openinverter forum

Greetings from Wicklow, Ireland. This is my 1989 Range Rover Classic currently with a blown 1980s BMTW 2.5l diesel engine:



Engine is not worth repairing, so after extensive online rabbit holing for solutions I've decided to try and convert to electric.

In my ownership the car was only ever used as a local runabout, it was sluggish and rarely went too far as it's top usable speed was about 60. So I'm not overly concerned about range and performance from the EV conversion.

If I can get a range of 60 odd miles from a full charge that will amply cover all my needs for this car, and I have no interest in drag racing it.

From what I've read so far I think a Leaf motor with a 24kw battery pack is best suited to the above given considerations of availability and price.

One of my first questions would be assuming the Leaf turns out be the choice for parts, am I better to source the bits in the UK or Northern Ireland rather than ROI. It seems like price and availability might be better there. And presumably it is cheaper to buy a entire donor car rather than everything individually?

In terms of carrying out the conversion, I have only basic mechanical knowledge from arsing about with old cars over the years.

One plan is to attempt the conversion with my cousin who is very mechanically minded having done engine swaps and built a drift car etc.

Is it feasible to do the install - i.e fit motor, mount battery packs etc and then get somebody with experience of EVs to complete wiring and electrics? If that's an option it is attractive from a safety point of view.

Very much still in the early stages of this, just reading, researching and learning so just starting the thread as part of that process, open to all comments, suggestions and advice and will update as I go! TIA!

Looking forward to following this, this will be cool

Will it see any off road use and towing? May affect some choices

nkiernan wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 4:57 pm Looking forward to following this, this will be cool

Will it see any off road use and towing? May affect some choices

I've seen your L322 thread, which piqued my interest, would love to do that!

It won't be an off roader, in an ideal world I'd retain the HI-LO if possible, purely for heavy snow use, but I'm prepared to lose it.

The way I'm approaching it at the minute is desktop plans going for as affordable and as simple as possible, accepting there will be trade offs - eg off road ability. Before I commit I'll weigh up alternative options re price and complexity, but I suspect I'll stick with the basic plan.

It's a similiar case with towing, though I'd tow more regularly. But it would only ever be relatively light loads a short distance. I am not lugging horse boxes or anything.

I sort of assumed light towing would not make an enormous difference to the set up, am I being optimistic in that?

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finding a salvaged leaf would be ideal. if you can pull the full drive stack (motor, inverter, pdm) along with the HV wiring, your mostly good to go. just a matter of coupling the motor to the gear box, and mounting the battery pack. zombieverter will control the full drive stack (motor, charger, dcdc)



this would be the simplest way of doing it.

Bratitude wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 8:01 pm finding a salvaged leaf would be ideal. if you can pull the full drive stack (motor, inverter, pdm) along with the HV wiring, your mostly good to go. just a matter of coupling the motor to the gear box, and mounting the battery pack. zombieverter will control the full drive stack (motor, charger, dcdc)

this would be the simplest way of doing it.

Exactly what I have in mind. Loads of space obviously in the engine bay for the stack and mount the batteries under a false floor in the boot, using the battery pack as is without fabricating dedicated battery boxes.

In discussing this project elsewhere somebody made the suggestion it might be helpful to chat, whilst still in the planning stage, to an SQI re the sign off on the final conversion. This does seem like a good idea, particularly as would like to check if the weight distribution will pass muster. I am happy the car will take the weight of the full battery pack in the boot, but obviously the distribution will be a bit out of kilter.

Do any of the posters in Ireland know of an SQI who would be happy to chat through a few do's and dont's?

Another local! Welcome
So much scope to do something in a Rangey classic. Getting a complete battery and drivetrain should be easy enough through the likes of Kilcock Dismantlers (closest EV/Hybrid approved breakers to Wicklow I think) or EV Breakers up in Newry. I got the 24kWh pack for about €2k and the motor/inverter stack for under €1k. I have seen the stack go for half that in the recent past. Few 40kWh packs going around too. Reach out to paaa on the forum too. He has lots of contacts on where to get packs from... he's got enough at this stage lol!

Good luck with the build and hope to meet soon if you're up this end of the county.

