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That's definitely an issue given my experience! Not sure what things are like in your postcode but £1500 was pretty painful.

Great to see you back at it! Yeah, insurance here in Ireland is still a bit unclear for ev conversions. Mine was relatively straightforward as it was over 25 years old and qualified for classic insurance for €250 - no more than 5k miles a year, not for work use, etc. I did call a few places to insure as a standard daily driver... there was a lot of 'errr' and 'emmm' on the end of the line. I did get one quote of €2500!
Keep it lit!

Thank you, I think if insurance is going to be prohibitive then at least I have learnt how to do this. I could then repeat the process in a different vehicle another time, maybe a classic that makes the insurance less of an issue.

So given a few days of work or rain, and rain and work, there was a break in the weather today, Sunday afternoon, I did a little bit more work on the conversion.
A few years ago I made a wooden scissor lift for a job to lift an antique cabinet into position on a wall for a client. It was the safest way I could do the job without costly equipment hire. After the job it was part dismantled and stashed in my woodwork shop. Today I reassembled enough of it to use to lift the transmission into position in the engine bay so that the driveshafts could be connected. Doing it this way meant not needing to leave the engine crane assembled and out in the open. With the scissor lift underneath I could then close the bonnet and leave it again when it started raining. Given I have never seen this transmission in its original vehicle, the Toyota Prius, I have no idea what I can use to indicate when the transmission is level front to back. I am guessing the top two bell housing bolt holes so that is how I have wedged it level on the scissor lift.

I then connected the two driveshafts to the transmission drive flanges. For the time being I have used a couple of M10 x 20mm bolts per joint until the Torx drive socket head screws arrive from China. With the driveshafts connected I was able to lift and adjust the position of the transmission to as close to the correct position as I could, though with the nearside and offside driveshafts swapped over I have no idea how correct it really is! Best guess I suppose!

Now I can make up a temporary method for attaching the transmission to the original engine mounts on the car, maybe in wood before I fabricate them in steel, but maybe just bodge something and hope!

Due to a rotten night's sleep I needed to do something physically challenging, and mentally stimulating, to keep me awake. And as it wasn't raining this afternoon it was a chance to work on the car again.

I decided to make the transmission mounting and with a lot of careful checking I found that the offside engine mount was raised up on a turret, relative to the nearside mounting. The difference between the underside of the offside and the top side of the nearside mounting was 40mm. I just happened to have a length of scrap 40 x 70 x 3mm box section.
The bolt holes were 90mm apart on each mount and 800mm side to side. So I started fabricating by welding some angle iron to each end to extend the width of the box section for the mounting holes.

My TIG welding is improving, photography less so as out of focus. A quick test fit and I have my measurements right. I do need to get some longer bolts though. You can see how I decided to do this, I could have put the angle across the end of the box section but I only had a small off cut of the angle so it had to be tabs.
The near side rests on top of the original mounting point.... ...while the offside end is suspended from underneath. Notice the notch I had to fabricate to fit the cross-member to the mount. I could have cut the protrusion off the mount but decided to leave it as it is for now, in case I change the design.
It is all good TIG welding practice on scrap metal anyway. I sprayed the cross-member with grey primer for the time being.  The next stage will be to make brackets to go from the transmission to the cross-member. Need to find more usable scrap steel from the (huge) pile in the basement workshop.

I did a bit of cardboard template making today, to decide how to make the mounting brackets for the transmission.

I have a couple of lengths of 50 x 6mm flat bar that has been waiting to be added to my trailer for so long that I doubt it will ever happen. I might as well just use it for this job.
No measurements were taken. I just placed cardboard over the end of the bellhousing and tapped with a hammer to get the outline and hole locations around the bell housing, and what I think might be the second mounting point on the top of the transmission. Starting with the bellhousing bracket, once I had a layout of the holes and dowels I was able to figure out a way to catch them all with two strips of the flat bar.
I transferred the template marks by eye to the steel and cut it out and drilled holes. I then TIG welded at the apex of the inverted V and tested it for fit and accuracy. All being well I welded in a scrap off cut triangle (I keep a lot of triangular off cuts!) to strengthen the shape. Surprisingly it fitted fine once the dowel holes were reamed out a touch. There is a bit of a gap where the bracket meets the cross-member, but that will be fine as I will cut it back another 2 or 3 mm to allow for the cross-member to settle in the rubber mounts.
I will also add some triangular fillets to each side to stiffen the bracket to the cross-member. The bracket will be bolted to the bellhousing, at the top with two M10 x 1.5 x 50 hex nuts and bolts through the bell housing, and at the bottom by two M10 x 1.25 x 30 hex screws into threaded blind holes. I have the M10 x 1.25 screws and tap to clean the threads, on order. As I didn't have time to weld the bracket to the cross-member this evening, I decided to just spray it with grey primer for now and deal with it another day.
And, yes, I need to add more filler rod to that weld when I add the triangular fillets.

