel shaft torque L/H
3 878​
1 962​
NM

The top speed and output torque are OK, I think. It's at least similar to the original 2nd low and 1st high.
(A reduction gearbox could be added between motor and transfer case. Torque box for example but is not necessary, as I see it? Less parts => less problem, and cost!)

Disadvantages:
Are the space needed and weight added as well as the losses in the transfer case. I see some challenges to line up and connect the motor and transfer case How to transfer torque between motor and transfer case without having them to twist too much in opposite direction, (torque tube?) and avoid unbalance at the same time, (@ 5 000 rpm input to transfer) ?

Advantages:
Ability to use low gear and diff lock. Also Hand brake is relative easy to connect. Maybe even the speedometer output can be used?
 
#15 ·
Hey Tor, yeah it would be nice if you could drop everything down 10cm or so. But it looks like those cross members are not cooperating ;( and you don’t think you’d want to start modifying that new chassis. Does your new chassis have a bolt on transmission cross member? As for the LT230 I think the advantages still outweigh the disadvantages unless you want to use both motors 🤔
 
#18 ·
It may be worth you looking at Rakeway , they make all manner of stuff to bolt on to LT230s, but probably not cheap.

I would try to avoid raising the seats up if you can, i'm only 5'10 tall and my head is close to my roof, as well as the bottom of the big steering wheel being close to your..err..thighs 🤣 remember the bottom of the seatbox has a lip that holds the floor plate too. Nothing's impossible with enough effort though of course 👍
 
#21 ·
I have been playing around with the EM57 motors in the frame again. Looking for a way to fit one motor for each axle.
Since the front / rear axles are in a different work shop for renovation at the moment I couldn't test out how the prop shafts would look like. But I believe that the rear one will be rather short with a steep angle and there will not be enough space for a reduction gearbox. Unless it's a LWB (which my series IIA isn't). The newer 2*320 Nm motors would be to prefer to get enough wheel torque in that case.
Alternatively could the rear motor be suspended to line up with the axle somehow to allow it to move up and down. 🤪
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The front one still needs to come further down in order to let the body rest on the frame.

Another crazy idea would be to flip the rear axle over so the rear offset is to the left instead of right and fit both motors under the mid seat. This would still mean that the rear prop is very short and the front very long...
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Double motor 320NmFrontRear
Motor max speed
10 500​
10 500​
rpm
Motor torque
320​
320​
Nm
Reduction gear
1​
1​
to 1
F/R axle
4,7​
4,7​
to 1
Wheel max speed L/H
2 234​
2 234​
rpm
Wheel circumference
2,5​
2,5​
m
Vehicle max speed L/H
335​
335​
km/hTotal torqueTotal power
Wheel shaft torque L/H
1 504​
1 504​
Nm
3 008​
300​

Disadvantages
Requires 40 kWh battery to avoid power surge at full throttle.
Requires 2*320 Nm motors (I only have 2*250 Nm available at the moment.) 🤑🤑🤑
Not that high wheel torque, if no reduction gear is fitted.
Advantages:
No diff lock needed! 😆
No problem to keep up on the highway! 🤣
Very efficient with low losses!
40 kWh => pretty long range!

I think this is something for future projects! If I ever build a tough Defender 110" or Toyota Land Cruiser !?
 
#22 ·
Hey Tor, looks like you’ve spent a lot of time shuffling things around. Too bad nothing seems to be ideal. What now? I did like Jens idea of using the one ton transfer case and removing all the clutch/flywheel and gears except 4th. In our case use the stock gearbox/transfer case and only run 3rd. That would give you a 7.45 final ratio? Although I still like the LT230 if it can be done cleanly😉
 
#25 ·
Hi Chris,
Yes, I agree! Seems like nothing fits and it wont fall in place like a jig saw puzzle how much I ever turn the pieces around. If not for the third option. The one that uses the Leaf box as a transfer case with changed gear ratio from 8.1:1 => 4.x:1. I know it's a long shot, will take forever and a month and cost a fortune. But what the heck! I want to build more than one Leaf driven 4*4 and there might be others out there who want the same! Why not try to find the best and most efficient way of doing it? I think it's worth trying at least!
Here is how it could look like.

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It might be possible to move it further to the front with the cable connections just inside the engine bay. I will try to simulate that next time.

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Nissan box with new gear wheel
Motor speed
10 500​
rpm
Motor torque
254​
Nm
Gear ratio
4,35​
to 1
F/R axle
4,7​
to 1
Wheel max speed
514​
rpm
Wheel circumference
2,5​
m
Vehicle max speed
77​
km/h
Wheel shaft torque
5 193​
Nm

I know some people may say 10500 rpm is way too high revs for the EM57 motor. Has there been accidents due to this? If I have counted correct this is the max speed for the Leaf with 150 km/h?
If this is the case, what is safe rpm for continuous speed for that motor?
I don't want to drive the old series IIA Land Rover any faster than 80 km/h. It will bounce off the road! 🤣

Disadvantages:
Allot of work, time and money to develop the first gear wheel set.
No diff lock. (If no ATB is implemented)

Advantages:
Long prop shafts with favorable angle.
Less space needed!
Low weight
Low transmission losses
Silent (compared to the old transfer case.)
Possible to implement reduced slip diff. (ATB)?
 
#26 ·
I’m currently working on stub flanges and a replacement gearset for the leaf gearbox to use it as a transfer case. There’s talks of getting a quaife ATB made for the leaf diff aswell.

There’s a case where the rotor expanded and came in contact with the stator. This was from pushing high rpm and power out of the motor. I’ll dig up the post.
 
#42 ·
I have a project coming up with a nissan leaf going into a landrover, anyone got adapter plate cad drawings ? and spline specs. Ive only just started the looking for parts, will use a RippleTech rippletech REV controller. but now looking at the mechanics.
Luck has it, I just started making the first initial batch of Landrover adapter plates.

working with a few folks on fitting the full leaf stack (motor, inverter, pdm) the pdm has some over hange so additional backspacing is needed. But with out pdm it’s simple.

Landrover plate: https://bratindustries.net/product/landrover-series-adapter-plate/