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Still crawling along

A project log for DIY Electric Vehicle from Recycled Parts

Converting a car to electric drive using recycled and salvaged EV and hybrid components.

mauswerkzmauswerkz 03/27/2016 at 23:580 Comments

Wow, another month has gone by already!? A quick update,: we're still working on getting the rear battery installed. The mounting/clamping parts are proving to be very fiddly. The rear upper battery has been put in place and the rest for that to lay down on is being built. Then the tie-down for that as well.

The platform for the front batteries has been installed. I used some pieces of metal left over from a couple Nissan Leaf batteries that I tore down for the forward support and welded a piece of box section across the original engine mount locations for the rear support. Here's a photo of the front batteries sitting in place. You can also see the mounted power steering pump on the same supports.

And with the front of the car on:

The cardboard mockup on top of the batteries behind the strut bar represents the inverter.

I've been playing with the HV cable routing. There's a photo from under the car of the HV battery cables, the AC cable from the charge port, and the beginnings of the coolant pipes visible. The pipes are fairly large diameter so as not to restrict the coolant flow to the rear battery over such a long run.


I picked up a mini-lathe from Harbor Freight as well to turn up some copper spacers to bring the HV bus in to the inverter. I can't use the original connectors because the internal high voltage bus (650V nominal) was never brought out of the inverter in the original application. The photos show the copper spacers with the threaded rod installed and how the cables will connect. I have some HDPE plastic that I intend to machine up to insulate and support these connections.



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