[WIP] 1965 Ford Mustang

[chrskly]

Was interested to take a look at your code but can’t find it?

Here you go https://github.com/chrskly/electric-mus ... in/bms/src

[rstevens81]

There are some things to think about in allowing a BMS to control contactors and BMS code in general ....
1. Given that car is a very electrically and efm noisy environment a watchdog in the code is imperative because if the chip locks up you loose BMS, so therefore a watchdog to reboot it in that event is imperative.
2. The behaviour of the watchdog is also important...i.e. if it were to lock up and reboot what would happen would the contactors open and then close again? Under load this would substantially reduce the life of the contactors even the big ones. That's not all of the failure modes but a big one to illustrate the point.
3. Opening of contactors under load is always going to be bad for them and everything connected as electricity under load is like flowing water through a pipe if you suddenly stop it in a pipe you get hammershock the clunk noise you hear in pipes if you have an old house, in electrics the inductance of the circuit (wires) will try to raise voltage whilst you disconnect to make a bigger spark on the contactor, how big of an effect this is I don't know but point was also that a false flag will substantially reduce life of contactor.

I am aiming for a different approach it may not be right but is simpler in my mind as the simpler it is the less we have to think this may or not be useful...
1. Contactors controlled by VCU, when starting the switch on process just add a line of code the check the voltage dela...tbh it probably can be quite simple in that if your cell voltage delta is above X mV (of all 192 cells) you go into error or warning state and you just chech for error or warning before switching on.
2. If so etching goes wrong you enter a warning state a buzzer sounds if after 10 seconds (arbitrary to allow you to pull to side of road and switch off ignition) if after this X seconds the inverter is commanded to shut down and then commanded to open contactors.
Although this isn't perfect what situations would 10 seconds not be enough and if so could you skip the warning stage and go straight to powering down inverter?

Hope this is helpful in someway ... It all stems from the age old problem who is the biggest master BMS or VCU/inverter? You sorta have to choose 1 and live with the consequence and work round it to the best you can i.e. if you were to choose BMS as master it would tell the inverter to shutdown X seconds before it would open the contactors.

[chrskly]

There are some things to think about in allowing a BMS to control contactors and BMS code in general ....
1. Given that car is a very electrically and efm noisy environment a watchdog in the code is imperative because if the chip locks up you loose BMS, so therefore a watchdog to reboot it in that event is imperative.
2. The behaviour of the watchdog is also important...i.e. if it were to lock up and reboot what would happen would the contactors open and then close again? Under load this would substantially reduce the life of the contactors even the big ones. That's not all of the failure modes but a big one to illustrate the point.
3. Opening of contactors under load is always going to be bad for them and everything connected as electricity under load is like flowing water through a pipe if you suddenly stop it in a pipe you get hammershock the clunk noise you hear in pipes if you have an old house, in electrics the inductance of the circuit (wires) will try to raise voltage whilst you disconnect to make a bigger spark on the contactor, how big of an effect this is I don't know but point was also that a false flag will substantially reduce life of contactor.

I am aiming for a different approach it may not be right but is simpler in my mind as the simpler it is the less we have to think this may or not be useful...
1. Contactors controlled by VCU, when starting the switch on process just add a line of code the check the voltage dela...tbh it probably can be quite simple in that if your cell voltage delta is above X mV (of all 192 cells) you go into error or warning state and you just chech for error or warning before switching on.
2. If so etching goes wrong you enter a warning state a buzzer sounds if after 10 seconds (arbitrary to allow you to pull to side of road and switch off ignition) if after this X seconds the inverter is commanded to shut down and then commanded to open contactors.
Although this isn't perfect what situations would 10 seconds not be enough and if so could you skip the warning stage and go straight to powering down inverter?

Hope this is helpful in someway ... It all stems from the age old problem who is the biggest master BMS or VCU/inverter? You sorta have to choose 1 and live with the consequence and work round it to the best you can i.e. if you were to choose BMS as master it would tell the inverter to shutdown X seconds before it would open the contactors.

Hey,

thanks for the input. Definitely happy to hear all perspectives on this. I'm just figuring stuff out as I go.

