Westfalia T3 with Chevy Bolt drivetrain

Reid_in_QC said:

if there's anything I can do I'm ready to do favours for the born and unborn EV enthusiasts in your family

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For sure, thanks.
Here is the last version of the 3D model for the electric Vanagon.

And now the real stuff.
The battery supports fit well on the battery and under the van.
Also those are the front motor supports. The TIG welder is working very well.

This post at the page 4 about the shrink fit cv join shaft was wrong: https://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1027191&postcount=32
The press fit dimensions wasn't good, the stress on the sleeve was to high and the friction coefficient was not fully understand.
Anyway, I redid the calculs and with a friction coefficient between 0.10 and 0.20 a shrink fit assembly would give me a torque transmission capability of around 500-1000 Nm.
As the Bolt max torque per cv shaft is around 1250 Nm I had to search another solution.
http://www.roymech.co.uk/Useful_Tables/Tribology/co_of_frict.htm
http://www.tribology-abc.com/calculators/e3_8.htm

Weld was out of question because for such a low diameter shaft any weld will affect the steel and cause the shaft to be weak.

Conclusion, I ordered two custom shaft EMPI 15 5/8" AXLES 33 SPLINE. 15.625'' is too long as I need 14.375'' long shafts, but I will cut it and rebuild the c-clip groove as the spline are long enought.
After all, I need to cut 5/8'' each side of the shaft. It's not much.

Of course a 14.375'' Vanagon cv joint shaft is not ready to fit to the Bolt transmission, so I have to rework the Bolt output shaft to fit the Vanagon cv joint.

brian_ said:

... or buy shafts (presumably custom-made) which are splined for the Vanagon outer CVs on one end and the Bolt inner tripod joints on the other end.

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This is of course the ideal solution.
But I don't know were to ask a quote and I bet the price will be massive.

At the moment, I pay 220$ for two shafts and 10$ for two adapters.
Yes, I have some rework and weld to do, but this seem a cheap alternative to have the perfect cv shafts.

brian_ said:

So what's the plan?

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You fully understand the plan.
By chance I have access to a lathe and a TIG, so the extra cost is my time.

Here is the cv shafts. The slide fit of the splines on the female splines of the 1980 cv joint is simply perfect.
Also, you can see the 4x2'' reinforcement beams I added to the Vanagon floor. Really there are too strong/thick for this frame. I used 1/8'' steel (11Ga), but 14 Ga shoulded be enought and reduce the weight as the original VW frame is build from 2mm steel (0.08'').
Next step is to weld in place the battery supports on the frame and the reinforcment tubes (lifted by a jack on the picture).

CanadaLT28 said:

It's interesting to see your work. What is the outer dimensions of the Bolt pack?

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Here are the rough dimensions of the Chevy Bolt 60 kWh battery.

I've putted the motor of the Bolt in place in the Vanagon prior to finish the welding of the rubber mount motor supports.
There is two front supports and one in the back of the motor.

Things are going to be exciting now as I've welded most of the supports for the battery / powertrain.
The plan is to assemble everything and have the first wheels spin in fews weeks.

Thanks bilbo!

Here is the link between the chevrolet Bolt spline of the gearbox and the 6 holes flange of the VW cv axles.
So the link between VW and Chevy!

remy_martian said:

Nice!
I'm curious about how you jigged it in order to maintain concentricity?

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There is an alignment machined on the Bolt part and this is slide fit in the Vanagon part with 6 holes.

Things are gowing foward and I added the power electronic components in the original engine bay.
That was the easy part and, of course, I have now some wires and modules (a lot in fact) to manage and / or lengthen to allow proper positioning of different components (cluster, shifter, touch screen, brake/accel pedals).

The motor is at his place in the van and I hope to be able to preliminary spin the transmission output shafts this week end.
Preliminary because the shifter, brake pedal and other stuffs are still in the back of the van. Longer wires are not done.

I remark an error in my design and by chance it's not critical. The transmission output flange at the driver side is really close to the plastic part of the oil pump.
I plan to do a chamfer on the flange and the clearance should be just enought.

The Vanagon moved by itself last week. It's was only few meters in the driveway with someone in front behind the steering wheel and another person in the back with the shifter/cluster/park brake, but it was really nice to move like this for the firts time.
Hope to do the first test drive around the block this week.
Still lot of wires/cables to extend and manage and the brake system to finish.

In pics below, the electric brake booster, the regen potentiometer /brake signal and the custom cv shafts.

The Vanabolt is there and it work like a charm.
After few hundread km of driving, this van is just awesome with over 300 km (190 miles) of range and the 200 hp allways ready under the right foot.
And what to say of the one pedal driving of the chevrolet Bolt system... this thing is simply awesome and work so well. We rarely touch the brake pedal as the acceleration and the regen is so well done by the acelerator pedal.

I use Torque pro to have access to some data during driving or charging and this is super usefull.
Still I'm not able to fast charge (50 kw). I plan to finalise the AC circuit/battery chiller and retry after.

Haha! Considering that on that 8 months, 4 was on cold Canadian winter and during 1 month I was in France... yes, I'm really proud of the accomplishment
Yes, my Smart have grey panels now.