It's great to find a collection of tinkerers and innovators that really seem to be doing what they say instead of just saying what they have no idea how to do!
Allow me to introduce you to my project. (This is going to take several installations as I have already done A LOT and I don't want any one post to be too long)
Back in July 2020 (a few days after my birthday) I bought a 1997 Jeep Wrangler with over 250,000 miles on the clock. The 4 cylinder was very tired but it ran pretty well and I was able to drive it home. The overall condition of the Jeep was as you'd expect for a vehicle with so many miles. I live in Tennessee but I suspect the Jeep lived most of its life somewhere very dry and free of road salt as there was only light road grime on the chassis with the factory paint still intact. There was only a small spot of rust in the passenger footwell.
Of course first thing to do was to get that nasty dirty engine, transmission and transfer case out.
I weighed these parts and came up with 660 pounds.
I also removed the standard ICE parts: fuel tank, fuel lines, exhaust, various emissions components, etc...
I didn't weigh all that stuff but I'd guess another 150-200 pounds.
The plan for the Jeep was not set in stone. Back in 2014 I converted my Ford Ranger to electric. I still drive it daily. I used an HPEVS AC76 induction motor and a 45S2P pack of CALB100 LiFePO4 cells. It has worked more-or-less flawlessly. The biggest problem I had started about 2 months after the conversion when, upon pressing in the clutch pedal, the throwout bearing shoved the armature forward. I sent the motor back to HPEVS for repair. It worked fine for a long time. Last year one of the bearings failed and I had to sleeve the rear end bell of the motor. I won't bore you with the details but suffice to say I no longer run a clutch or flywheel and I'd never recommend anyone considering a conversion to do so.
Back to the Jeep... My original plan was to simply decommission the Ranger and cannibalize its parts for the new build. That idea didn't last very long. First of all, the AC76 is adequate for a little Ranger but would be uninspiring in a lifted four by four. My next thought was to get a Nissan Leaf motor. They can be had for not a lot of money. Boasting over 100kW, it would give the Jeep a little more spunk...certainly more than that tired old 4cyl. However, a Leaf motor in an American icon just seemed, well, lame. No offense to anyone who has used a Leaf motor in a conversion. I KNOW they do a great job! The idea that finally stuck was heavily inspired by me owing a fair number of Tesla shares and that stock exploding to the moon!
Now the job was to figure out who to buy a Tesla drive unit from. My research indicated that the main choices were EVWest, 057 Tech and StealthEV. Ultimately, I went with StealthEV because Matt Hauber and I are former employees of Jack Rickard at EVTV. Matt worked with Jack in the early days of Lithium-based EV conversions and I worked there about the time Tesla drive units were being reverse engineered. If you ever watched EVTV during that time, you may remember they stuffed a LDU into a VW Doka. If you've never seen EVTV, check this out: That's me!
I gave Matt a phone call and sent him a big, fat check. A few weeks later this showed up in my mailbox:
I think that's where I'll leave it for tonight.
Bill
