What have you done to your Freelander today

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Alibro said:
I find this guy pretty entertaining and since he has no fabrication skills whatsoever the end result of this purchase is better than expected.
For the size of the motor it makes great power.


Something like this would make a great hybrid buy replacing the VCU with the motor. :p
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Rich does some interesting stuff. He now owns a Tesla repair garage called the electrified garage.

I like his electric hot rod build, although the engineering is pretty low tech.
 
Nodge68 said:
Rich does some interesting stuff. He now owns a Tesla repair garage called the electrified garage.

I like his electric hot rod build, although the engineering is pretty low tech.
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Low tech is a very kind way of putting it. :D
He is very realistic about conversions in this video
 
Alibro said:
Low tech is a very kind way of putting it. :D
He is very realistic about conversions in this video
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You know I'm diplomatic Ali.;)

Rich is very realistic, but then he has loads of EV experience to fall back on. He's not a technical genius, so is able to look at problems from a realist point of view.

The way I see electric conversions to KISS. Hence my thoughts of using a majority of the FL1 drive train i.e. gearbox, IRD, VCU and diff.
The motor from a Leaf is a good example of a simle motor, designed to drive a gearbox, which is how the Leaf is configured. My thinking is to do what Rich has done with that motorbike pancake motor, only with a larger motor from the Leaf.

The Leaf motor is more powerful than any 4 cylinder FL1, doesn't need complex drive circuitry or cooling or any complications which is less challenging than Tesla unit install.
 
Nodge68 said:
You know I'm diplomatic Ali.;)

Rich is very realistic, but then he has loads of EV experience to fall back on. He's not a technical genius, so is able to look at problems from a realist point of view.

The way I see electric conversions to KISS. Hence my thoughts of using a majority of the FL1 drive train i.e. gearbox, IRD, VCU and diff.
The motor from a Leaf is a good example of a simle motor, designed to drive a gearbox, which is how the Leaf is configured. My thinking is to do what Rich has done with that motorbike pancake motor, only with a larger motor from the Leaf.

The Leaf motor is more powerful than any 4 cylinder FL1, doesn't need complex drive circuitry or cooling or any complications which is less challenging than Tesla unit install.
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I love this idea and a Leaf motor should be a very cost effective way to do it. My main question though is can it be done with a sensible range?
Here are my opinions about EV Range
100 miles or less = Pathetic and nobody is interested apart from a few crazy EV fan boys and the rich who can afford a toy for going to the shops only.
150 miles = A bit better than 100 but not for me.
200 miles = Now we're getting practical but still only for the few
250 miles = Mmmm. Maybe but I'm gonna wait a while.
300 miles = OK, now I'm interested
350 miles = I think my next car will be EV
400 miles+ = I want I want I want.

With the height of a Freelander it should be possible to hide batteries underneath it to save on cabin and boot space. OK it'll never be an off roader but for most of us that wouldn't be an issue.
Sorting the CAN signals would be testing but possible
 
Fitted a 10mm spacer to the rear spare wheel to prevent the 17 inch rim rubbing on the high level brake light, which annoyed me greatly and is poor engineering!!
 
Alibro said:
I love this idea and a Leaf motor should be a very cost effective way to do it.
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That's why I've been thinking it has potential. ;)
Alibro said:
My main question though is can it be done with a sensible range?
Here are my opinions about EV Range
100 miles or less = Pathetic and nobody is interested apart from a few crazy EV fan boys and the rich who can afford a toy for going to the shops only.
150 miles = A bit better than 100 but not for me.
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Range is the main concern on a home grown EV conversion. There are many factors that influence range, some impractical to sort on the FL1.
Battery capacity is a major factor which dictates range. Unfortunately when converting a vehicle like the FL1, there's only so much space for the battery, although the FL1 has more space than smaller vehicles.
Battery temperature management is also an important part of maintaining that capacity over it's operating life.
Battery power management needs to be suitable for the cells being used too.
Drag on the vehicle is also another factor, which can't really be changed on a ready made vehicle. However I have worked out that the FL1 requires about 300 Whr of energy per mile at 60 Mph, which isn't too bad.