Cookie6000 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 12, 2022 3:50 pm Another local! Welcome
So much scope to do something in a Rangey classic. Getting a complete battery and drivetrain should be easy enough through the likes of Kilcock Dismantlers (closest EV/Hybrid approved breakers to Wicklow I think) or EV Breakers up in Newry. I got the 24kWh pack for about €2k and the motor/inverter stack for under €1k. I have seen the stack go for half that in the recent past. Few 40kWh packs going around too. Reach out to paaa on the forum too. He has lots of contacts on where to get packs from... he's got enough at this stage lol!

Good luck with the build and hope to meet soon if you're up this end of the county.

Still wondering if it is worthwhile trying to get a complete vehicle from the UK, but will definitely follow up those leads. And will meet soon for sure. Cheers.

Am resurrecting this thread as going to try and finally get this project started. Shortly after last posting I lost the storage and workshop space where the Range Rover was, and it's spent most of the time since sitting in a lean to shed outside my house. I've now decided it will never get done if I am waiting on reasonably priced local space to rent, so will try and tackle it in situ.

In the interim I flirted with the idea of a GS450H unit instead of the Leaf, but have now reverted to Plan A - Leaf motor mated to original gearbox.

I have a zombieverter, and a Gen 3 Leaf stack thanks to marty, and a BMW S-box. Still gathering miscellaneous cabling and connectors.

Currently spending a lot of time on YouTube, rewatching Damien's and others videos, whilst staring at the stack and mentally ticking off bits that I understand one by one! Slow progress, but the list of what I don't understand is at least getting smaller.

Plan is to complete a bench set up to learn and understand the A-Z, and get it spinning. At that stage I'll deICE the car, and install the stack. I'm delaying battery decisions until I've seen what space and weight I have to work with when stack is in the car.

Looking forward to seeing your project progress. This will make a great conversion. Two things: the 24kwh pack might be tough to get 60 miles out of. They also are all probably badly degraded by now. I have a LEAF 30kwh in my Land Cruiser which is about the same size as your Rover and I get about 60-70 miles at the absolute most when I am driving very conservatively. Your truck has smaller and less rolling resistance tires and is probably more aerodynamic etc also which will help, but I still think it'll be tough.

Definitely plan on getting some sort of reduction gear before the transfer case. Without it the truck will be so sluggish and possibly won't even move. I have 2.7:1 reduction on my Cruiser and it works great. My final drive is 11:1 in high range which is perfect and has an RPM limited top speed of 75.

@EVSwap - I have reduced my range ambitions a lot based on what I've learnt since writing the first post! TBH in the first instance 30 miles or so will make this a useable vehicle for my needs - local runabout. When I was using it with the ICE I rarely if ever drove it more than a 20 mile round trip. It's a third car. Longer term I may look to increase the range and drop the second car, but for now I will just concentrate on getting it working even with a very low range.

Re reduction gear, I'm planning on retaining the original Land Rover manual box.

First spin, yee ha! Leaf stack with zombie.



Big thanks to marty here, who I bought the bits off, and was on hand via whatsapp to answer my dumb noob questions.

Next step is to deice the Range Rover. I didn't want to start dismantling the car until I'd got my head a bit more around the VCU, the wiring, connections etc.

Once I get engine etc out of the car I can measure up for adaptors/spacers/couplers etc as well as mounts etc and get my head around battery choice/space/distribution.

Love the test battery pack!

Always a good idea to leave the battery until last, get everything else in and then look for batteries. They are getting cheaper all the time.

You can fit half a VW 55kWh pack in the fuel tank area on a RRC, potentially should be enough room in the front for the other half with the leaf stack as well.

LRBen wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 7:17 pm Love the test battery pack!

Always a good idea to leave the battery until last, get everything else in and then look for batteries. They are getting cheaper all the time.

You can fit half a VW 55kWh pack in the fuel tank area on a RRC, potentially should be enough room in the front for the other half with the leaf stack as well.

Hat tip to Zieg here for the test battery pack idea - I was weighing up the options, I didn't really want to get into rectifiers, and I happened across his post where he spun the Leaf in his "Locost 7" with 60v from three cordless tool batteries. I already had 4 x 20v batteries, and as luck would have it saw an ad locally selling another 5 of the same brand new for €100. I don't think they would spin it for too long though!

I'd love to have 55kwh, but not sure budget will stretch to that in first instance. I"ll probably have more space than money for batteries, but I'll try and make a modular plan!