[WIP] 1986 Ex-Military Land Rover 110 - GS450H

[LRBen]

Done a bit more CAD work as well. Adaptor to go from GS450H box to the transfer box is mostly designed. Need to decide if I am going to keep the rubber donut or not. If I use it then I might not have enough space for the battery box with ID3/4 modules in the front. At least not without a redesign of the battery box, which will probably happen anyway.

[LRBen]

Got the chassis back from paint over the weekend, then sprayed it full of Lanoguard and hung it up out of the way.

This project will be taking a slight pause on the chassis build up front at least. Currently have a seperate battery swap project ongoing for someone else, then I'm planning to put in the final battery on the tractor as I want to take that to a show in January.

I'll still be working on the GS450H to transfer box coupling in the meantime. So hopefully when I get back to the chassis build up there will be no delays and I can slot the GS450H motor straight in.

[LRBen]

Back on the Land Rover again for the moment, in-between new tractor battery build, bits of which you can see in the background below.

Axles rebuilt over Christmas, new brakes, bearings, seals etc. Put the chassis on the axles today so now we are at the rolling chassis stage!
Still quite a bit more to do of course, but one of these days I'll actually get to the EV conversion part of this thread.
Next step here is to finish off all the suspension parts, then I'm a bit split on how much of the body I want to put on and in what condition before playing with mounting the GS450H.

[LRBen]

I've managed to figure out where most of the chassis brackets were meant to go in the last couple of weeks so it's looking a bit more like a complete rolling chassis now. Steering box is going on next week when the bolts arrive as well as the rear shocks.

I did a small mock up of the transfer box with the printed adaptor plate and it looks quite good initially. I think I'm going to gut out the rest of that spare gearbox and then start to look at mounting brackets. Although this probably won't happen for a little while as I really do need to focus on the tractor battery swap!

In the meantime at home I have been looking into dashboard displays. The original warning light cluster I sold off as last year I was going to place a tablet behind the dash. But I don't really like that idea anymore so I've decided to design a replacement light cluster with LEDs on a PCB. Given I'm designing it from scratch I also rearranged some of the warning light locations and changed some of the ICE warning lights to EV lights. So I'll have a run mode indicator, as well as a HV fault and charging indicator light.

This is my first printed test plate with the original warning light layout.

Current state of the PCB design, not too far off now.

[LRBen]

Dashboard PCBs arrived last week. Brightness on the green is a little too much but nothing we can't work around. Next I need to figure out making a custom facia plate.

[LRBen]

With the tractor more or less functional I've gone back to the Land Rover. Which means more rust of course. This time on the bulkhead, the foot wells on both sides are pretty bad, as are the top corners. Cut away all the rust and this is what I have to work with. Patched most of this up today and then ran out of gas. So next week I will finish these off and replace the foot wells with some repair panels.

With the bulkhead patched I will then move finally on to some conversion work again. I printed the test adaptor plate off in PLA over winter, so I have been looking at getting that made up in steel. Current plan is as follows.

I did try looking for a steel tube but that's quite hard to find in a not 2.5 meter length. So copying the tractor design and using many 10mm plates indexed together with dowls.
The final distance hasn't been decided yet, might put in an bearing for the shaft but I'm not sure that's needed. Also still undecided on using the rubber donut or not. Using it will mean a battery box with VW modules won't fit in front of the GS450H in the engine bay.

I've also been looking into user interface, watched allot of Garage Tinkering and Upir on youtube who both have some great ideas. Made this prototype below based on Upir's designs and a 1.28 inch screen. However Garage Tinkering have some 2.1 inch screens with custom backboards in development that should fill the gap better, these will also have can inputs on the boards already so I'm going to have three of those.
For the Speedo I think I'm going to try and find a 4 inch circular screen and have a digital Speedo. The Speedo was originally cable driven from the LT230, however in later models they used a transducer for the modern dashboard which will plug straight into any age LT230. So I can use one of those to give a digital readout some accurate speed data.

[LRBen]

Still chipping away on the Land Rover as and when time permits. Bulkhead is mostly done and dashboard is back in for the most part. Brake lines mostly run although I expect I might redo the front lines at a later date. I've started to put the heater box back in, unfortunately with the VW PTC heater it doesn't quite fit. So I've made some modifications via hammer to the bonnet to incorporate a power bulge. There are a few other little bits of restoration and part replacement done as well.

The backyard adaptor plate sandwich assembled ok, so next step is to lift the GS450H/LT230 into place and scan the front in order to design the front mounting brackets. I am slightly concerned that the front prop might not clear the GS450H. But I guess we will fine out very soon!

Once the motor is mounted it might speed up a little bit. More body panels can go back on then and I can also look at battery boxes. With the tractor out of the way this will become the main project finally.

[Marvin]

Just wanted to mention if MEB Batteries are still intended to be used, then ESDI has some cooling plates in store. https://esdi-shop.de/products/batterie-kuhlplatte-meb

[LRBen]

Just wanted to mention if MEB Batteries are still intended to be used, then ESDI has some cooling plates in store. https://esdi-shop.de/products/batterie-kuhlplatte-meb

I've used those in a project in the past. Not too keen on having that many separate coolant connections inside the pack, nor more than doubling the cost of the pack.

I've had some experience of these MEB modules fast charging now and they really don't heat up at all until the 2nd fast charge. Even in really hot weather. Not sure I'll ever do more than one fast charge in a day so less fussed about cooling plates at the moment.

[LRBen]

Well I said things might speed up. Got the GS450H and transfer box set in place, transfer box mounts are tacked up for now but look good.

Next week I'll borrow the scanner from work and rescan the front bay so I can start over engineering the front mounts and inverter brackets. Planning to build something off the engine brackets that will also support the battery box.

Also decided against using the electric power steer column. Would take too much work to adapt and I have spare hydraulic steering boxes anyway which bolt in.

[LRBen]

Ok so things didn't speed up for very long. Getting distracted preparing for hay making this year with the electric tractor.

I got the engine mounts designed and test fitted in PLA. Then got them laser cut in steel and welded it all up. Yes I'm welding to the chassis, rules have changed in the UK and it was a far better solution than trying to make some complicated adaptor from the original mounts. It's quite liberating after years of being constrained to bolt in only! I will be keeping the original mounts for batteries at a later date.

After that it was time to start thinking about the final fit of the LT230 to the GS450H, that meant rebuilding the LT230. Fortunately I used to do this quite often in a previous job and had written a pretty length guide for myself back in the day. In this rebuild I used an ATB centre diff, the originals were a known weak point and with the extra power coming through it made sense to upgrade.

With that done and the GS450H clutch plate welded onto the front plate I now have the final fit of the LT230 to do. I am half way through this, jumping on it now and again to test spacers and get it centred as close as I can. Hoping to have that done this weekend and then the motor installation will be completed!
After that is in I can start building up the rest of the rear tub and body.

In the evenings I have been playing with screens for the new dashboard. Using a combination of small screens from Garage Tinkering and an 3.4 inch ESP P4 screen. I used AI heavily for the large screen and it worked out rather well. Speed will be calculated by the big screen from the transducer in the LT230 via an optocoupler. Everything else will come over the canbus network. The lens flare in the photo isn't there in real life, I added some perspex covers to make them a little more water resistant as I foresee allot of time without the top on.

Yet to do on on dash is the controller for the warning lights, but I'm rather pleased with how it's coming along.

[Alibro]

The screens look amazing.
Well done mate, keep it up.