[VintageVolts]

Hi Folks,
Long time lurker and learner here from the UK (South Wales), thought i'd start documenting my build as it slowly progresses.

The vehicle:
a 1961 Land Rover 88" Series 2 - bought brand new by my grandfather in 1961, then was passed down to my late father in the 80's, and on to me in 2009 where i stripped it back to the chassis and rebuilt it.

Here's one of my favourite pictures of it doing what it does best, i.e. being awesome! This was after arriving home from rescuing my sister during the 'Beast from the East' in... 2018 i think it was.

We've been pretty much everywhere in it including a guelling LEJOG and then the "North Coast 500" in Scotland a few years ago, and probably hundreds of camping trips.
Over the years it's had various different engines:

1. Left the factory with a 2.25 petrol,
2. Dad fitted a 2.8 V6 petrol Cologne engine in it in 1990-ish,
3. I fitted a 2.5NA Diesel (cheap insurance at the time), as well as:
4. 300TDi (great engine, not bad speed but noisy as hell)
5. Essex V6 3.0 which i built EFi for using the Speeduino/Arduino platform, my build for that conversion is here on the speeduino forum. This is a pretty rapid engine but to be honest too fast for what it's in... the more you rev it the more power it seems to give, and it just gets scary. lol. It's also now extremely expensive to run! Also quite loud, and the engine weighs a ton being cast iron everything. I also have a stubby R380 gearbox squuzed in there.

I have disc brakes using the now defunct (as far as i know) YakYak classics conversion kit (defender discs, discovery calipers) and P38 power steering (range rover). So it's basically 99% original...
This is where my next adventure begins... A background from me - i work with 'smart buildings' mainly with comms including with lithium / other weird chemistry battery installations in grid connected buildings, so have a basic/fair idea of how not to burn my fingertips. Also am a keen CAD user as i also make prototype stuff at work - obviously Electric Vehicles are a whole new frontier for me so that's why i'm here! We have a bunch of different EV cars and vans at work so am familiar with the good and 'bad' bits of EV driving and charging.


As my Landy has an LT230 i started looking at ways to drive the transfer box directly with a motor rather than leave the original gearbox in place - this should leave me with a lot more room under the bonnet for a larger battery pack, with the motor tucked away somewhere in the transmission tunnel. I'll also save weight as the R380 is fairly hefty.

I like the look of the Hyper 9HV & controller, and see that Jaunt Electric Videos (YouTube vid) has used a hyper9, as well as This kit from Evolution Australia.

I've currently got a 1.667 ratio LT230 on my workbench which i'm rebuilding. This, coupled with my 3.54:1 diffs and 215/85/R16 tyres should give the following gearing in high range - see the MPH column i've added to the left in an expert way: basically 1mph is 66rpm at the motor.

I expect to mostly use the Landy for commuting the 15 minutes / 7 miles to work, which means doing either 30mph or just under 70 which i currently do. I don't need it to be a rocket ship - i am aware this car is a tin shed on wheels, and it can already go extremely fast, but i just choose not to go that fast as i get older (wiser!). We also use the landy for camping, and christmas shopping where people are free to slam their car doors into my battered doors. lol


To make a start and because i needed a huge paperweight i decided to 3D print a full size dual shaft Hyper 9DHV motor, i like to have something hands on to chuck around with a tape measure in the other hand:

Needs some sanding or whatever but it certainly does the job!

To drive the LT230 from the motor requires a shaft adapter which i've drawn up and will hopefully get a quote for in the coming days. If anyone knows the exact spline designation for the R380 / LT77 mainshaft please speak up but i'm quite sure i've got it measured correctly. Shaft connector mockup:

Measured the spline profile of a brand new shaft with a Keyence VHX-7000 microscope, which measures surface topography of 'stuff'. a very cool machine.


Back in the world of CAD i've got an assembly with a pre-prototype adapter plate and shaft converter:

Cutaway view: (are you bored of pictures yet? apologies). Aiming for the shaft converter to be a transition fit on to the keyed shaft, and held in place with the purple cap head bolt. Needs to be tight enough to stay concentric but not so tight that you can never get it off.