100 miles should be relatively easy to achieve, and for me is enough, which would need about 30 KWhr of batteries.
Alibro said:
200 miles = Now we're getting practical but still only for the few
250 miles = Mmmm. Maybe but I'm gonna wait a while.
300 miles = OK, now I'm interested
350 miles = I think my next car will be EV
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200 miles + would be much more useful.
Alibro said:
400 miles+ = I want I want I want.
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Over 400 would be pretty much impossible to achieve on a home grown EV.
Alibro said:
With the height of a Freelander it should be possible to hide batteries underneath it to save on cabin and boot space. OK it'll never be an off roader but for most of us that wouldn't be an issue.
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There's easy space for a good number of cells, and space for many more if some ingenuity is used.
Alibro said:
Sorting the CAN signals would be testing but possible
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CAN systems should be a breeze, as there are emulators available for those.
andyfreelandy said:
Nodge, why not convert the 1.8 to lecky.
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If I was going to invest in an EV FL1, I'd only do it on a low mileage, immaculate, top spec model. ;)
 
Like @Nodge68 I'm a real engineer, so I've watched a few of the RichRebuild vidoes with what can only be described as morbid fascination, that only kept me going through a few installments before I was far too triggered to continue :(

Back to nodges leccy hippo....With the motor attached to the IRD directly, with the fuel tank and engine bay filled with batteries, it might attain a "useful" range. Although I think I prefer the idea of a tesla motor in place of the viscous coupling (it has an encased diff so would work), especially if it could be driven by the scooby engine conversion in @tonytherunner 's videos, which was awesome! I want one!

I like @andyfreelandy 's comment of "you put a nissan leaf powerunit in your 1.8 hippo, I'll put a v6 in mine" - sorry nodge, he owned you there.

For all the dissing of the electric freelander concept, whether I like the idea or not I'll be delighted to sing your praises when you pull it off, note emphasis of the praise will be is on the man who made it rather than the vehicle he makes...
 
Sorry - I didn't actually come in here to disrespect Nodg's project plans, I actually meant to comment on the inaurgural steps on my on freelanders workover...

Arising from a small electrical fire started by the PTC heater, I had previously had half the dash out to decommission that subsystem. Not long after the vehicle was reinstated after that it threw me another curve ball in the form of a thrown fan belt, so I decided, in the interests of fture reliability, to do the water pump and thermostat at the same time. My other commitments were taking too much of my time so I put it to a local garage for the waterpump job, they managed to bend the coolant rail and abandoned the vehicle half way through the rebuild. While I've been waiting on replacement parts for the coolant pipework, I've started a dash refit and stereo upgrade by removing the centre console, reconfiguring the plugs on the dash wiring to marry up to facelift switches for a dash facelift, installing a new amplified and DAB aerial. I've also wired in heated seats, and will be repurposing the controls for the PTC heater to drive an electric coolant preheater.

So when the PTC would have been running, ie outside temperature cold, coolant cold, thermostat valve seat to hot, engine running, instead of the PTC's two serially wired relays sending power to the electric heater element in the heater matrix box, by allowing flow from the battery through an 80a fusable link to the heater and then to ground, they will instead energise the controls for an electric heater that will apply heat to the coolant flowing into the heater. I'm hoping that some of that heat will make it back into the engine, thus the PTC replacement will not only make hot( nay warm at best) air for the cabin, but will also heat up the enigne and gearboxes a bit quicker. So I've started a few weeks worth of autosparkying work, just a pity the festivities are going to get in the road of it and make it take something lcoser to a month.

No rest for the wicked? I don't know what I've done, but I am really really sorry for it now :p
 