I finished making the transmission cross-member today. Of course I forgot to take photos of the process due to running back and forth from the welding workshop to the car checking the fit.

Still, I made the second bracket, and got it all lined up and welded and then sprayed with more grey primer. This nearside bracket was complicated to get right. I drilled the holes parallel to the long side of the plate but they are not square to the transmission. The bellhousing bracket was a lot easier to align as it is square in both directions. I also added the triangular fillets. It was then painted in black. It would have been fun if I had other colours to highlight the new bits. When the paint dried I installed it and let it take the full weight of the transmission. It is a little back heavy so it swings the cross-member forward on it's rubber mounts. Still, the torque brace will sort that out. I still need the two M10x1.25 screws for the two lower holes. Will I need to cover that splined shaft? I had to 'oval' these holes a little to make fitting easier. Now, that torque brace...
Ahh, that hole in the suspension cross-member is where the torque brace goes. Except it is on the nearside and there are no mounting points on the transmission on that side.
What to do? What to do?

I've done it again and made a thing and forgot to take photos until it was nearly done!

I have been working on a way to brace the transmission's torque reaction to the torque arm. The only mounting points being at the bellhousing end and the torque arm being at the other end. I have no idea if this would work but it is the only option I have at the moment. I could, of course, change the lengths of the drive shafts and move the transmission to the nearside where it should be but that is a cost I am avoiding right now.
To get the transmission in the right place I used a ratchet strap to rotate the transmission so the back end was raised and closer to the torque arm.
I made a card template of the bolt holes at the bottom of the bellhousing and then welded up some 50 x 6mm flat bar that I drilled to fit three of the M10 x 1.25 threaded holes. I then found a bit of flat steel plate, 3mm thick, that used to be a flat screen TV mounting plate. That meant I could make another card template to join the bellhousing across to the torque arm.

You can see the 3mm plate bent to fit under the transmission. Here is the bolted end of the brace, the middle bolt isn't fitted in this photo. To reduce flexing I added a long fillet. The end of it needs trimming off a bit as it is very close to the transmission. The torque arm has an extension on the bush. I am not sure if I want to use or lose that. With the brace fully welded and painted I installed it and tightened up the bolts. Not too bad for modelling by eye, I will need to twist the 3mm plate a little so that it is square to the torque arm bolt hole to relieve the bush. I am also wondering about extending the plate forwards so that there is a second bolt hole, and also adding some more stiffening under the plate. So, aside from a few details, I think that is how the transmission will fit.

Great progress! Wish I could weld like you can. Some lovely work there.

Looks good but you’ll definitely need to reinforce that torque mount. Possibly a bracket that can pick up from the case bolts on that end of the box?

Thanks for all the pictures. Great to see all the Prius transaxle combinations. I am doing a mix and match similar to you.

Cookie6000 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 06, 2021 8:01 am Great to see you back at it! Yeah, insurance here in Ireland is still a bit unclear for ev conversions. Mine was relatively straightforward as it was over 25 years old and qualified for classic insurance for €250 - no more than 5k miles a year, not for work use, etc. I did call a few places to insure as a standard daily driver... there was a lot of 'errr' and 'emmm' on the end of the line. I did get one quote of €2500!
Keep it lit!

Sorry to dredge up an old post but found this searching forum for insurance. I have tried a couple of places who have insured my Range Rover in the past on a classic policy in Ireland, but both said they won't do EVs. Who did you get classic insurance with? Thanks!

I asked two classic insurers, Campion and First Ireland. Both quoted me after they had seen my engineers report after I had finished the ev conversion and it was re-registered as an ev through Wicklow county council.

Cookie6000 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 10:13 am I asked two classic insurers, Campion and First Ireland. Both quoted me after they had seen my engineers report after I had finished the ev conversion and it was re-registered as an ev through Wicklow county council.

Thanks for that, will try Campion.

First Ireland, who I have policy with currently said no, but I note from Damien's comments on the other thread that maybe a little persistence is required.