Golf 1 / Prius Gen 2 (FIRST DRIVE)

[RetroZero]

Hi there everyone. Firstly I must appologise for falling off the face of the earth these last 7 months....
Finally got my Golf Mk1 Cab and spent the last 3 months cleaning it up to pass its MOT, before attempting to fit a trusty Prius Gen 2 Transaxle and Convertor/Invertor.
Phase No1 : fit transaxle, convertor and original Prius battery pack and get her rolling.
I'll be back in the Prius Charger discussion to get the battery pack charging correctly and complete FOC setup.
Thanks to VwBrady getting on with the Leaf Option, we can compare....hopefully.
The big challenge will be drive shaft couplings and transaxle mounts....Here goes.
Today was prepare for engine and gearbox removal - Fun in the rain

[LRBen]

Good to see you back. I looked into the Prius charging momentarily and I think I figured out the basics. I'll be at a similar stage to you soon in getting the Prius charging actually working to charge my pack.

[Bratitude]

should be a fairly straightforward job for any machinest to take the inner cv cups, mill them down and fit them to a flange with the type 1/type2 vw cv bolt pattern.

[RetroZero]

At the moment I am looking at the different placings. Not so easy to decide when Brake booster and original mountings are to take into account. Then there is the height, don't want to have to cut a hole in the bonnet. The driveshafts will come later. Putting the motor and inverter to one side gives me place for some battery modules up front.....well that's the idea.

[RetroZero]

"Jenny" is now hanging by various brackets to measure up driveshafts and start propper mounting builds.

[RetroZero]

Thanks to the various projects surrounding prius and vw 'marriages' I think I got the transaxle supports sorted. Unlike 'Maker of Things', à lot of pigeon poo welding later, I got the various supports tack welded. Driveshafts next up

[RetroZero]

Inverter will just fit under the hood.

[RetroZero]

Started to rewire the inverter and transaxle this week end. Hope to have it looking presentable for a local 'recycling forum' in a few weeks.
www.fect.fr if anyone is interested. BTW, Openinverter, EVBMW and New Electric will be mentioned in the documentation.
Small hitch though, off to Sweden for 2 weeks holidays that was planned a long time ago, so pressure is on.

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

Good to see you're still making progress.

Every time I see someone closer to a driving car with the Prius Gen 2 inverter, encourages me a little more to un-abandon my own build and take another swing at getting it to spin.

[RetroZero]

If there's one thing I learnt from course with Damien, is stick to one project at a time and try to finish it...... Exactly how he does things but that's D

[RetroZero]

Coming along and sorting out basic wiring. Hopefully get it spinning again soon. Time to go through threads and see why all the upgrades were made to source code, and make adjustments before turning the key.

[RetroZero]

Another quick update - got shims made up and will get the lengths of the driveshafts calculated next. Then off to get them MIG/TIG welded.

Got most of wiring done and tidied up, and spent most of the day trying to get the 'bench tested' unit to run again in the car. Looks like I have a blown precharge resistor (it's the original one with the Prius Pack - 3,8 Mohm)

[Bratitude]

Another quick update - got shims made up and will get the lengths of the driveshafts calculated next. Then off to get them MIG/TIG welded.

Curious, what made you decide to splice the axle shafts instead of milling/welding a type 2 flange with the Prius inner cv doj?

[RetroZero]

Not having a lathe or precise welding capabilities, I think this was the simpler way forward. The longer the shafts and shim in between, the less run-out is likely when everything is welded up. It Also allowed me to calculate the min and max lengths of the shafts when mounted on the Vehicule. I can slide them in and out of each other and then find the mid point for joining. Oh, and because one shaft is hollow, and the other solid.

[RetroZero]

Ligned up driveshafts today, along with making brackets to secure the Inverter.
So lesson learned - due to height limit between Gen2 Transaxle, Inverter and the bonnet, the driveshaft outputs are sitting too low and causes the left side to touch the sub frame. Shorter springs will have to be the solution...How low can we go? Will find out soon.

[RetroZero]

Will need a good clean up, but shorter springs fix the problem. Will see once it's on the ground in terms of clearance. Trying to get it as close to original ride height as possible.

[RetroZero]

Just wanted to say a huge thanks to Damien and Johannes for getting me into this passionate subject. Off to prepare for tomorrow's meeting where 'Ze Golf' will be on expo - IN RUNNING MODE!! .
Will post afterwards, but some pics for an idea of where I'm at. THANK YOU OPENINVERTER COMMUNITY!

[johu]

Well, thank YOU, so good to see this running! Very shiny too I assume you're running MG2 only?

[ZooKeeper]

Just wanted to say a huge thanks to Damien and Johannes for getting me into this passionate subject. Off to prepare for tomorrow's meeting where 'Ze Golf' will be on expo - IN RUNNING MODE!! .
Will post afterwards, but some pics for an idea of where I'm at. THANK YOU OPENINVERTER COMMUNITY!

Very clean install!

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

I forget all what you used and what you got working. You're scattered across a few threads. Eventually, when you're done, a project overview or summary would be a great help for beginners I think, and for us to point to.

[RetroZero]

For now it's only MG2 and Inverter. Testing with Prius pack for the moment, and next step is basic charging for it. My dilemma is that I will run MG1 (with a 2nd board) , so inverter cannot be used as charger as well (unless I unbolt everything each time I need to recharge). Will do some research whilst changing powersteering, brake booster pump and cooling system. Just happy it moves.

[RetroZero]

Not much happening whilst doing the workshop.. But put in a new gear lever

[Bigpie]

What's the power like just using mg2? I think this is the first driving vehicle I've seen that uses the prius transaxle

[johnspark]

Very interesting project

[RetroZero]

I haven't tried it out 'properly'. No cooling plumbed in and prius battery has low voltage. Lots of torque though and very smooth in forward. I plan on running MG1 as well, so on-board charger to configure with plumbing and brakes next on the list.