Now, i was a bit worried about the shaft coupler not being meaty enough but a stress simulation (in Autodesk Inventor 2022) at 2000NM i.e. 10x max motor torque shows the 300M steel nowhere near its yield point, so this is good news. This simulation has motor torque applied at the keyway, and reactive torque applied on the surface of the splines.

Also(!) the ZF gearbox to LT230 adapter used in some older range rovers(i.e. this ) has much thinner walls as well as sharp splines inside so we can only be on a winner here...!


To do in the short term: - get my LT230 to a CMM in the next few days, luckily my distant colleagues have one so i may shoot a few emails off tomorrow. So far i've measured the LT230 holes with a good set of calipers, verifying measurements as best i can with a laser cut 'gasket', but a CMM will tell us for sure:

as for remaining hardware such as batteries, i'd like to use Tesla batteries as used in other Hyper 9 installs, I like the Tesla packs as they're water cooled and seem to be popular. As for BMS i'm leaning towards the Orion with the little cell breakout boards, but simpBMS has been mentioned too, and is less wiring -more googling required.

Charging: I really want to go down the 'smaller battery pack with quicker charger' design route but so far haven't found a solution above 6.6kW. CCS seems out of the window as my max battery voltage is going to be 144V to suit the Hyper 9 HV controller, i.e. the SME AC-X144 - and CCS minimum DC voltage is 200V at this moment in time. I see the Tesla Gen2 charger is 10kW or so but i don't think CAN is implemented just yet. It'll be a while before i have the cash to buy chargers, BMS and batteries so there's plenty of time to learn yet!

Thanks to those who have answered my questions on other posts here, and thanks to all of you who have taken the time to make youtube videos.
Cheers
Tom

 

[VintageVolts]

Hi Andrew,
I have a Makerbot Replicator 2, it's quite an old machine now but is a super reliable beast! its build plate is 285 x 153mm, and can print 155mm tall. This was printed in PLA and stuck together with superglue.

I have put the STLs i made on Thingiverse - Netgain Hyper 9 DHV Motor . Just for reference, the manufacturers CAD files are here on go-ev , so all credit to them!
At time of writing, Thingiverse doesn't seem to have actually published my thing (it 404s), so fingers crossed it appears soon.

On the build front - I'm waiting on a quote for manufacturing the shaft, and have ordered a waterjet cut blank of the adapter plate where i can bore out the center to final size and drill/tap holes as needed. This should be in hand by early february, fingers crossed.

 

[VintageVolts]

Ok, so, a small update!
Bought myself a vertical milling machine which needed a bit of TLC, And got a chunk of Aloominum (6082T6) Water jet cut locally so i could make my own adapter plate:

Lots of double checking on the DRO later and we had this

I'm tremendously pleased with it for a number 1 prototype, it mounts up really nicely to the transfer box. I have to mill a pocket out to allow one of the bolts to be tightened up from the side and i may add a small through hole to allow oil to drip out if the oil seal ever starts leaking (it's a land rover after all...)

.


I've also completed a City & Guilds level 3 training course for EV & Hybrids, this was really helpful on the theory side of things, and the place i went to do the training at (ZeroEV near Bristol, UK) were excellent. I got to ask tons of questions about my conversion and got some real honest, down to earth advice. So i recommend them!!

I also showed my adapter plate off and they gave me the chance to fit it to a real Hyper 9! Pleased to say it fits, and the bore in my adapter plate is a really nice and snug transition fit

The dude i've asked to give me a quote for machining the shaft adapter is really busy so i may as well get the tooling and make that myself too.

The quest continues

Cheers

 

[VintageVolts]

Really interesting project. Following with interest.
Learn't to drive in my Dad's Series III 2 1/4, when the chassis nearly broke in half towing our caravan back from the lake district we re-built it on a galvanised chassis.

Regarding driving the LT230 directly - have you done speed calculations using the low range gear reduction? to give you better acceleration - as you'll obviously never need 100mph in a series LR! 55 was scary for ours.

Tom.