1. Yeah this is a good point. The pi pico has support for a watchdog. I'll add this in. Thanks.

2 + 3. Random/unwanted open/closing of contactors is definitely something I want to avoid. When the contactors are already open, the BMS can block future closing of the contactors. So, for example, we can end up in drive mode with only one pack enabled. In this case, if the BMS reboots, then something unintended could happen. The question is, can the pico boot up fast enough that the contactors wouldn't notice a quick off+on? Probably not. But it's worth trying/testing.

Buzzer is a great idea also. I plan to have a 'dashboard vcu' for driving the original analogue gauges and lights. Will add some sort of buzzer to this also. The dash vcu will also have a logger built in and be a hub for monitoring the overall state of the car (rather than having one wifi ap per device). So, any errors from any part of the car will be surfaced on the dash and also a web interface provided by the dash.

[aaronmcg]

Excellent progress!

[Jacobsmess]

Hi Chris, how are you finding the is300H transmission? I'm wanting some assurance it can deliver motorway driving speeds comfortably without MG1 exploding but I've found no evidence as of yet and as it's early in development in the EV conversion world there isn't a wealth of knowledge from running projects.

[Jacobsmess]

Just for clarification, I was hoping you might be able to provide some information on the RPM from the gearbox output at different voltages.

[chrskly]

Just for clarification, I was hoping you might be able to provide some information on the RPM from the gearbox output at different voltages.

Hey, sorry, I missed this somehow. To be honest my gs300 has been sitting untouched on the garage floor for months. I have lots of other work to do on the car until I get to the stage of spinning the wheels. For example, replacing rusted out floors

[PatrcioEV-ATX]

Hey, sorry, I missed this somehow. To be honest my gs300 has been sitting untouched on the garage floor for months. I have lots of other work to do on the car until I get to the stage of spinning the wheels. For example, replacing rusted out floors

tempImagebUzNxr.gif

Keep at it. Someday you'll have a gorgeous classic to tool around in!

[chrskly]

Keep at it. Someday you'll have a gorgeous classic to tool around in!

That's the hope

[Huskte]

Been a while since an update. How're things going with the project?

[chrskly]

Been a while since an update. How're things going with the project?

I broke rule #1 of ev conversion club. I chose to convert a rust bucket. The bodywork continues...

[rstevens81]

I would say your in good company
It's the slight problem when you choose the car you want not just something that's randomly cheap.

[Huskte]

I broke rule #1 of ev conversion club. I chose to convert a rust bucket. The bodywork continues...

IMG_9264.jpeg

Oh wow, I't looks like it may have been easier to build a new car from scratch haha. At least you can honestly say that you've touched every single nut and bolt on the car.

Best of luck, I envy your strength of commitment.

[Huskte]

I would say your in good company
It's the slight problem when you choose the car you want not just something that's randomly cheap.

Some people are just cursed with good taste i guess.

[Gregski]

this is such a fantastic build, I hope it picks up again, and boy do I miss my '68 Rustang now

[chrskly]

Wow, my last update was August. Time has really flown by.

This project is still very much alive. I've not posted anything because, frankly, I'm still trying to get ahead of the rust. Here's some of the gore for those who enjoy.

Cowl tank replacement.

Front inner fender cleanup.

Rear wheel arch cleanup.

Front frame rails

It's interesting what you learn about yourself doing projects like this. Mostly what I've learned is that I like doing things The Hard Way™. See below for what I mean.

I don't seem to have posted anything around what I'm doing on the LV side here. The original loom is a write-off. Absolute junk. I won't use any of it. What I need will be very far from what was originally there, so it's a ground up redesign (The Hard Way™). I'm breaking the LV stuff up into three chunks : front, rear, and lighting. You can probably guess for yourselves what each of those does. The plan is to make a PCB with all of the fuses, relays, and diodes for each chunk on a single board. Why not just get generic fuse/relay box from the breakers yard or Ali? I know if I try and make one up using just spade connectors and wire, I will 100% guaranteed get lost and make a mess of it. But if I design it up in KiCAD (where I can leave little notes next to things) I'm much more likely to get it right.

Here's the current version of the 'front' box. I'll definitely do another version of this board. The right angle connectors are a waste of space. I should have the pcb take up the full area of the box and use vertical connectors instead.

