[DRIVING] Project Rising Sun: Suzuki SJ410k meets Leaf full stack

[zl3ag]

One question - are you intending to install a support bearing between the parking pall and the leaf motor? I understand this is a good idea.

[J0hannes]

Yes, you are correct!

The plan is to take a slice of the Leaf trans case and put a 2RS bearing in place of the open bearing that used to be here. If this proves to be sensitive to off-road conditions, I'll then make an improvement to this. Should be good enough for getting this moving.

[zl3ag]

Cool. Keep us informed please - I need to do a similar thing for a Leaf motor Nuffield tractor conversion.

[J0hannes]

The bearing for Leaf trans input is a 62/32, Dimensions 32x65x17 mm.
I bought a 62/32-2RS version with sealing on both sides, if I don't soak this in puddles for too long, water ingress shouldn't be a problem.

Cut the trans, a tip for all: Get cutting discs specific for aluminum. These cut like hot knife butter and they don't clog up like the allrounder/steel discs. Case needs some trimming from what used to be the diff side.

Ground the teeth off first before chucking this on lathe. I'll cut and lathe this down to final dimension once the motor has its final position and mounted up.

I'd want to have this lower and push this in, but damn the trans tunnel is small...

Here's a better view. Some bodywork required

I've been looking at online wreckers for cabling that would be long enough to reach from the battery pack to front.
This would be somewhere in the ballpark of 2-2,5m that is needed, of course nobody lists this type of information.
Don't want to dish out 50-60€ here and there just to see what cable lengths ans wire gauges have been used...

The Volkswagen golf cable (5Q0971015) would be cheap and has useful connectors readily attached. The mm2 and length are a question needing answer.
The TE connectors seem reasonably priced and they can be bought off TE webshop

BMW plug in has also cable that looks long and would be probably good source for raw cable, if it has 50mm2. (9426352 drawing number on cable label)
Connectors wouldn't be usable (or I haven't been able to identify the type and availability)

[J0hannes]

After deciphering the length of the BMW cable Gregski was kind enough to measure, I figured out that approx 3,5 meters of HV cable will be more than enough for my setup. So I ordered me some cable

11' 7" and you may find this thread interesting: I bought a BMW 530e hybrid battery pack - Now What?

Hoisted the Leaf battery on bed mounts to get some space in garage

That's pretty much what I envisioned for Phase I, next some tie downs...

The plan:

Phase I - Get the motor stack in and run Leaf battery on the pick up bed (if it fits). The idea is to skip motor coupling with transmission and go to TC with a drive shaft. Gearing should be ok

It's also fun to see that my "digital twin" represents quite well the real world

[J0hannes]

Oh yeah, almost forgot to update this!

Raine (also lurking on this forum) borrowed the other day his 3D scanner and I scanned me some enginebay.

Been sketching some mounts that I'll have cut to get some "precision" for the orientation of the motor. Transfer case is tilted 6° and to have minimal intermediate driveshaft vibrations, I'll attempt to match that closely on the motor side (flanges parallel).

Will probably have to divorce the the stack, but intrusive thoughts came to mind. If I just cut a hole to the hood...

[modellfan]

Is the BMW wiring really 50sqm ? I would be wondering as the internal i3 battery wiring is just 35sqm.

Did you find out , what diameter the VW cable has ?

[J0hannes]

Is the BMW wiring really 50sqm ? I would be wondering as the internal i3 battery wiring is just 35sqm.

Did you find out , what diameter the VW cable has ?

No, I did not! But BMW cable really is 35mm2 (don't ask how I found out...)

Plan B is to send this back and get some unshielded Hi-Flex cable. As the Leaf battery cable has single shield over both HV+ and HV- cables, I suppose anything can be put in. Yes and the Hi-Flex cable is rated 450/750V

Driveshaft adapter still needs work. I need to add a second bearing for the adapter. Otherwise it'll wobble like there's no tomorrow!
There looks to be a nice space ready for finishing and then a 6006 bearing would fit in. Of course Leaf input shaft needs some modifying too...

Started also working on the temporary battery mounts (is there something more permanent than temporary?)
Still not willing to hack the Leaf battery case before I get this moving and see if this is "good" pack for my use or if I need to het rif of this and think of something else. Leaf pack as is is probably easier to get rid of than a pile of battery cells if it goes that way

Ordered a Honda Jazz throttle sensor tho test if it would work with zombie. Sort of would like to keep the original pedals and not do all sorts of weird fabrication to have the Leaf pedal fit...

[J0hannes]

Battery mounts still a work in proggress.

Looked at the bed sides and there is a non zero probability that I'll fabricobble something to mount them on the battery mounts to mask this box

Leaf stack first time in with mounts

There may be some banging noises coming from the PDM coolant connection, if this is not addessed

[J0hannes]

Some progress again...

Battery mounts are done for the moment. It stays on the frame now. So one thing is ready for test drive

Started making the main battery cable and disassembled the PDM side connector for reuse. I sure would love to find out the part code and source for these terminals

If you want to recover sealing grommets intact, without cutting the cable, you can wrap the terminal with PVC tape and your silicone seal is reusable without cuts or tears.

