Freelander 1 Freelander EV

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I've been quiet here since Sunday because things went from bad to worse and I was getting worried. On Saturday the fault went from intermittent to permanent with a bang when I tried a test drive. All things were pointing towards either a bad connection or a blown inverter.
I spent a couple of days going through the connections testing the wiring and eventually found a short from one of the inverter/motor wires to ground. It was a connection I had made nearly two years ago so I was surprised it took so long to show the fault.
Thinking this was the issue I repaired the wire and tried again.
Before I had both motor temperature and motor rpm showing full scale as below.

IMG_20230919_210454676_HDR.jpg


After repairing the fault the Motor temperature fell back to the correct reading but the RPM was still full scale.
I spent another full day triple checking connections but couldn't get the RPM back to normal. I even started looking at Ebay for replacement inverters but decided to pull the top off the inverter to see if I could find anything and eventually found that one of the connections was not making it from the outside to the inside. :oops:
After jumping the broken connection I tried again and the RPM was now correct and the with the car out of gear the motor was spinning again. :D So I had not just one fault but two. :rolleyes:
I think the second problem may have been caused by plugging the round grey connector in and out too often over the last couple of years so as I can no longer trust it I decided to remove it completely.

IMG_20230920_210640088_HDR.jpg


I had a couple of spare white connectors from other areas in the Nissan Leaf so cut the grey connector off and rewired the external loom to it directly. I then removed the internal green connector and wiring intact. This meant I still have the green socket intact in case I ever need it in the future or find a good grey connector and decide to put it back to standard.

IMG_20230921_213420008.jpg


Obviously I'll have to seal up the hole somehow but have plenty of sealant to do that. I'll double check my connections tomorrow and try testing again.
 
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Alibro said:
Not Mondo mode as the propshaft is on but as I've said before I refurbed the VCU a few years ago and left it 'softer' than it would be as standard. I get enough drive to the rear for anything I use the car for but it would be poor in an off road course.
Click to expand...
It's impressive to spin the front tyres with the VCU taking some of the drive. I couldn't get my V6 to spin the fronts on tarmac. It definitely pulls away pretty sharply, so has plenty of that lovely electric torque available.
 
Nodge68 said:
It's impressive to spin the front tyres with the VCU taking some of the drive. I couldn't get my V6 to spin the fronts on tarmac. It definitely pulls away pretty sharply, so has plenty of that lovely electric torque available.
Click to expand...
I'd say it feels similar to a Td4 if you revved the tit's off it and dropped the clutch. Definitely made me smile 😁 I drove it into a field and planted it. The fronts were spinning but the rears just pushed me forward.
Unless maybe one front and one rear were spinning but of course I could only see the drivers side.

For every day driving I'll probably use 2nd to start 99% of the time.
The feel of the accelerator is really nice and progressive.
 
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Alibro said:
I'd say it feels similar to a Td4 if you revved the tit's off it and dropped the clutch. Definitely made me smile 😁 I drove it into a field and planted it. The fronts were spinning but the rears just pushed me forward.
Unless maybe one front and one rear were spinning but of course I could only see the drivers side.

For every day driving I'll probably use 2nd to start 99% of the time.
The feel of the accelerator is really nice and progressive.
Click to expand...
That's exactly how it would feel, as the Leaf motor has the same torque from zero RPM as the TD4 spinning at 3,000 RPM at full throttle.

Normally an AWD will spin opposite wheels front to back, so you could well have been spinning the driver's front and passenger rear, which of course you can't see.

It's good to see it working correctly now. Me, I'd probably use 3rd all the time because I'm lazy, and would want to keep torque through the IRD to within sensible limits.
 
Nodge68 said:
That's exactly how it would feel, as the Leaf motor has the same torque from zero RPM as the TD4 spinning at 3,000 RPM at full throttle.

Normally an AWD will spin opposite wheels front to back, so you could well have been spinning the driver's front and passenger rear, which of course you can't see.

It's good to see it working correctly now. Me, I'd probably use 3rd all the time because I'm lazy, and would want to keep torque through the IRD to within sensible limits.
Click to expand...

The NS rear may have been spinning but I didn't check the skid marks. I can confirm though that spinning wheels in a field may not be the most sensible thing to do. The car now stinks of horse sh1t! 🤣

Starting off in third might be OK on a slight down hill but for normal driving I think would be a little sluggish, probably like using 2nd in a normal car.
 