I mentioned before that I'm implementing my own BMS (The Hard Way™). I'm using BMW PHEV modules so I've lifted the already-reversed communication protocol from SimpBMS (thanks to Tom DeBree!). The rest is a ground up rewrite. I want to be really, really sure that this works as I intend, so I'm going to do a lot of testing before putting it in the car. I'm building a testing rig to simluate all of the possible inputs (voltage, temperature, charge request, etc.) and all of the possible state transitions. After a bit of head scratching, I realised I could use one board to run the actual BMS code, and another board to run testing code which simluates all of the signals (CSC messages, ISA shunt messages, ignition on digital input, charge request digital input, etc.) and validates that the right thing happens. I hope to completely automate the testing process. I have a lot more work to do on the BMS code. So, when I make any changes to the BMS code I can validate that it still does everything it's supposed to do very easily.

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking that I should also test unexpected resets of the BMS itself ....

I'm working on my own CHAdeMO implementation (The Hard Way™). I got my hands on the standards docs for all of the CHAdeMO versions up to v3. I'm going to try to make it completely compliant with the standard. I've got the first version of the hardware back from JLC. There are no doubt errors with this and I'll need at least one more go around. I'll likely create a testing rig like I have for the BMS.

The car will have CCS as well as CHAdeMO, so I'll need somewhere to put those two charge ports. I don't fancy my chances of adding charge port doors into the fenders and not making a total mess of it. Besides that I think it would look ugly. So the plan is to put the charge sockets behind the two tail lights. I'll make a door that goes over the original rectangular hole where the whole tail light assembly sat. The tail light lens and chrome will bolt to the outside of the door and look more or less original. I can then make a small tub to go on the inside which will be the mounting for the charge port. There won't be room for a filament bulb any more of course, so I'm working on a PCB that will sit inside the lens which has a bunch of LEDs on it. It's all a bit complicated, but hopefully the end result will be nice. The charge ports will be totally hidden.

I will need to extend the opening about 5mm - 10mm on the top and bottom to make room for the CCS socket.

After lurking on some conversations in Damien's discord, I'm also rethinking the rear battery location. One thing that this car is notorious for is, when rear-ended, the fuel tank gets crushed. If I were to put the batteries where the fuel tank goes, there's not a lot of car to absorb an impact before getting to them. It's a shame, as the batteries fit so well into this space - it's like they're made for it. But there's only something like 300mm between the rear bumper and the edge of the battery box. So, instead I think I'll put them in the boot, behind the back seat, over the rear axle. When I looked at this before, I thought I wouldn't fit all 6 modules there. But, dumb dumb that I am, I didn't consider just putting them on their side. Then they fit easily. So, the plan then is to make up a battery box, probably out of aluminium, and crane it in whole. This also has the benefit of it being further into the car, and further away from wet.

I'll still finish and use the tub that slots into the old fuel tank spot. Instead it will now just house the OBC, rear HV junction box, charge controllers, BMS, and some other bits.

I got my hands on an iBooster. Seems like it will fit nicely. The old booster is somewhere in my garage, I'm just not sure where. I can compare push rod lengths at some point, but there's a lot of other things to do before I get to that.

The car will be 60 years old next year - in June if I remember right. I'd really, really like to get it back on the road by then. I've been able to block out a few hours a week to work on it, so hopefully that'll accelerate progress a bit.

[Alibro]

Looking good
Would it be easier to put a cage around the back of the car in the boot or behind the rear bumper to strengthen it rather than compromising the battery position?

[chrskly]

Would it be easier to put a cage around the back of the car in the boot or behind the rear bumper to strengthen it rather than compromising the battery position?

In the long run its probably just easier to relocate the batteries rather than trying to add strength to rear of the car. They will actually fit quite well above the rear axle too as it turns out.

[chrskly]

Correction, the rear-most point of the car is about 150mm from the edge of the fuel tank area. So, even worse than I thought.

