Freelander 1 Wattson: Freelander EV Project
- Thread starter tensa4
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Alibro
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Brilliant work mate, it's really great to see your progress, I had to laugh when I saw your first post as I only today dropped the engine from my good car. 
Are you replacing whole rack or just the steering column?
Have you removed the fishbowl for the battery box?
Damien Maguire is building a similar frame for the M3 drive unit in his Volvo but he has an issue as the drive shafts will be 40mm higher than stock. Have you room to keep yours where they should be?
Are you replacing whole rack or just the steering column?
Have you removed the fishbowl for the battery box?
Damien Maguire is building a similar frame for the M3 drive unit in his Volvo but he has an issue as the drive shafts will be 40mm higher than stock. Have you room to keep yours where they should be?
GrumpyGel
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That's a lot of work, well done, it looks great.
Maybe showing why, as well as cost, ICE cars will not be converted to electric as the norm.
Maybe showing why, as well as cost, ICE cars will not be converted to electric as the norm.
This is the exceptional! Serious virtual pat on the back!
Brilliant work mate, it's really great to see your progress, I had to laugh when I saw your first post as I only today dropped the engine from my good car.
Are you replacing whole rack or just the steering column?
Have you removed the fishbowl for the battery box?
Damien Maguire is building a similar frame for the M3 drive unit in his Volvo but he has an issue as the drive shafts will be 40mm higher than stock. Have you room to keep yours where they should be?
Thank you all!
Especially to you Alibro, You put me on this path!
I re-used the original steering column. I only swapped the steering mechanism; replaced the hydraulic one with the electric one. You will be surprised to note that the Freelander hydraulic rack is an almost perfect match to the Honda Civic 2005 EPS.
Yes, I removed the fishbowl, though that space is occupied by the Tesla Rear drive unit. The battery box stays and fits in the original fuel tank position, all of it.
Yes, the drive shafts stay where they were as stock as I have mounted the drive unit to maintain this.
Alibro
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Clearly I owe you a huge apology.Thank you all!
Especially to you Alibro, You put me on this path!
I considered doing this but was concerned the Freelander Rack may not be strong enough to be driven this way as it was designed to be assisted by hydraulic fluid but I don't know much about steering racks. Let us know how it goes.
I found the fuel tank area was not great for my batteries because it is such an awkward shape. The rear diff, subframe and drive shaft was in the way too as I'm keeping it 4WD.
Your fabrication is way better than mine, the frame looks great.
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Alibro
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I was going through your photos again and found the photo of the dash wiring.
Your either very brave or very mad!
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GrumpyGel
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lolClearly I owe you a huge apology.
You, and indeed @tensa4 , should also apologise for causing me, and probably others, to spend far to much time googling and looking at ways to repower a Freelander. Maybe
Clearly I owe you a huge apology.
I considered doing this but was concerned the Freelander Rack may not be strong enough to be driven this way as it was designed to be assisted by hydraulic fluid but I don't know much about steering racks. Let us know how it goes.
I found the fuel tank area was not great for my batteries because it is such an awkward shape. The rear diff, subframe and drive shaft was in the way too as I'm keeping it 4WD.
Your fabrication is way better than mine, the frame looks great.
Clearly I owe you a huge apology.
I considered doing this but was concerned the Freelander Rack may not be strong enough to be driven this way as it was designed to be assisted by hydraulic fluid but I don't know much about steering racks. Let us know how it goes.
I found the fuel tank area was not great for my batteries because it is such an awkward shape. The rear diff, subframe and drive shaft was in the way too as I'm keeping it 4WD.
Your fabrication is way better than mine, and the frame looks great.
Thanks, and you are right, that fuel tank area is a trapezium cross-section. Found a way of building a battery box that fitted it.
I will update you on how the steering rack works and feels
I was going through your photos again and found the photo of the dash wiring.
Your either very brave or very mad!
That took me a whole 2 months to sort out, on and off as I had work as well. But was definitely worth it. I mostly removed the engine ECU and gearbox EAT-related wiring
PS: I was able to test out the CAN system extensively as well and formulated a few solutions to the loss of the Engine and EAT ECUs. I will use the Tesla drive unit CAN system to imitate/replace the engine and gearbox CAN messages as I can code the specific IDs I need for the CAN messages targetting the stock ABS and Instrument cluster. This will mean I could in theory still have things like Hill Decent.
Alibro
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Did you check out the first post in my Freelander EV build thread? I put up a few CAN messages but still have a few to sort so would really appreciate it if you can post your findings. I'm not concerned about hill descent but would like cluster to work as near OEM as possible.
Good to see proper CAD being used in Kenya too.
16kW will not get you far so are you putting more under the bonnet?