Then looking at the battery side grommets and measuring the cable diameter, this is definitely NOT 50mm2...
Black grommet is specified for 35mm2 cable, 50mm2 would have Gray

See, the HI-Flex cable I got is 50mm2 and I acquired the correct size grommets for it. And YES, this is actually rated 750V

Also, the IWISS cable crimper I bought for crimping these does not make the crimp tight enough even though I adjusted this to the max. Will have to recrimp with aditional strands of wire to make it tight. Or should I just try to shim the anvil side of the tool to make it tighter?

Anyone have this Aptiv crimping spec at hand? (FE CS 17 005)

I got a long enough piece of this braided cable sleeve that I'll be using for the cable emc shield. Don't actually have a spec for this, but it has both copper and plastic threads in the braid

[J0hannes]

Got the driveshaft adapter finally finished...

Added a second bearing to reduce the weeble wobble that was appearing with a single bearing.

F*d up the bore on the case, and had to sacrifice a blade from my feeler gauge set to shim the bearing.Left the bore long, so small bearing takes only radial load.

On the other hand, I have to pat myself on the shoulder that against the odds I landed spot on for the interference fit for the second bearing on the shaft

In place for now, next driveshaft and battery cabin to be continued

If the need rises, I made provisions that I can later convert this to oil filled

[J0hannes]

Approx 5mm² more wire to fill and the crimp became solid! So maybe the lesson here is that if you don't have the crimping tools as specified by the manufacturer, get yourself a couple of spare terminals to have practice (even though they are 18€ a piece)

Battery side connector done. Steel zips are a pain to tighten without proper tool Those who disagree, share your secrets on how you do them

2,5m of beauty, I'll wrap the rest when I have the routing finalized

Maybe some Dremeling was needed to have these barrel crimp terminals fit, but hey I won't tell anyone if you won't

Because the Leaf battery is really close to the rear wall, I routed the cable between driver an passenger and through the gaping shifter hole which is waiting to be covered up.

[J0hannes]

Got busy peeling the 2015 Leaf main harness I had got me the other day.
Armed with various dental curettes, sharp utility knife, scissors and a useless chinese terminal extractor keychain set, I set upon this quest...
Yes yes, some snipping and snapping action with cutters would have made this a lot quicker, but then that would have been cheating and how you would know what goes where and so on?

A shitty task that takes time to cut and peel the tapes, but you gotta do what your silly mind makes you to do

Some too many hours later approx 60% wires removed and the rest mostly tagged and sorted out for repurposing

What I hadn't checked earlier was the motor control harness F1 / E8 connector
They arent the same! So sidequest to disassemble and transfer the terminals from the 2015 connector to 2017
Rear view left side is 2017, right 2015

This looks familiar from all the manuals I've been reading

This is what I have been looking at and scratching my head why I can't make sense of the pinout, silly me

looks like Nissan has upgraded the 18 pin fixed terminal to another one of these subassembly -type connectors.
The terminals are the same which after some google-fu seems to be a Sumitomo HX sealed series 8100-3508 (need to order a few of these, so will verify then)

Tranferring the terminals is a breeze with these connector modules

Most of the relays will get a new life controlling something else than originally. M/C, F/S CHG, reverse lamp and cooling fan relay get to keep their job

[Bratitude]

See, the HI-Flex cable I got is 50mm2 and I acquired the correct size grommets for it. And YES, this is actually rated 750V
Hi-Flex 50mm2.jpg

Also, the IWISS cable crimper I bought for crimping these does not make the crimp tight enough even though I adjusted this to the max. Will have to recrimp with aditional strands of wire to make it tight. Or should I just try to shim the anvil side of the tool to make it tighter?
IWISS crimper nod ready out of box.jpg

Anyone have this Aptiv crimping spec at hand? (FE CS 17 005)
image.png

nice work on finding the terminals (HV RCS800), makes thing muchs cleaner.

for the pdm input, iv just used long tab stander crimp terminals in the plastic housing,

this is great we can make new battery to pdm cables!

[J0hannes]

nice work on finding the terminals (HV RCS800), makes thing muchs cleaner.

for the pdm input, iv just used long tab stander crimp terminals in the plastic housing,

this is great we can make new battery to pdm cables!

Thanks!

What is good to keep in mind, this connector type doesn't require a shielded cable, but rather you need the separate braided metal sleeve over both wires. I wouldn't run a battery cable without the shield (safety, EMI etc reasons)

I added the RCS800 part numbers to the Wiki connector part number database
Battery side connector numbers would still need some appending...

I used proper copper tube ring crimp terminals on the PDM side, similar to ones below. Just didn't snap a pic of that while I was making the cable

[J0hannes]

Did some Suzuki harness cleanup

As this is a mashup of a SJ410K and Samurai, it has seen all sorts of hackery during its lifetime. So far my motto has been that anything you touch in this car that you haven't done anything yet, needs to be repaired or replaced.