Jayridium said:
Back to nodges leccy hippo....With the motor attached to the IRD directly, with the fuel tank and engine bay filled with batteries, it might attain a "useful" range
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Connecting a motor to the IRD isn't easy, as the front diff is in there. The drive for the front left wheel is then passed through the gearbox, using a shaft in a tube arrangement. So it's easy to simply couple an electric motor straight to the gearbox, where the IC engine once sat. This will still leave all the AWD stuff functional, and gives 5 forward ratios for added economy or control and a reverse gear too.
Jayridium said:
Although I think I prefer the idea of a tesla motor in place of the viscous coupling (it has an encased diff so would work),
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The Tesla power unit is much to large to fit where the VCU goes, unless a motor housing is created inside the vehicle, which is completely impractical.
Jayridium said:
I like @andyfreelandy 's comment of "you put a nissan leaf powerunit in your 1.8 hippo, I'll put a v6 in mine" - sorry nodge, he owned you there.
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The V6 is the nicest of the Freelander's to drive, although at sub 20 Mpg, it's at the other end of the economy scale, compared to an E powered version. ;)
Jayridium said:
For all the dissing of the electric freelander concept, whether I like the idea or not I'll be delighted to sing your praises when you pull it off, note emphasis of the praise will be is on the man who made it rather than the vehicle he makes...
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I'm just musing through a potential concept really. There's no way the wife would allow me to drop in excess of £15K (just an educated guess) on a working EV Freelander 1 project.
Jayridium said:
Sorry - I didn't actually come in here to disrespect Nodg's project plans
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Non taken. ;)
 
Nodge68 said:
That's why I've been thinking it has potential. ;)

Drag on the vehicle is also another factor, which can't really be changed on a ready made vehicle. However I have worked out that the FL1 requires about 300 Whr of energy per mile at 60 Mph, which isn't too bad.
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I'd be curious to know how you worked that out, please? Intuitively, it sounds too good to be true! A good pro cyclist can't do 60 MPH on the flat on a pushbike and is likely to be putting out something in the order of 250 Watts even to maintain a steady 20 MPH on the flat! OK, you're quoting Wh over a 1 min interval, so we're not comparing like with like, but intuitively, it sounds very low?

The Leaf motor has about 300Nm of torque, I think. (At low revs, at least), so I guess similar to the TD4 peak torque. Were you going to put it straight on to the IRD input shaft and bin the gearbox?

At work, some years ago, we tried converting some conventional vans to electric powertrain. It wasn't successful. The biggest problem was regenerative braking. The Electronic Stability Control system (and even the ABS, to a certain extent) threw a wobbler in low grip conditions when one or more wheels approached lockup but the brake pedal wasn't being pressed. (Of course, these were 2WD vans, so there was a big discrepancy between the front and rear wheel speeds when this happened. I don't know what the FL 4WD system would do).
 
Avocet1 said:
I'd be curious to know how you worked that out, please?
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I took the Mpg figure of 40 to the gallon. Converted it to miles per litre of fuel burned. I then simply divided that the L per M figure by the energy value of diesel, applying a 35% efficiency of the TD4 engine. I did it in my head, so my 300 Whr figure could well be out,:eek: but not by much, I don't think.:confused:
Most modern EVs are doing over 4 miles per KWHr, so my figure of around 3 miles per KWH can't far out. ;)

Even if it manages just 2 miles per KWH, it's still cheaper than running on diesel.
Avocet1 said:
A good pro cyclist can't do 60 MPH on the flat on a pushbike and is likely to be putting out something in the order of 250 Watts even to maintain a steady 20 MPH on the flat!
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I don't get that either. Gearing maybe, or wind resistance of a cyclist is more, which doesn't make sense. More investigation is needed I think. :confused:
Avocet1 said:
The Leaf motor has about 300Nm of torque, I think. (At low revs, at least), so I guess similar to the TD4 peak torque. Were you going to put it straight on to the IRD input shaft and bin the gearbox?
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The Leaf motor is about 300Nm, so more than a TD4 running at maximum boost.
The Leaf motor would mount to the gearbox, not the IRD as the front diff is in the IRD. As the front LH drive shaft is supported by the gearbox, the drive from the diff (in the IRD) is fed through the centre of the gearbox output to the IRD input, using a shaft in a tube arrangement. Using the gearbox gives a mounting point for the gearbox, keeping the drive shaft supported correctly, and a way of altering the ratios to help economy (or off road ability ;)) and gives a reverse too (making the inverter motor driver easier to make).;)
Avocet1 said:
At work, some years ago, we tried converting some conventional vans to electric powertrain. It wasn't successful. The biggest problem was regenerative braking. The Electronic Stability Control system (and even the ABS, to a certain extent) threw a wobbler in low grip conditions when one or more wheels approached lockup but the brake pedal wasn't being pressed. (Of course, these were 2WD vans, so there was a big discrepancy between the front and rear wheel speeds when this happened. I don't know what the FL 4WD system would do).
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I think the trick is to keep the engine EDC running in the background, although not actually doing anything other than relaying information to the various modules. This approach has been used for engine conversions, where an non compatible engine/ECU combination is used in a vehicle. It would need to be tried, but I can't see it as a deal breaker. :)
 