The low range ratio on all LT230s (that i know of!) is 3.2:1, so at 6000RPM i'd be doing 47mph, or maxed out at 8000RPM would be 63mph. Acceleration is great and all but the torque on your diff pinions would be pretty extreme i think, not to mention the extra noise that the transfer box makes in low box - the low range gears are extra chunky and i doubt they'd appreciate being over revved.

I think if i wanted to drag race it (lol!) i'd put some really low profile tyres on a spare set of rims - it would look ridiculous but would probably pull quite well..! But, i don't want to get ahead of myself just yet.

Oh also @tanadaear sorry for missing your question: No i haven't seen any other direct drive conversions other than people using a tesla drive unit (e.g. electric classic cars) and removing the gearbox and transfer box completely, or driving the gearbox in place of the engine as Jaunt EV did with their landy.

Projectwise I've been put in touch with a precision spline manufacturer now to get my motor shaft adapter quoted up, the suspense is killing me!
Tom

 

[VintageVolts]

Ok, well it's been a while since my last update (and i just accidentally deleted my post so am starting again....)

So!
I got in touch with a (sort of) local engineering firm to get a shaft manufactured. They in turn had to have a custom spline cutter ground, to match the Land Rover gearbox splines - the splines have a much narrower pressure angle than anything on standard spline tables. This was very expensive .
Then, the guy making the spline cutter got covid and was seriously ill so the project was put on hold for quite some time. The end result though is a beautifully made shaft with nitrided splines and for which i own the cutter, so could make some little 'kits' in the future if this one passes my testing!

I decided to fit an auto torque biasing diff inside the LT230, made by Ashcroft Transmissions. The gears inside the OEM diff are the weakest point of the LT230, and are prone to failing if the diff is worked particularly quickly... and of course EVs like spinning their wheels. with the box in bits i decided to give it a full overhaul of bearings, bushes and other expensive stuff:

The sledge hammer was only used lightly...


Some time later, after also buying a Hyper 9 HV kit, we have this:

I really like how it's turned out so far - it looks (to me) like a tiny tesla drive unit, really compact!

Here's a short clip of it turning on the workbench.

I borrowed a bunch of 220Ah batteries from work to power it up on the workbench, and got a Prius throttle pedal to test it out.

Next on the shopping list is a waterproof connector housing for the motor and the real big spender will be 14 LG Chem 4P3S modules from an iPace / VW iD3. Might need a few more months to save up for that though unless someone wants to go halves on an iPace battery pack somehow.

For drive decoupling the LT230 does have a neutral position if i need to push the Landy - it'll no doubt be impossible to select if the motor is ever out of control, where i will rely on the brakes to overcome the motor and stop me - i have disk brakes which are pretty powerful! I've also got a posh little e-stop button which i'm definitely going to put somewhere on the dash!
Failing that i'll die. c'est la vie.

I did also purchase a 6.6kW onboard charger from a well advertised UK seller of renewable energy hardware (i'm not going to name them)... and they have since done a runner with my money. I'll be able to claim it back via Visa & chargeback but i'm a bit out of pocket. Always check TrustPilot, folks! I learned the hard way this time.

Well that's about all i can remember for now, i did write a longer post but i deleted it. d'oh!

Cheers

 

[VintageVolts]

(i'm having a hard time working out quotes on here!! omg)

to the contactor question - i don't think i'd kill the main contactor as the flyback would (probably) destroy the motor controller. I'll follow the EV west diagram and the examples given for the Orion 2 BMS.

does the engine have a spline cad model or which standard? DIN5480 or something?

No sorry, the spline is a proprietary design by Land Rover as far as i know - the pressure angle on the splines is much smaller than what i could see in all the standards i looked in (we have access to standards in my workplace).