[rstevens81]

From someone who has quite literally driven himself nuts worrying about battery placement .... Rember the batteries are not as explosive than than petrol. For what it worth either (a) put them above the rear axel bits obs quite a bit of weight high up or (b) place them in the fuel tank area but put them side ways in an arrangement of 2x2 that way the connection goes in a circle and the cables can't really short out in event of a big shunt.
The thing to rember is that even with relatively recent cars upto the early 2000s had fuel tanks located behind the rear axel on the crumple zone (vauxhall omega is a good choice) and also rember that r100 only specified that a crush test is required if it's less than 300mm from the furthermost rear (or forward edge)

edit: slept on it a bit ....and changed my advice...since you can fit them above the axel do so, i would get some threaded rod and use these.

Edit 2 this is how I would arrange batteries above the rear subframe frame rather than on their side stack them up...this gives you lots of space that you will need for fuses and contactors etc (the sbox is a bit weak to be reused really)

[chrskly]

Thanks for the input, it's a big help

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more the batteries-over-the-axle option seems like the better one. Like I say, I had sort of discarded the idea early on. They didn't seem to easily fit above the axle and the dimensions of the fuel tank lined up so well. It's your classic "if I fits I sits" situation.

I don't think I had considered arranging the batteries the way you're suggesting. Which is surprising as I have pages and pages and pages of scribbles of different configurations for the front box I have max 280mm of height above the axle. It might be a little less as I'm not confident in the accuracy of that measurement. The BMW PHEV modules are 105mm tall with the CSC clipped to the end and 125mm tall with the CSC clipped to the top.

CSC on top => two modules tall = 250mm
CSC on end => two modules tall = 210mm

Both options are fairly tight, but possibly doable.

Not that it makes any difference, but there is a little error on your drawing. The battery terminals are always on the same side as each other. So, I just drew it out again, just to double-check. Basically just the 4<=>5 link (on your diagram) is on the other side.

Min dimensions of CSC on top => 753mm wide, 360mm deep, 250mm tall
Min dimensions of CSC on end => 800mm wide, 360mm deep, 210mm tall

I'll have to factor in enough gaps to fit everything together, plus the battery box material itself.

..... time to double check that height measurement ....

[chrskly]

That’s it. I can’t take it any more. I’m just declaring the rust repairs as done. They’re not really done of course. But, for my sanity, I’m just calling them done. The doors still have holes in the bottom, I’m sure the inside of the front fenders have at least some surface rust, and some hard to reach areas in the cabin need at least a quick spray with rust converter, but the chassis itself is essentially rust-free and sound so I’m calling it.

Undercoating

I wasn’t sure how I was going to finish off the underside. To be honest, I sort of made it up as I went along. I knew, at least, that I would be topping the zinc primer with a two part epoxy paint. That seems like the standard way to go. I then opted to run seam sealer over the paint. But somehow I ended up buying white seam sealer and that looked a bit odd against the grey epoxy. It’s all on the underside so it should massively matter, but, in the end I decided to go ahead and shutz the whole bottom of the car to finish. I’ll get an extra layer of protection out of it and it makes it all the same consistent colour.

I’ll also need to wax the inside of the frame rails at some point before having the car out in any wet weather. But that will be pretty simple to do.

Leaf springs

The front bushings on the leaf springs have a metal tube running through the middle. The mounting bolt runs through this metal tube. When the tube/bolt start to rust, they can get fused together. This is exactly what happened in my case so I ended up having to cut the bolt off and replace the bushings. For one of them, I couldn’t get in with my angle grinder so ended up sawing it off with one of those hacksaws where you can stick the blade out the front. Sore shoulders were had for a while after that.

I don’t have a press, so, to remove the old bushing it was just a lot of hammering with a lump hammer and a chunky chisel. Getting them back in was a lot easier. I could just about fit the end of the leaf spring and the new bushing in my vice and just slowly press it in.

I cleaned up the leaf springs with a polycarbide disk on my angle grinder and painted them up with some high temperature paint - I read somewhere that you should use VHT paint on springs.

The rear of the leaf springs use a shackle set up. The old shackles were in pretty poor shape, so I got some fresh ones. It was just a case of tapping in the new bushings, then bolting the shackles in (after applying a little grease).

Front suspension rebuild

The front suspension got a lot more attention. This is what it looked like at the beginning. All of the bushings were totally perished and in some cases were literally crumbling.