Nodge68 said:
I took the Mpg figure of 40 to the gallon. Converted it to miles per litre of fuel burned. I then simply divided that the L per M figure by the energy value of diesel, applying a 35% efficiency of the TD4 engine. I did it in my head, so my 300 Whr figure could well be out,:eek: but not by much, I don't think.:confused:
Most modern EVs are doing over 4 miles per KWHr, so my figure of around 3 miles per KWH can't far out. ;)

Even if it manages just 2 miles per KWH, it's still cheaper than running on diesel.

I don't get that either. Gearing maybe, or wind resistance of a cyclist is more, which doesn't make sense. More investigation is needed I think. :confused:

The Leaf motor is about 300Nm, so more than a TD4 running at maximum boost.
The Leaf motor would mount to the gearbox, not the IRD as the front diff is in the IRD. As the front LH drive shaft is supported by the gearbox, the drive from the diff (in the IRD) is fed through the centre of the gearbox output to the IRD input, using a shaft in a tube arrangement. Using the gearbox gives a mounting point for the gearbox, keeping the drive shaft supported correctly, and a way of altering the ratios to help economy (or off road ability ;)) and gives a reverse too (making the inverter motor driver easier to make).;)

I think the trick is to keep the engine EDC running in the background, although not actually doing anything other than relaying information to the various modules. This approach has been used for engine conversions, where an non compatible engine/ECU combination is used in a vehicle. It would need to be tried, but I can't see it as a deal breaker. :)
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I myself have used this approach, back in the early naughties I pioneered a bit by using a PIC to send signals to fill in the blanks, for an EV thats all about efficiency I fail to see the advantage of carrying two redundant sets of electronics around with you. The old EDC set up, and the puppeteer piggy back used to delude the EDC into thinking it still runs the show, Surely you would be better starting off with an L-Series set of non networked electronicsthereby giving you a set of ABS/TC/ESP/HDC that doesn't even know what engine it is let alone how to communicate with it or worse yet come to depend on its communicaitons.
 
Jayridium said:
I fail to see the advantage of carrying two redundant sets of electronics around with you. The old EDC set up, and the puppeteer piggy back used to delude the EDC into thinking it still runs the show,
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I figured that the original ECU is already installed and communicating on the CAN, although without an engine to run, it might well get upset. A CAN emulator is a better way to go, although not a budget option.
Jayridium said:
Surely you would be better starting off with an L-Series set of non networked
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Yes it would be easier to use the earlier 1.8 or L series, simply because there's no CAN to worry about. It still uses a data bus, but it's an older K line bus instead. Unfortunately for me, I prefer the facelift model, which has heavy CAN integration.
Jayridium said:
giving you a set of ABS/TC/ESP/HDC that doesn't even know what engine it is let alone how to communicate with it or worse yet come to depend on its communicaitons
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That's true, although the older ABS modulator isn't as good as the later unit, giving very different performance characteristics. The FL1 doesn't have DSC which makes things much easier to implement, but ABS, TC and HDC would all need to be catered for, as well as the Ipack, so the speedometer and some warning lights still function. Obviously things like the rev counter and temperature gauge wouldn't be very useful, although it would be helpful is the fuel gauge could show battery charge instead.
 
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Not mine, but supplied a replacement TD4 gearbox to a local on Christmas eve!! No other places open or able to help. Just patting myself on the back!! Time of good cheer etc. And another F1 back on the road. :D
 
andyfreelandy said:
Not mine, but supplied a replacement TD4 gearbox to a local on Christmas eve!! No other places open or able to help. Just patting myself on the back!! Time of good cheer etc. And another F1 back on the road. :D
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Talking about gearboxes Andy. Mine hasn't played up since I cleared the codes. So I think I'll buy the same unit you kindly let me borrow, so I can return yours in the new year.
Thanks for the loan of it.

Merry Christmas. ;)
 
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