Update: mainly shopping

I now have in hand:

• 14 battery modules from an eTron, bought from EVbreakers - very good people to deal with IMO.
• Four chill plates which i'll have to modify slightly to fit my modules (modules are too long!) from ZeroEV.
• DANA / Netgain SME compact display, from EVeurope
• Orion 2 BMS - i printed and have bound the install and operation manuals so i can vandalise them with notes and highlighters. They're a great read! From ZeroEV
• Vac pump (707254020) for the brake servo, along with a SPVL3521219 vac switch and reservoir from a london taxi. dead cheap from car breakers on eBay.
• TRW PA66 power steering pump from a Vauxhall Astra, also from a car breakers on eBay.
• 1000W DCDC converter.
• 6.6kW Elcon charger, thanks to MoonUnit on this forum!
• Big sheet of copper to make busbars from, I can plastidip and tin plate them myself.
• bailiffs at the door (well not quite)

With my Hyper9 HV Install i want to hook up a brake pressure transducer, to squeeze as many Watt hours back in to the battery as i can, because the land rover is not particularly aerodynamic...
Googling suggested that the brake system i have has a max pressure of 96 bar. So i got a Bosch 0261545059 144 bar pressure transducer - the datasheet specifically says it's suitable for brake fluid, which can be quite nasty. Sensor has a M10 x 1mm thread, so for me it was a case of changing a three way tee for the front brakes to a four way tee / union . pin 1 is ground, pin 2 is signal and 3 is +5V supply.

I hooked up a data logger and went for a drive:

The three biggest spikes are where i was pressing as hard as i could on the pedal whilst stopped at traffic lights. Regular braking happens at up to 40-50 bar and the transducer picks this up nicely, so i'm happy with it.

Next job is finishing off an electric actuator for the central difflock - more on this later. It would be easy to use a vac actuator but i don't want to add a potential failure point for my brakes... cos they're kind of important 🤔 I've got a solution for the hi/neutral/low gears which works really well.

Cheers!

 

[VintageVolts]

OK, so! A few pictures, I have been busy over the past few weeks, also went on holiday and stuff so that was nice

Started with this:

Then this,

Then, after a bit of tidying, this!

There's more to take out, and whilst i'm here i'll strip and paint the chassis, put all new brake lines in, and do pretty much a full rewire - the original wiring is a complete mess.

For holding the 'new' drive unit in place i set about making some decent mountings.
The original setup (well... in Defenders and Discovery 1's) is one gearbox mount per side. The mounts are quite soft so I've used two per side to make a nice and sturdy setup - i can always take one out in the future if needed. Here's a [badly] tack-welded, almost finished mount for the RHS. Pleased to say they're all fully welded up now!

I made sure the position of the mounts were symmetrical relative to the output driveshafts, to hopefully avoid the box skewing side to side under torque. Managed to use the original chassis mounting positions too.

I've got a hydraulic accumulator bracket on the way to hold the end of the motor in place. I can't see there being a huge amount of force on this bracket, but it will obviously bob up and down without one.

Here's the state of affairs at the moment

Thought i'd chuck the seatbox back in just to see if it still fits - which it does!

Now it's time to lift the motor up again, take all the brackets off and paint them, and degrease / paint the chassis. I also scalloped the chassis years and years ago when i had a different gearbox, so will put it back to how it was originally.

Originality is key!

Very exciting!

 

[VintageVolts]

Oh i forgot!

Comparison pics of drivetrains:

These are probably my favourite pictures so far - the difference is incredible (to me)
Cheers

 

[VintageVolts]

What did you use for the motor adapter and coupler to the transfer case?

Thanks, i made my own adapter plate and had the adapter shaft machined elsewhere after designing one, see post 6 onwards on this thread.

I'll be running it in high gear, i.e. 1.667:1, with 3.54:1 diffs , i'm unlikely to get super rapid acceleration BUT that's not what i'm after. i want something to commute with, go shopping, and camping with, I think my drag racing days are over now that i've grown up a bit (perhaps)

I have the option to swap to 4.7:1 diffs if needed but may have to watch the propshaft RPMs at that point.

Here's a snapshot of my ratio calculator for all available LT230 ratios

 

[VintageVolts]

I learnt to drive and spent a lot of time in my dad's 2.25 series 3 and would say third gear acceleration was rather pedestrian.