I tried to keep the original upper arms and just replace the ball joint. There was a ’tear’ in one of the upper arms around where the ball joint attached. I tapped this back together and welded it back up. I got replacement ball joints, but they ended up not fitting. I also discovered that the hinge/arm that the upper arm sits on was quite badly worn down. So, I ended up just getting whole new upper arms for both sides.

The ball joints on the lower arms can’t be replaced - they’re held on with some sort of a rivet type fastener. So I just had to replace the whole arms.

The sway bar end links also had to be completely replaced. The bushings were literally crumbling.

But the rest I kept and refreshed - sway bar, strut rods, springs, spring covers, spindles, steering stops.

[chrskly]

Getting the springs back in was a bit of a pain. To be honest, I’m not sure how I got them out in the first place. No matter what way I arranged them, the spring compressors would get in the way and I couldn’t fit the whole lot into the shock tower. In the end, the solution was to partially compress a spring with one set of compressors, then put another set of compressors on and compress the spring the rest of the way. The second set would start from a fully extended position but be able to grip the spring at the very top and bottom. The spring is always under some compression when in the car - even when the wheels are fully off the ground. When decompressing the spring was (more or less) fully seated in the tower right before the compressors reached their fully extended point.

I have some new shocks to go in the front. But I’ve not been able to fit them yet. The bottom of the shock attaches to the spring perch in the upper arm. The whole upper arm is new and the spring perch is still quite stiff. I couldn’t bend it at all by hand and it would only budge a little when I put a piece of timber in there to lever it. This was in part why the springs were so hard to get back in. One side of the perch was sitting up so high. And now even though the springs are back in, they’re not pushing down enough on the perch to level it out. So, I’ll put the wheels back on and put the wheels on the ground. I think this will squash the springs more and straighten out the spring perches. I’ll need to be careful though when jacking up the front of the car again to make sure that the shocks don’t get bent from the perches twisting them.

Axle

The axle was in pretty decent shape. It was a bit covered in crud and the brake flex hose was looking a bit rough, but apart from that, all it really needed was a clean up. Here’s the ‘before’.

I just went at it with a polycarbide disc, wire wheel and so on to clean it up. I gave it a few coats of paint and it looks great now.

I got fresh u-bolts to hold the axle to the leaf springs. The brackets are original, they just got a clean up and a lick of paint.

The flex line acts as a brake line splitter. The flex line is the input (obviously). It then has two outputs, one for each rear wheel. I have a new flex line to go on and I’ll run fresh brake lines while I’m at it.

The flex line assembly also acts as vent for the inside of the axle. The hole faces up, so, to avoid water ingress, it looks like it had a little bit of rubber tube attached and tilted over. There was only a tiny little bit of the tube still attached to the vent. Must have got ripped off at some point. There’s probably a little tab on the underside of the body somewhere that’s supposed to hold the end of the tube. I’ll replace it later on.

Yes, that shock is upside down.

I also took the opportunity, while the diff was out, to replace the oil. When it’s in the car, you have to suction the oil out. Easier to just tip the diff over while it’s out and let it drain itself.

The oil smelled … interesting. Sort of organic, but very strong. It was really very black so who knows when it was last changed.

I put around 500ml of fresh oil in, sloshed it around (cranked the input shaft a lot), drained it again, and filled it up. I’ll probably run it a bit and do at least one more flush like this. The oil is still quite black. I don’t know how well this diff is going to hold up to EV motor torque, so I don’t want to invest an awful lot in it, but I also want to give it a fighting chance.

Little video here : https://peertube.chrskly.net/w/bSQ1FvpocnPqh3fZmjXw5j

Disc brake conversion

The original 200 cubic-inch I6 engine that this car had made about 120 horsepower (when it left the factory 60 years ago). I plan to use the inverter from a Toyota Prius when converting this car to an EV. The maximum current that this inverter can pump out is around 500A. Above that some safeties kick in and shut you down. When full, my pack will sit at almost 400V. That means the maximum power output of the inverter will be something in the region of 200kw (500A * 400V = 200kW). 200kw is equivalent to about 270 horsepower. So, it’s safe to say that the car will be getting a major power upgrade. This car had options for a much larger and more powerful engines from the factory. But a power boost like this is definitely a reason to do an upgrade on the braking system from the stock drum brakes.