Alibro said:
The NS rear may have been spinning but I didn't check the skid marks. I can confirm though that spinning wheels in a field may not be the most sensible thing to do. The car now stinks of horse sh1t! 🤣

Starting off in third might be OK on a slight down hill but for normal driving I think would be a little sluggish, probably like using 2nd in a normal car.
Click to expand...
Lol. You've got some cleaning to do then Ali.

Looking at the Leaf standard final drive ratios, it seems to be a bit higher than 3dr gear in a TD4, so the motor should cope just fine in 3rd. From memory the Leaf motor spins to 8,000 RPM, which is twice as fast as the engine it replaced, so 2nd or 3rd will work just fine, and for really fast getaways, 1st would be the gear of choice, if you can keep the wheel spin in check.
 
Last night I spent some time sealing the newly modified inverter cable.

IMG_20230923_163420975.jpg
IMG_20230923_163416477.jpg


I taped up the outside of the hole with the cable in place and pumped in a load of Tiger Seal to try and keep the moisture out.

I only managed an hour or so on it today but found out why the rear lights were on all the time. Faulty brake switch!
It finally dawned on me they were the brake lights so the test mule donated a brake light switch and now all good. :)
I also worked out which wire gets 12V when the brakes are pushed so when I get a chance I'll wire it back the VCU. This should behave as a kill switch for the VCU when the brake is pushed. ;)
 
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IT NEVER ENDS!!!!! :mad:

I pulled a heavy 4mm 3 core cable through the bulkhead today at the passenger foot well to use for the PAS. I plan to put the 48V battery and ebike controller to power the PAS under the passenger seat so this was the best place to get through the bulkhead and I've pulled a few cables through there before.
So later I wanted to open the boot door so reconnected the battery and NOTHING. o_O

The boot door didn't open and after spending ages checking I found two blown fuses under the bonnet. They were in a separate fuse holder from the normal one which thankfully I was aware of but even after replacing them I still have no boot door and no power at position one on the keyswitch. I'm pretty sure this gets power from the CCU as does the boot door.
I don't even know when or when it happened. :oops:
I've checked every fuse I can find tried to look it up in RAVE but no joy.
So I've either fecked up the CCU or there is another fuse I haven't found. :mad:
Any suggestions welcome.
 
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Alibro said:
IT NEVER ENDS!!!!! :mad:

I pulled a heavy 4mm 3 core cable through the bulkhead today at the passenger foot well to use for the PAS. I plan to put the 48V battery and ebike controller to power the PAS under the passenger seat so this was the best place to get through the bulkhead and I've pulled a few cables through there before.
So later I wanted to open the boot door so reconnected the battery and NOTHING. o_O

The boot door didn't open and after spending ages checking I found two blown fuses under the bonnet. They were in a separate fuse holder from the normal one which thankfully I was aware of but even after replacing them I still have no boot door and no power at position one on the keyswitch. I'm pretty sure this gets power from the CCU as does the boot door.
I don't even know when or when it happened. :oops:
I've checked every fuse I can find tried to look it up in RAVE but no joy.
So I've either fecked up the CCU or there is another fuse I haven't found. :mad:
Any suggestions welcome.
Click to expand...
So maybe things are not as bad as I thought, the boot door is still not opening but I don't think it's connected with the blown fuses. They were 30A fuses so blowing them would have caused a bang and flash and that didn't happen. The car was bought as spares/repairs so maybe the fuses issue is historical.
Also I had managed to confuse myself by having disconnected the VCU (Edit: Vehicle Control Unit, NOT Viscous Coupling Unit 😝) yesterday so some lights that should have come on with the ignition didn't.
So the boot door is still not opening but now I can concentrate on tracing it from the boot backwards without being distracted by a red herring. :rolleyes:
 
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IT'S A MIRACLE!
The boot door has just gone and healed itself. 😀

I left the battery connected last night and when I tried the boot door this afternoon it worked. 😮
Any suggestions how it could have happened welcome but I'm happy to think angels were watching me last night, felt sorry for me and fixed it for me. 😊
Either that or they'd been talking the P1ss all day and thought they'd been mean enough. 🤔
 
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