True indeed, I guess you'd have to hold the engine at its peak torque RPM and slip the clutch to get the max torque out of it though, by which time the clutch would be smoking and your dad would probably be hitting you as the engine revved it balls off 😆

Here's another old landy with a conversion using the Hyper 9, the dude keeps his in third gear with the original [i'm assuming Suffix C] box

Stay tuned to find out ... there's no going back now!

plenty of room in the boot for rocket boosters

 

[VintageVolts]

The Hyper9 has a max of 8000RPM, and the Hyper 9 HV which i've got has a max of 9000 according to EV Europe. This is 133mph in my case, not including wind drag and exploding propshafts of course. It's not the going fast that's difficult, it's stopping (in the rain etc). I'll probably speed limit it in the software to some sensible number.

I tend to do about 65mph on the motorway when cruising, which is 4402 RPM. This may be a bit lower in the future to extend my range.

I've watched the JerryRig EV build, it must be nice to have such an endless budget!

 

[VintageVolts]

OK, picture time!
At work i've fixed up a CNC plasma cutter that we had in storage - so that has been very handy to cut bits out! I could possibly cut a few bits for others in the UK if you're stuck.

My motor setup had the tendency to nod / rock back and forth, so some time was spent drawing up a cradle:

These were the first bits i cut on on the plasma, which was pretty cool! The arms are 3mm mild, and the band is 2.5mm zintec

I thought the fit to the rearmost band would be weird but it worked out well:

Before fitting anything too permanently though i decided to degrease and pressure wash the old paint off - the engine bay had a decade of engine oil and grime etc stuck all over the place.

Here we are just before blasting... note i now have a gazebo (with lights!) as the winter is long and wet here in the UK

And back to the red oxide primer, which is stuck on there for life

whilst that was drying off I drew up a mount to cover the clutch pedal hole and hold the PAS pump

Fresh off the cutter

And folded / primered

And here's where we are right now!

I've also removed the terrible shelf brackets / wing hinge brackets at the front of the chassis, and added some more refined ones.

More pics in another post, i have run out of picture allowance in this post...

 

[VintageVolts]

Close up of motor steady - there's a layer of 1mm neoprene between the aluminium and steel band, for obvious reasons (corrosion)

PAS pump:

Oh i've also got a solution for keeping the original throttle pedal, using a Bosch throttle pedal position sensor, common on BMW E36, E39 etc up to 2000-ish, and Range Rover P38s!

The existing throttle pedal and balljoint linkage is the right length to get just under the full range of travel out of the sensor, which is nice.- and the internal spring is more than enough to push the pedal up! I'll need to fit a weatherproof plug in place of the one that's on there, though.

next steps: more painting(!), umm...
Fit the seat box, and make underseat boxes for electrical stuff to go in. I'm trying to keep the charger inside, as i drive the landy all year round and our roads get covered with salt in the winter

cheers

 

[VintageVolts]

If the ratio turns out to be a bit too high, you could source a 109 T Ton transfer box, which is 1.53:1 in high range (3.27:1 Low). I think yours will be 1.15:1 High, 2.89:1 Low? That at least will fit straight on to your adaptor.

Good idea, however i'm using the LT230 transfer box which is usually found in Defenders and discoveries, to my knowledge they weren't used in the 1 tons? The transfer boxes for the series gearboxes need much more machining to make an adapter plate for. Nothing's impossible of course but the LT230 is easier, for me anyway

 

[VintageVolts]

Ok, so!
Repaired some aluminium corrosion on the rear tub (body) where it attaches to the chassis behind the seats... this took ages but it's better to get it done now.
we now have brakes, and power steering!


Made a steadying bracket for the brake pipes as they looked a bit prone to vibration:

PAS pipes fitted, it was fun testing the steering without an engine running. Also placed the modules in place before drawing up a pack on the computer. There's a load of room in the engine bay without any motors taking up space!

The DC-DC, BMS and contactors of course will live inside the pack, so it should all fail safe with no external voltage when it's all shut down. i'll make a little adapter to water cool the DCDC via the spare face on the chill plate.

Some coffee later:

Set the plasma cutter up to cut my copper busbars. I will mill the bolt holes out for the electrical connections to maximise contact surface area as the plasma is a bit brutal:

The ends of these will be tin plated to match what's on the eTron modules, and i've got some orange plasti-dip to try making orange insulators for the rest of the bar.