When it comes to brake upgrade kits there are more options available for the more popular V8 engined cars. However, the V8’s have a different setup to the I6 cars. For one, the V8’s have a five lug wheel setup, while the I6 only have a four lug. Also, the spindles on the V8’s are a little larger. There are still a few options when it comes to the I6 though.

One approach is to buy a small kit which allows you to fit the brakes from a newer mustang to these classics. This would probably be an easier and more economical way for me to go if I lived in the U.S.. I could go to a breakers yard and easily source old calipers and so on. But that’s not really an option for me. Not a lot of mustangs in breakers yards here.

There are some European-based websites that sell conversion kits. They look fine, but I’m not sure what you do when it comes time to replace the pads or discs. It could be that they’re pretty ‘standard’ parts, but I wasn’t sure.

In the end, I got this Wilwood conversion kit. It was a bit more expensive than some of the other kits, but it includes everything and I know that in the future I’ll be able to get replacement parts. Every single piece in the kit has its own part number.

Plus, it looks pretty damn cool.

Fitting this kit was very straightforward. The hub/disc assembly all bolts together. You put a bearing in the front and another in the back. Then the whole thing goes on the spindle. A bracket connects to the old hardware mounting points on the spindle and the caliper connects to that. You need the original spindle washer and nut, but everything else is new.

I’ve not plumbed it in at all yet as I need to run all new brake lines.

I’ll also be putting in an iBooster. It looks like it will possibly fit. It might clash slightly with the steering column ’tube’.

Next step here is to find the old brake cylinder (I have no idea where I put it) and start comparing the pushrods. I’ll need to get the old brake pedal and see how it looks fit-wise with the iBooster. Hopefully there won’t be much modification required.

Wiring

I’ve also re-re-re-thought the low-voltage wiring. I was planning to make some PCBs that would take fuses and relays directly. But that was just making things more complicated than they needed to be. I was concerned around complexity in the logic of what got turned on when. For example, the coolant pump will need to come on when driving AND when charging. Plus I want to do things like allow the BMS to disable driving when the battery is empty and disable driving when charging. The idea was to capture all of this logic in a PCB. But, really, when I boiled it all down, it only really came down to:

Things that turn on when the ignition is on
Things that turn on when we’re charging
Things that turn on when the ignition is on OR when charging
Drive inhibition happens when charging or when the BMS says so

Accomplishing all of that really only needs a handful of diodes and for all of the above to be on relays. So, I still have a little PCB, but just for the handful of diodes.

For everything else, I bought a few of these nice Littelfuse fuse/relay boxes. The build quality is really nice. They take mini fuses and ISO280 relays, so it’s all very compact. They have 60 pins so that’s 30x fuses, or 12x SPST relays (plus 6x fuses), or 8x SPDT relays (plus 6x fuses).

I’ll put two in the engine bay, one under the dash, and one in the boot.

The wiring diagram is still much a work in progress.

The gathering

I’ve also started to gather all of the bits together in one spot. I’ve been collecting all of this stuff over such a long time, it’s all scattered all over the place.

Some of the bits include …

• Brakes
  • New brake lines
  • iBooster
  • New brake fittings for the whole car
  • Gen1 iBooster plug kit from EVCreate
  • Brake line reducers from EVCreate to fit 4.75mm brake lines on the iBooster
• Low voltage wiring
  • Busbars
  • Fuse boxes
  • Lots of Deutsch plugs/sockets for various bits of low-voltage wiring
• Heating/Cooling
  • A couple of small, crappy rads - will probably get something better
  • HV water heater from an MG
  • A couple of 12V water heaters from a Mercedes (?). May not use.
  • Lots of 19mm coolant hose (not shown)
  • Various water pumps
• Charging
  • Custom BMS
  • CHAdeMO and CCS charge ports
  • LIM
  • HV sense board for LIM from EVCreate
  • Custom CHAdeMO charge controller
  • MG ZS Charger
• Batteries
  • Nice HV plugs/sockets to connect batteries to HVJB
  • Safety disconnect / fuse from a Hyundai
  • 5V PSUs for the BMS CSCs
• Misc
  • Some junction boxes
  • Contactors
  • Pre-charge resistor