openinverter forum

Hello all,

Kicking off a thread on my project. A few years back I bought myself a 1965 Ford Mustang. Here it is the day after I bought it. You can still see the rope attached from where a friend very generously helped me tow it home. There was just a minor issue with the distributor. I've had it running on and off. But there are issues that need attention - water leaking in and rusting things up. It needs a fair amount of restoration work. The cowls need to be replaced, there are a few small holes in the floorpan, and there is some bubbling paint on one of the doors.

The original plan was to rebuild the 200ci inline 6 cylinder engine it came with, but I've decided to turn it into an EV instead.

I've more or less stripped it back to the bare frame. I'm grinding off all of the paint right now. After that will come bodywork repairs.
Since it's a rear wheel drive car, the Lexus gs450h CVT seems like the obvious way to go. Lots of power in a very tidy package that will fit neatly in the transmission tunnel. The only concern I have here is the strength of the original rear end. These cars came with three different differential/axle setups depending on which engine they were fitted with. Either 7in, 8in or 9in. My car came with the smallest engine so has the smallest/weakest rear end - the 7in. I've not been able to find any hard data on what kind of abuse this will stand up to. The original i6 produces up to 258Nm of torque. The plan is to use the original rear end and if I melt it (not that I'll be driving it very hard) then I can swap it out with something heavier.
The engine bay is very spacious - lots of room for batteries. The frame rails are 800mm apart. It's narrower between the shock towers of course.
Lots of room in the boot as well. In particular, there's a space that's approx 400x300x1100mm behind the back seats. It's sort of dead space that doesn't really take away from the boot space. I have one of the BMW 'saddlebag' 9.5kWh packs on the way. The plan is to start out with this small pack and get everything working. All going well, I'll invest in a bigger pack.

I'd love to keep the original filler cap location and put the charge port there.
I'll also need to do something about the steering and brakes. Both are manual. But, most worrying of all is the way the steering works. It has one long 19mm diameter steel bar running from the steering box all the way up to steering wheel. Bit of a nightmare in a crash.
I just recently attended one of Damien/Kevin's EV conversion courses - so I'm all fired up and I've been doing a lot of shopping The plan is to build out the EV parts on the bench in parallel while I'm working on the bodywork.

Nice project

Maybe this German video series is of interest:


It is also a Mustang. I don't like how they use a low voltage system, a silly BMS and stack tons of chargers in the boot but I do like how they fitted the batteries (10 Tesla modules)

They threw in 50,000€ for parts - you're gonna do better

Cool, thanks johu, I'll check it out. Yeah, definitely going to come in under €50k

looks great, will be following with interest !

chrskly wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2020 12:03 am
I'll also need to do something about the steering and brakes. Both are manual. But, most worrying of all is the way the steering works. It has one long 19mm diameter steel bar running from the steering box all the way up to steering wheel. Bit of a nightmare in a crash.

Hot Rod Magazine did a good piece on electric power steering in a Mustang using a Prius column
https://www.hotrod.com/articles/150-ele ... -delivers/

There are also some good collapsible (in a crash) columns out there. I'm going to use a race specific one from Speedway Motors for my 40 Chevy, but there are a bunch of street ones out there too.

Awesome project! I'm doing a learning conversion on an ATV before doing a conversion on my '67 Thunderbird. Looking forward to seeing this come together!

Like the Prius power steering idea

P.S.Mangelsdorf wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2020 11:41 am

chrskly wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2020 12:03 am I'll also need to do something about the steering and brakes. Both are manual. But, most worrying of all is the way the steering works. It has one long 19mm diameter steel bar running from the steering box all the way up to steering wheel. Bit of a nightmare in a crash.

Hot Rod Magazine did a good piece on electric power steering in a Mustang using a Prius column
https://www.hotrod.com/articles/150-ele ... -delivers/

There are also some good collapsible (in a crash) columns out there. I'm going to use a race specific one from Speedway Motors for my 40 Chevy, but there are a bunch of street ones out there too.

Yeah, thanks, I really like the Prius column suggestion. Looking at some of these on eBay, it doesn't look like it would be too hard to adapt. I was doing some research at one point, trying to see if I could swap in a rack-and-pinion setup from another car and I have some vague memory of the steering being set up in a weird way on the mustang. I think you can end up with the steering working backwards if you're not careful. If I keep the steering box that's there and mate that with the Prius power steering column, then I should be OK.

I got my hands on an inverter last week and finally got it open this evening. I wasn't paying very close attention and only realised that it was from a Prius Aqua (or Prius C). But, now, having cracked it open, and consulted the wiki it looks to have the same board numbers as the Yaris.

Top badge : G9200-52030
Side badge : G9201-52011
Small/top board : F1759-52010 04 (154mm long)
Big/bottom board : F1789-52010

Yep thats a yaris/auris variant.

Brilliant, thanks Damien.

Im doing the exact same conversion to my '65 mustang. Im using a 2014 spark battery though that might change. Just a heads up, you're going to have to cut the transmission tunnel to make the gs450h transmission fit, as it is massive compared to the original one.

EVPanda wrote: ↑Thu Sep 17, 2020 3:33 pm Im doing the exact same conversion to my '65 mustang. Im using a 2014 spark battery though that might change. Just a heads up, you're going to have to cut the transmission tunnel to make the gs450h transmission fit, as it is massive compared to the original one.

Early mustang transmission tunnels are notoriously tiny.

EVPanda wrote: ↑Thu Sep 17, 2020 3:33 pm Im doing the exact same conversion to my '65 mustang. Im using a 2014 spark battery though that might change. Just a heads up, you're going to have to cut the transmission tunnel to make the gs450h transmission fit, as it is massive compared to the original one.