The car burner 3000 is no exception. I'm somewhat ashamed that I hadn't replaced this earlier
This car has been full of this kind of shit

Closeup of the goodness

I also taped the harness back together as someone had made quite a spaghetti net out of it...

Did a clutch pedal delete and replaced the pedal paddle with one from an automatic Vitara.
Pitty I didn't take more pics of the process. You have to take steering column and the pedal assy out to be able to remove the clutch pedal. Well, you can't just remove the whole thing as the clutch pedal shaft is also the shaft for hanging the brake pedal.

Intermediate shaft 1.0 made out of the banana rear driveshaft which saw maybe 80km of road use before meeting a nice big rock. It was fine for the rest of the day off road mut home I had to drive front wheel drive only It's still quite curved, but should be ok for the testing and so on...

And with this image, the electric motor is officially connected to the driveline of the car

What I confirmed to myself, while installing the driveshaft, is that I'll have to fabricate some additional longitudinal support for the Leaf drivestack.
Stack is leaning too much towards the cockpit.

[J0hannes]

Looks like I'm ready to join the First drive -Club



Coolant circulation and brake vacuum before a longer test is possible.
Yes and wiring needs cleaning up

[johu]

Nice, congratulations

[J0hannes]

Boo me, too much other life hindering the proggress

Turned a Transit heater core into a radiator for the leaf stack

Cooling system at least initially connected

Mounted the "radiator"

Since it has been clear from the start that it'll get cramped beyond my comfort in the engine bay, I ended up ditching the idea to use the Bosch dual pot sensor to retain the Suzuki throttle pedal. Instead I made a mount for the Leaf throttle which came with the Leaf stack

Aligned the lower end of the pedal to about same location as Suzuki pedal originally was

Pedal feel is actually quite nice and without the squeak which whas going on with the Suzuki pedal

[johu]

Pretty cool

Like those profiles and bolts

[marcexec]

What thickness is the L profile?

[J0hannes]

What thickness is the L profile?

Throttle mount is 8mm and ~4mm Al welded
Radiator top mount is 40x40x2 U-profile. My idea is to use this for cable routing from passenger side to driver side

Placement of components starts to get clear. PS pump will go where I put it in my white Suzuki. Next to it, Hella vac pump and I'll use the Volvo vac switch to control it. Havent found specs for the switch, but in case it doesn't handle the current, I have two
The brake proportioning valve needs proper mounting and the steel brake lines on firewall going to split redone. Now they are all mangled up and probably won't survive further adjusting as I've "massaged" them already a couple of times to clear The GTi engine.

Pump mounts roughed out. Although I don't really enjoy making brackets I find myself making more of them than ever... Oh well

The VW heater will likely find its place on the side of the leaf stack. Then there should still be space for reservoir and pump. Piping then will be routed to heater core inlet which is closer to passenger side behind on the fire wall.

[J0hannes]

So the placement of the heater was dictated by the lenght of the HV cable
It's not "tight" but there's really no slack in it either

Mounting plate is 3mm Al, the 20x20mm barstock brings the plate far enough that it actually clears the coolant outlet of the inverter (when there is a hole on the plate in the the approximate area of the coolant outlet)

The drive stack coolant reservoir also clears the HV connector. The perspective in this picture is a bit wonky, but that barb is close...

[J0hannes]

Yet again some proggress, now two coolant circuits are done and filled.

Tried this knowling it won't end well, had the pump on during filling, but you know, the air doesn't really want to come out.

Then I went ahead and bought a vacuum filler, this is one of those things that you can live without, but once you have it you wonder how

Had to make couple of step down adapterd for heater circuit. Suzuki heater core has 14mm barbs, Leaf and VW 20mm

In case someone needs dimensions, Leaf pump/connectors upper and lower is a Gates reducing connector which turned out to be the wrong size after all. (I'm hopefully not the only one who goes to auto parts stores without the damn shopping list )

After filling the coolant system, just before closing shop for the day, I did a short back and forth test. I still have 2.17 in my ZV and haven't updated to 2.2x.
Similar thing going on as in my first test "drive", forward direction I can hold against the brake and it really wants to go. Reverse direction I can literally floor it and it barely has any chooch. I'll do some CAN logging next to get a clearer picture on what's happening.

[J0hannes]

That should be the plumbing work now done. There are five pumps in the ficture, can you find them all
Ok ok, magnetic valves for ARB diff lockers need to be mounted on the compressor, so I can connect the existing lines.

Fabricobbled a mount for the Audi/VAG vag vas pump and Volvo vac switch. This is actually a really neat system as no "smarts" needed and does the job The Pump has built in relay, so all it needs is +12V and a ground to work and the Volvo vac switch will be controlling the relay. I'll probably put all this behind IG on circuit since it'll be useful to have boosted brakes even if the VCU would be out.

Powersteering return line was reused vac line from maybe a Vitara that I took to parts.

Had to make an adapter as all the GM ps pressure lines I had, had cracked nuts, which tighten the double flare tube end to the port of the steering box. Luckily I had an ovesized banjo hose end that I repurposed here.