Westfalia T3 with Chevy Bolt drivetrain

72454 Views 174 Replies 26 Participants Last post by remy_martian, Jan 7, 2022

Yabert

Discussion Starter · Oct 12, 2018 (Edited)

VW Vanagon T3 with Chevy Bolt drivetrain

Hi

I'm asking myself if DiyEcar is still the best place to put a build thread and to obtain help.
It was the case many years ago when the overvolted forklift motor was the rule, but now?

Well, my plan is to put a 200 hp 60 kWh Bolt drivetrain in a Westfalia... Exciting right?
Yes, but all the electronic and control in the Bolt fear me a bit.
Anyway, I will have the crached Bolt in few days and the West in few weeks.

Let me know if you have advice or help.
Thanks

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121 - 140 of 175 Posts

remy_martian

· #121 · May 10, 2019 (Edited)

brian_ said:
rmay635703 said:

The guy above can do body swaps to Prii skateboards in a few months normally which if I ever do it it will be how I approach the issue.

Click to expand...

The Prius doesn't have a "skateboard" structure, and neither does any Tesla; it's unfortunate the Tesla people incorrectly used this term.

The Model 3 looks like it uses something damned close to a skateboard. See 3:35 here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V06GmCR1fV4

Though it's not obvious it wouldn't fold up due to the coilovers being unsupported if it wasn't on the factory carrier, you would support them in a graft onto a host vehicle.

But, the likelihood of matching up wheelbase and track being almost zero, you have to question the bother unless you're building your own car body.

remy_martian

· #122 · May 10, 2019

Yabert said:
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!

Nice!

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

Are you planning to balance those, or use them as-welded?

electro wrks

· #123 · May 11, 2019

remy_martian said:
The Model 3 looks like it uses something damned close to a skateboard. See 3:35 here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V06GmCR1fV4

Though it's not obvious it wouldn't fold up due to the coilovers being unsupported if it wasn't on the factory carrier, you would support them in a graft onto a host vehicle.

But, the likelihood of matching up wheelbase and track being almost zero, you have to question the bother unless you're building your own car body.

I just knew the "skateboard" people would glom onto this factory video. The so-called "skateboard " in the video is just the front suspension sub assembly, the battery/electronics box, and the rear suspension sub assembly sitting in a fixture ready to be bolted, individually, to the unibody car frame. There's no "board" tying these pieces together other than when they are attached the unibody of the car.

You could cut away most of the Tesla unibody and graft on the main part of another vehicle like the guy with the Prius pick-up. It looks like a lot of work with potentially dubious results. You would probably have to completely redesign the vehicle for strength and stiffness. Think of all of the gaps and seams(some in inaccessible places) that have to be addressed to make a practical vehicle.

With the modular Tesla pieces, It's much easier and more practical to just adapt them to an existing unibody or ladder car/frame. I don't think practicality is the main goal of the Prius pick-up guy.

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remy_martian

· #124 · May 11, 2019

"skateboard people"????

brian_

· #125 · May 11, 2019

remy_martian said:
"skateboard people"????

I assume that he meant people who believe that any Tesla vehicle actually has something like a skateboard design (a flat structure on which a body is placed). One irritating aspect of this is that there have been "skateboard" vehicles built, at least as concepts and prototypes, but none were ever done by Tesla and none are in production (as far I as I know).

brian_

· #126 · May 11, 2019

remy_martian said:
I'm curious about how you jigged it in order to maintain concentricity?

I hope Yabert corrects me if I am mistaken, but my understanding is that because the Bolt joint cup is turned down on a lathe while centred on the shaft, the remaining flange is concentric with the shaft. The adapter is machined to fit to the flange, so the adapter is also concentric. The outboard face of the flange is machined on the lathe so it is perpendicular to the shaft, and the adapter has a step machined in it so the flange face and adapter are parallel. No jig or fixture is required.

Yabert

Discussion Starter · #127 · May 13, 2019

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

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

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Yabert

Discussion Starter · #128 · May 15, 2019

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).

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Yabert

Discussion Starter · #129 · May 17, 2019 (Edited)

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.

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Yabert

Discussion Starter · #130 · Jun 3, 2019

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.

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tylerwatts

· #131 · Jun 3, 2019

Re: VW Vanagon T3 with Chevy Bolt drivetrain

Very nice work Yabert. Well done so far.

MattsAwesomeStuff

· #132 · Jun 3, 2019

The Vanagon moved by itself last week.

Wooo!

Nothing quite like the "hello world" and nothing explodes.

Reid_in_QC

· #133 · Jun 4, 2019

Congratulations on moving under power!

Yes you still seem to have a fabulous mess of wiring and the dash is looking a little sparse (or absent) but those things can all be handled in due time.

The brake pedal assembly looks great. I recognize the pushrod pivot pin.

Great job on all 10 thousand details. Super inspiring!

Yabert

Discussion Starter · #134 · Jun 20, 2019

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.

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joekitch

· #135 · Jun 20, 2019

so you went from two cars separated to a combined franken van in less than 8 months? that's pretty damn impressive.

Yabert

Discussion Starter · #136 · Jun 21, 2019

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.

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joekitch

· #137 · Jun 21, 2019

would you say it was particularly easy? just a matter of routing wires and fabricating mount points? If you had to do it all over again, what would you do different?

CanadaLT28

· #138 · Jun 21, 2019

Yabert said:
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.

Well done, now you can book for next years BusFusion

Yabert

Discussion Starter · #139 · Jun 25, 2019

joekitch said:
would you say it was particularly easy? just a matter of routing wires and fabricating mount points? If you had to do it all over again, what would you do different?

Not easy because enter a Chevy Bolt in a Vanagon with a shorter wheelbase isn't easy.
But I think it could be quite ''easy'' to enter a complete drivetrain of a regular EV (Bolt, Kona, Leaf, etc) in a FWD van, a pickup or a SUV with decent wheelbase.
I say that because if you are able to repair and drive / move the donor EV from scrap yard after have clear some faults (dtc) the next step is 100% mechanical integration and extend some wires/cables.
After all, with a crash EV, you have all the powertrain / battery bits and all the harness.

A friend of mine prepare to put a Kia Soul EV powertrain inside a VW Eurovan. I expect to have more experiment in few months, but I think this could be easy to do.

CanadaLT28

· #140 · Jun 25, 2019

Yabert said:
A friend of mine prepare to put a Kia Soul EV powertrain inside a VW Eurovan. I expect to have more experiment in few months, but I think this could be easy to do.

What year is the Kia Soul?

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