Cool!

Yeah, I was just moving things around the other day in the garage and I was thinking to myself that the 3-speed auto that I took out was much skinnier than I remember.

Do you have any idea how you're going to join the gs450h transmission to rear axle. My car had a slip joint joining the transmission to the prop shaft. I presume this is standard on Mustangs. So, you can't just make up an adapter to fit to the U joint at the transmission end - the prop shaft won't be able to 'breathe' as the suspension moves. You could make a new adapter that fits the gs450h on one end and has a slip joint on the other. This might push the gs450h transmission forward into the engine bay a bit more than you'd like though.

The other option is to use the prop shaft from a gs450h and make an adapter to join it to the diff.

Also, what rear end do you have in your Mustang? 8in, 9in?

chrskly wrote: ↑Thu Sep 17, 2020 9:35 pm

EVPanda wrote: ↑Thu Sep 17, 2020 3:33 pm Im doing the exact same conversion to my '65 mustang. Im using a 2014 spark battery though that might change. Just a heads up, you're going to have to cut the transmission tunnel to make the gs450h transmission fit, as it is massive compared to the original one.

Cool!

Yeah, I was just moving things around the other day in the garage and I was thinking to myself that the 3-speed auto that I took out was much skinnier than I remember.

Do you have any idea how you're going to join the gs450h transmission to rear axle. My car had a slip joint joining the transmission to the prop shaft. I presume this is standard on Mustangs. So, you can't just make up an adapter to fit to the U joint at the transmission end - the prop shaft won't be able to 'breathe' as the suspension moves. You could make a new adapter that fits the gs450h on one end and has a slip joint on the other. This might push the gs450h transmission forward into the engine bay a bit more than you'd like though.

The other option is to use the prop shaft from a gs450h and make an adapter to join it to the diff.

Also, what rear end do you have in your Mustang? 8in, 9in?

I bought an adapter to convert the 3 bolt flange to a standard u-joint. You can then get your stock driveshaft modified (or buy a new one) with the slip yoke on the driveshaft.

Gotcha, makes sense. Thanks.

The 3 bolt flange to a standard u-joint was what I had planned to use as well. My mustang is/was a 289 auto. I am fairly certain I have the 8in rear end. My plan was to get a 8.8 rear end out of a ford explorer and cut it down to fit. There are tutorials online. This would give me rear disk breaks as well as Traction-Lok.

Late model Camaros are the same way. Here’s an off the shelf conversion for them. I bought the adapter (pilot fits but the bolt pattern is a different diameter. Spicer makes a 1350 yoke that bolts to the 4 bolt flange.

I'm now in possession of one of the BMW saddle-bag packs. ~9kWh capacity. My Auris/Yaris board from Damien has arrived. So, I have some soldering to do. I've also acquired the CVT from a 2015 Lexus GS300h. I'm taking a bit of a gamble on this. These have no external oil pump, so I have to figure out how the oil pump is set up internally. I'll be opening this up over the weekend. I've also got myself some Kilovac contactors, some precharge resistors, a BMW accelerator pedal, and some fuses. So, all the bits are coming together.

Keep posting progress pics. Always exciting for some one to take apart new hardware.

This project is soo cool.

Following with interest! I run a Mustang books, gifts, and parts store on eBay, but have recently moved over to driving an EV... this project seems the best of both worlds Let me know if you need anything from OER/Classic Industries (formerly California Mustang) once you've got the drivetrain sorted. I have a trade account with them so can basically get stuff cheaper than retail for you

I've been busy spilling transmission fluid all over the place today. To have a look at what's going on inside this GS300h CVT I need to think it over a bit more and check my logic, but it looks like I can use this CVT. Check out the L210 thread for a bit more info on that. I've not quite decided whether to run MG1 and MG2, or to do charging with the inverter. I'm leaning slightly toward using MG1+MG2 for more muscle

I started to solder my inverter board from evbmw, but chickened out. My soldering iron is crap, and the solder I had on hand was crappier, so, rather than screw up at this relatively early hurdle, I got a local phone repair place to do the soldering for me. Buuuuut, it looks like the little 50 pin connector is on backwards. That one is on me though. I had started to solder this connector on before bottling it. So the guy just followed my lead. Anyway, looking at the plug I'm thinking of just taking a scalpel and shaving off the little notch pieces. The plug/socket seem otherwise symmetrical and there are catches on the side to hold it in place. So, it looks like it will be OK.

I also bought this wall charger thing secondhand on a whim. It's an ABL EVSE562. Apparently it's 3.7kw. It didn't come with a key, but 5 minutes with the lock pick kit and I had it open Single phase only, of course - it's a domestic unit.
Inside it has:

1. 63A MCB
2. ABL IS4020 - looks to be a contractor. Here is the 4 pole version
3. ABL EVCC 16A, mode 3. This lines up with the 3.7kw rating provided by the seller. Although, I see some suggestions online that it can be re-flashed to do 32A.
4. A little circuit board in a shielded cage.
5. Type 2 port on the side
6. Lots of dead bugs

Nowhere near being ready to use this, but it will hopefully be handy later.

69fastback wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2020 9:00 pm Following with interest! I run a Mustang books, gifts, and parts store on eBay, but have recently moved over to driving an EV... this project seems the best of both worlds Let me know if you need anything from OER/Classic Industries (formerly California Mustang) once you've got the drivetrain sorted. I have a trade account with them so can basically get stuff cheaper than retail for you

Cool, thanks for the offer. I may take you up on that.

Did some more puzzling over the GS300h CVT today, see the L210 thread for more info.

Also started breaking down the BMW battery pack.