[DRIVING] 1978 VW T2 Camper

[DaveH]

I'm starting a new thread for my project. It will be a while before I make any progress but I've just put the engine up for sale.

This marks the point of no return!

[JaniK]

You will propably get good money from that type4 engine to get you a nice electric motor!

Good luck!

[DaveH]

I don't have the facilities to fold or weld metal for my project, so I was wondering if anyone could recommend someone to do it for me? I'm thinking of battery boxes and and a motor mount.

I originally thought that a Leaf motor would be best, but having thought about it a lot, a Tesla SDU would be a lot better as it means I would be able to mount half my battery pack where the engine used to be and still keep the same weight distribution. It would also be lighter overall. So ideally I would want to buy a mount (and maybe driveshafts as well) from someone who has done a VW/Tesla mount before. See deadsled's project for example viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1082. Kevin has an SDU in his bus as well, but it's a full subframe conversion so a lot more complicated.

The current state of the project is a rolling shell that is stripped down above floor level. Once I have finished pulling out the rest, it will need welding and painting before I can start reassembly.

[JaniK]

Ask if deadsled could send you the mount. It would propably be much easier to pay a little more on postage and taxes to get ready part, than try to design and have it made by someone else.

I have welding equipment and still most of the time goes to thinking how will I do this. Welding is propably the fastest part of the process..

Zeroev has tesla drive shaft stumps that you could use to fit stock bus axles with bigger 108mm cv joints.

[DaveH]

Good point, not just welding but making anything is like that. Measure, mark out, make jigs, it's a long process for a one-off part. Also, the first time you make something it's never quite right and you think of lots of improvements for the next time.

I have sold the engine now, £1300. Just waiting for the guy to collect it.

[JaniK]

Cool, old engine pays for the electric motor

[DaveH]

No electrification yet, but time for an update. The shell is going to Edubs in Boroughbridge for restoration and fabrication of motor mount and battery box.

[alexbeatle]

How is your project going? It's exciting for me each time a T2 gets converted.

[DaveH]

Still waiting for the restorers to become available to start the bodywork, so no progress yet. I've also been really busy at work (started a new job on 1 Feb) so I haven't had time to do anything myself.

[DaveH]

After almost a year at Edubs, including body restoration at Herbie Hospital, I have my shell back with drive unit and battery box completed. We were able to 'drive' it into my workshop under its own power.

Main battery box. This has 12 of the 16 Calb modules (35kWh total). Uses the ZeroEV cooling plates. Orion BMS. In front of where the left light cluster goes is the charger and DC/DC. On the right hand side is two radiators, one for the battery and the other for the drive unit.

This is the smaller battery box that goes where the fuel tank was. The main box sits on the same subframe that the drive unit is slung under.

Drive unit.

I've also started building the state of charge display that will go in place of the old fuel gauge and also drive a couple of analog gauges and the oil/gen lights. It will have an Adafruit OLED display with a Teensy 3.2 underneath.

A lot of work still to do!

[alexbeatle]

This looks awesome!
Mind sharing what kind of radiators and fans you have there?
If I understood correctly, you placed 2 radiators in the small pocket, behind the rear light stack. Seems tight, no?

[DaveH]

I don’t know what radiators and fan they are, but they are small and mounted back to back. I need to put the 12V battery somewhere else, as it wouldn’t be possible to get it in or out with the main battery box in place.

[alexbeatle]

I don’t know what radiators and fan they are, but they are small and mounted back to back. I need to put the 12V battery somewhere else, as it wouldn’t be possible to get it in or out with the main battery box in place.

I'm super curious to see the radiators setup. Could you please post some pictures?

[DaveH]

Can't get any better pictures than this with the battery in place. Hope this gives you some idea.

[alexbeatle]

That's super tight! Thanks for sharing.

[DaveH]

A little update.

I finished the SOC display module. The hardware tests out ok, no proper code written yet.

Here is the before and after where it replaces the fuel gauge. The display isn't as wide as the hole in the panel so it doesn't look as neat as I would have liked, but should be ok when in the dash without any light showing through.

I also made/had made a bracket for the pedal (just needs painting). Test fitted with the BMW bracket and it all goes together really well, I was even able to use two of the original pedal mounting holes at the heel end. If anyone wants one of these brackets for a similar project let me know, I've got 2 spare.

Lots of wiring done (must be at least twice as much wire as in the original vehicle )

[DaveH]

Wiring is all done now and wheels turning. This is the under-dash loom before I put the dash back in. Not long before road test time.

[DaveH]

I got the bus on the road in October. Most of my spare time over the winter has been spent programming, it's still too cold to be working outside for my liking. Managed a few test drives, one was the 60 mile round trip to the office.

I had a DVLA inspection this week. The engineer was happy with what he saw, so hopefully I will get the vehicle re-registered as an EV.

Here are some photos of the instrumentation. I've done all I want to do on it for now.

The oil light is on because it's not in drive mode. When you start the inverter up the light goes off. The temperature here is the battery temperature. I've also implemented a range estimation but not tested it for accuracy yet.

Gauges are, from left to right: 12V battery, power (+/-), inverter temperature. 12V is just a normal analog gauge. The others are driven off the instrument controller. Temperature in C scales 1:1 to PSI on the gauge. The power gauge (was oil temp) doesn't have a useful scale so it's just a guide.

[JaniK]

It is so clean. Very nice project. Is this going to have camper interior later?

[DaveH]

It is going to have a new camper interior. The old one was mostly 44 years old and in bad shape. A lot of work to do yet!

[DaveH]

I've fitted a vacuum pump for the brakes. This photo is before connecting the hose to the servo. It works but I'm not happy about the lack of hysteresis in the switch (i.e. the pump runs for a very short time every few seconds and every time you apply the brakes). I got another make of switch but it wasn't much of an improvement. It will have to do for now.

Most of the parts were supplied by Fellten as a kit. The pump is an unbranded Hella copy.

[tom91]

Maybe the sensor I sell would be a good replacement for the switch. https://citini.com/product/threaded-vac ... ng-module/

It has a solid state switching output and a micro controlled hysteresis of 25kPa

[DaveH]

That would work a lot better Tom, assuming I can get 75kPa with my system. The switch I have adjusts up to 90kPa and the pump won't stop with that setting. Do you have the dimensions of the module and 1/4" adapter?

[alexbeatle]

Could you please share your SDU parameters? Maybe add to the common DB...
https://openinverter.org/parameters/

[DaveH]

Could you please share your SDU parameters? Maybe add to the common DB...
https://openinverter.org/parameters/

Hi Alex, sorry for the very late reply. I don't know if it would make sense to share my parameters as I have a specific firmware build from ZeroEV/Fellten, not the main openinverter code.