The very high level design is something like this....
Here's a naked G Wagen. Not mine - my projects don't move that fast - but representative of mine.
As mentioned, the engine is HUGE. As also mentioned, that's a 96L fuel tank, so nearly 100kg right there, when full.
My battery pack weighs about 250kg?
It would not completely surprise me if the total weight turns out to be lower post-conversion...
Plan is: engine and gearbox are not required.
In version 1 the transfer box remains, as do the propshafts from the xfer box to the front and rear diffs, the diffs and axles themselves, etc.
So the motor will attach to the xfer box via the little propshaft you can see in the picture.
Version 2 might be twin motor, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
The transfer box offers hi-lo ratios, of course, and has synchromesh (thanks Mercedes!)
The current diesel has approx the same torque as the Leaf (although not from 0rpm...) so I have made some rudimentary checks on whether the gearing will be OK. 4th is 1:1, so the rudimentary driving around experiment has been:
- only use 4th gear on the main box
- shift Lo-Hi as needed
with a little bit of clutch slipping to get off the line, so the diesel is offering at least a modicum of torque, this works fine. So I am reasonably comfortable that the motor->transfer box direct scheme is going to be usable.
The motor will fit between the chassis rails, pretty-much where the gearbox is now. Leaving the entire engine bay, plus the space where the fuel tank sits, for batteries, inverter, charger (plus vacuum pump, new power steering pump, etc).
It would also be possible to put a few battery modules lower down - I think 3 or 4 each side where the exhaust silencers currently sit would be easy, for example, but for simplicity I'm not going to do that initially.
Probably just one battery enclosure for now, having 16 cells, all in the engine bay (as far back and low down as possible). I've done some measurements and mock ups and think it will fit.
