Had some time to make some progress on this recently, after the scanning I moved it to a better shed for the chassis repairs.

Chassis: Obviously there was going to be a fair amount of welding and it didn't disappoint. The rear cross member has been replaced and I have cut away the A frame crossmember in order to do repairs to the chassis rails before welding on the new A frame crossmember. Also found a couple spots of extra spots of rust to cut out and patch up that I didn't see before.
After that I need to patch up the bulkhead outriggers.
I'm planning to get it sandblasted and powder coated, still thinking about the internal parts. Currently I'm considering spraying it all through with rust converter and then lanolin.



Heater box: That's come back from the paint shop and looks decent. I've put it all together with the Rover 45 fan and the VW heater matrix and started running HV tests on it. The fan on full pulls 700w of 12 power, and moves allot of air! VW heater matrix looks to be good for 6kW of heat. So I don't think the windscreen will take long to defrost in winter, I was considering a heated windscreen but that seems a bit pointless now.

GS450H gearbox to LT230: I have an initial design for the adaptor to drive the LT230 from the back of the GS450H gearbox. However it feels a bit bulky. Ideally I would like to be able to fully enclose it as I need to use the gearbox mount in that area.
I've been talking to Albert from Landy Luvver down in South Africa who has done Lexus auto box conversions in the past and he has been really helpful with information. So I'm going back to the drawing board, currently have an output shaft from a ZF autobox and will attempt to fuse that to the prop output of the GS450H gearbox which I will also trim down. Should also allow me to move the gearbox further back allowing more room for batteries in the front.

2 replacement cross members, 2 replacement outriggers and 0.5 square meters of sheet steel for patches later the chassis is now powder coated and drowned in lanoguard. The project is on hold for a few months now, at least on the physical side. Have a customer vehicle in for a couple months then I want to swap my tractor battery ready for a show in January.



On the heater front we tested the VW heater matrix with a HV battery and it throws out 10kW of heat. So even better than expected.

I've still been tinkering with the designs to get the GS450H gearbox into the LT230, I have some adaptor plates 3d printed so I'll probably wait until the chassis is back on the axles again and put it all together.

Wonk said:

2 replacement cross members, 2 replacement outriggers and 0.5 square meters of sheet steel for patches later the chassis is now powder coated and drowned in lanoguard. The project is on hold for a few months now, at least on the physical side. Have a customer vehicle in for a couple months then I want to swap my tractor battery ready for a show in January.

View attachment 326807

On the heater front we tested the VW heater matrix with a HV battery and it throws out 10kW of heat. So even better than expected.

I've still been tinkering with the designs to get the GS450H gearbox into the LT230, I have some adaptor plates 3d printed so I'll probably wait until the chassis is back on the axles again and put it all together.

Click to expand...

Reminds me of when I worked with the team to develop the LS engine conversion kit for 944's. Not only did this include the torque tube adapter plate, but also steering linkage, headers, and big brake kit. Would have been a lot easier had 3D printing been around at the time to assist with design/troubleshooting!