This is the exceptional! Serious virtual pat on the back!Built the first and second iterations of the frame for the motor and finally perfected it for strength
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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?
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 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.
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.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.
Your fabrication is way better than mine, the frame looks great.Yes, the drive shafts stay where they were as stock as I have mounted the drive unit to maintain this.
I was going through your photos again and found the photo of the dash wiring.
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.
I was going through your photos again and found the photo of the dash wiring.
Your either very brave or very mad!
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.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.
Good to see proper CAD being used in Kenya too.@Alibro Think this is the best use of the fuel tank space I could come up.
The entire 16kwh 400V pack will fit here.
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