QUESTION - any suggestions for what material bolts to use for bolting the busbars to the battery terminals? What do OEMs use in their packs? I don't know if brass is a good or bad idea, and to go with BZP as they're stronger, especially in M6 (about 1/4" dia.) flavour.

Slots n stuff in the mill

And here's where we are now, tack welded for the moment - pleased to say everything fits together! The slots are to allow the chill plates to be bolted down. I didn't want any holes underneath. the UK is a wet country!

Next step is to tack weld the rest of the frame on, then get some chassis mounts made up before everything gets too heavy 😆fusion360 says it'll be 218 kilos fully finished.

Cheers!

 

[VintageVolts]

The contactors you are showing are Tesla battery pack ones so do not have economiser built in, what will be controlling them?

Hi Tomdb thanks for that, the contactors in the picture are gigavac GV200-MA EV ones, i was under the impression they have the economiser built in? as per the description here
Gigavac GV200-MA EV Contactor - 4000 Amps Max - EV200 Replacement - 12 Volt Internal Economizer, EV West - Electric Vehicle Parts, Components, EVSE Charging Stations, Electric Car Conversion Kits

Any way to check, i.e. an ammeter in line when powered up etc?

I'm guessing the BMS will control them, i haven't read the orion manual for a few months now!

 

[VintageVolts]

Yours have the connector on them and not fly leads out the top.

well spotted, now i'm back from work i can see that they are not what i ordered, lol

5 ohms

now i'm sad

 

[VintageVolts]

OK, a fair amount has been happening since my last update! I've been very ill, and also pulled onto another project or two so i'm a bit behind. I have:

Designed, cut out and welded my mounts to the chassis. Two of the mounts are where the original engine mounts were, with two further back.
for bushes i'm using leaf spring poly bushes - they're a land rover part number, and a nice and simple design to work with. I wanted the mounts to hold the battery fully 'captive' i.e. effectively a bolt through a steel tube. I moved away from the traditional engine mount style, as if the rubber shears off, the battery is free to go anywhere it likes - however if that did happen i'd be dead by that point anyway so is it really my problem?

The longer of the mounts also have gusset plates to stiffen it all up:

And another one, you get the idea.

All welded to the chassis:

Underneath of the battery box, note that the tubular bit can also be used as a lifting point. Nice!

Here's the box after much more welding and a coat of paint, i'm pleased with how it's turned out so far. It also fits in the car which is great! lol

Sides cut from 2mm Zintec, I was wondering whether to use aluminium or steel, but steel is stronger and more fireproof(!) than ally, so that that got my vote. The orange thing is a fused HV disconnect from Citini. I'll coat the panels with Buzzweld FXliner, which is basically a 2K schultz stuff, which is nice and tough.

My battery modules are now bolted to the chill plates with thermal pads inbetween. I'll assemble and test it as much as i can outside of the frame, then move it in to the frame when ready. I've now got the correct contactors with the built in economisers too! Thanks again TomDB for noticing my error.

Might twist all these wires together and hope for the best.


What multi pin connectors do you EV builders like to use for talking to stuff outside of the pack? That's one of the things i am yet to decide on. I used MIL spec connectors in a previous career which are great but slightly fiddly to get just right.


Thank you SimonRafferty for the material suggestions above, that's really helpful - i'm hoping to keep everything as dry as possible to minimise corrosion effects!

Thanks again.

 

[VintageVolts]

Discovered Deutch connectors and love them.

Ah great i'll have a look at those, cheers!

And if you are using an Orion BMS then they recommend using gold plated pins

A good point, however my BMS will be inside the pack so I won't need to sense cells outside of it in this case.

 

[VintageVolts]

Hello folks, could someone who is experienced with the Orion 2 BMS please have a quick look at the PDF i've attached, just to make sure i have got the black wires for the cell taps in the right place? The Orion wiring manual doesn't give a clear [to me] example for a battery bigger than 12 cells, page 50 is clear -ish but then it skips a whole bunch of cell taps with no explanation.

The output from the Orion BMS Wiring Diagram Generator seems to suggest that harness wire number 1 gets wired to both the + and - of cell 1, which is clearly a bad idea. 😆

Any help is appreciated! I think what i've got is correct...