[WIP] 1976 Land Cruiser FJ-55 to EVJ-55

[HerbP]

I hesitate to use the WIP tag because I'm in the sheet metal phase and haven't fully committed to the EV components.

Located near Calgary AB Canada.

But lets start with an image. A friend gave me this truck at the beginning of March and I code named it "Terrible Idea".

I've done this sort of work before so I'm not afraid of bashing some sheet metal. After 35 years of embedded firmware, I'm retired now and have all the time in the world.

The existing chassis/drivetrain are actually in surprisingly good shape and I almost believe the 69,000miles on the odometer as having not rolled. But she's had a hard life.

First things first, the A-pillars are rotted so both of the front doors were hanging only on the top hinges. I decided to see how bad an A-pillar rebuild would be. If that proved to be disastrous then I wouldn't proceed with the project.

Turned out to be pretty straight-forward but quickly turned into a cascade of side projects including the firewall, rocker and floor pan. But it turned out nice and the door opens/closes like new with nice gaps.

Next was to build a rotisserie and get the chassis out from underneath it. Now I'm working on the passenger side rocker, A-pillar, floor pan, firewall.

I plan to drop the body on a Land Cruiser 80-series chassis because I like the suspension better.

I won't bore everyone with the minutae of the sheet-metal work because I'm sure there are better forums for it.

As far as EV drivetrain goes, I'm doing all the reading and lurking around in a few threads. I really like where @robertwa is going with his 64 Scout conversion. I feel like I can start with an LS600hl transmission and mate a Land Cruiser 80 series HF2A t-case to it. I already have an HF1A t-case in a shed so I can use that to fab an adapter.

Looks like the first hurdle is where to find an LS600hl transmission in Canada. Looks like some shops in the US are selling them but without harnesses and without the auxilliary oil pump. So that's more problematic procurement I think. A friend of mine in Japan has sent me an HDJ-81 half-cut from the wrecker many years ago but he's not doing that anymore. Was hoping to just buy a half-cut LS600H so I'd have everything I need.

A club member has the 80 series frame/suspension components I want so I'm trying to stay ahead of my sheet metal progress by starting to find parts.

Anyway, that's about where I am with this.

[Jacobsmess]

Look at Japanese import options, the 2nd hand market in Japan is very cheap, the issue is often transport. Search the forum as it has been discussed with some sites mentioned. Cool project, I look forward to seeing it progress

[HerbP]

Search the forum as it has been discussed with some sites mentioned.

ahh yes. I see it now. Had a lot of pages to wade through before I found it.

(This is what I found, for future reference. viewtopic.php?p=27882&hilit=ls600h#p27882 )

[Jacobsmess]

https://autoparts.beforward.jp/detail/T ... /?buynow=1 there is also this site, here's the first hit.

[HerbP]

I literally found one sitting on a shelf, 30kms from me and they still have the car it came from (2008). So I need to figure out what other pieces (harnesses, aux oil pump?) I need and go down there.

Hopefully it doesn't disappear.

[HerbP]

Ok. So I dropped in at the wrecker to look at the LS600HL transmission, etc. It looks like the oil pump is still attached but I don't really know what else I'm looking at. It looks good I think. Parts of the harness are still in the car plus he said he'd throw in the rest of the HV (orange) cables that are still on the car but I have to remove them myself; which I'm ok with doing.

He'll also sell me the inverter/battery as a package but I don't think I want a NiMH battery. I still have more learning to do to know whether I want the inverter. I feel like I need to understand this more before I collect too much more stuff.

[Jacobsmess]

You'll likely want the inverter. Battery could be useful for bench testing but thats it really

[nkiernan]

That's the LS600H but its missing the transfer box to get the AWD in those photos. Make sure you get the transfer case, and ideally the front and rear prop shaft. I presume you'd plan on retaining the original front and rear diffs? (incase it would be worth considering taking the lexus diffs if they came at the right price).

You will need the small oil pump controller module and definitely take the inverter. The looms that connect to the gearbox are good (see Greg's range of GS450H videos), and the loom to the inverter. You should grap anything with the plugs that connect to these, especially the larger rectangular connector at the inverter!

[HerbP]

Thanks. I'm planning to go back through Greg's thread (which I've already done fully once. ).

Currently the car is in a big puddle of mud so I'm not looking forward to that experience.

As far as mechanical, I plan to adapt the Land Cruiser HF2A tcase (or Highlander JF2A tcase). My front/rear axles will be the solid axles from a Land Cruiser 80 series.

He was also trying to give me an Escape Hybrid battery pack.

I don't know what condition it's in but the googles says it's a 14kwh lion battery. Is the BMS typically inside these things or would I then need a Ford Escape BMS and thus worthless to me? (wonder if I could use Forscan to talk to it. Nevermind).

[Jacobsmess]

Usually the BMS lives in the battery pack. Whether anyone has reverse engineered it is another matter.

[HerbP]

Usually the BMS lives in the battery pack. Whether anyone has reverse engineered it is another matter.

Thanks. Then I will not offer to take his toxic waste.

[robertwa]

Great to see another LS600h build! Definitely will be following.
In addition to what the others said, get the damper assy (like a clutch plate) from the engine flywheel. You'll need the center piece to lock the transmission input shaft to avail of both motors. You may also want to consider the shifter mechanism inside the car.

[robertwa]

If the Escape battery is cheap enough, it could work. Looks like others have developed BMS solutions for it:

viewtopic.php?t=4474

https://www.diyelectriccar.com/threads/ ... ry.208274/

Lower capacity obviously than what you'd want, but nice to have something small and manageable to move around while you are building.

[HerbP]

Great to see another LS600h build! Definitely will be following.
In addition to what the others said, get the damper assy (like a clutch plate) from the engine flywheel. You'll need the center piece to lock the transmission input shaft to avail of both motors. You may also want to consider the shifter mechanism inside the car.

Please don't just "follow" but feel free to chime in. I feel like I just dove into the deep end and this is my one opportunity to get parts from this car locally.

I forgot about the damper assy. That's a good point.

He has the engine separated with its own wiring loom and whatever else. He doesn't seem to want to break up the 'engine' component and wants to sell it whole. So the damper might be part of that. I'll have to see if my son took a picture of that end of the engine. These are the ones I took.

[HerbP]

If the Escape battery is cheap enough, it could work. Looks like others have developed BMS solutions for it:

Lower capacity obviously than what you'd want, but nice to have something small and manageable to move around while you are building.

Interesting. I mean, it's not totally terrible if he's offering it for free I suppose.

I figured for moving around, I have a rackmount Lifepo4 100Ah/48vdc Narada battery that I thought to use. I can charge it with my whole-house inverter for now.

Getting the transmission now would be great for positioning on the frame, fabbing mounts, and such but I'm so far away from pushing electrons into it I think.

[HerbP]

My son's photos show the damper assy bolted to the back of the engine. I've added it to the list of things I want from the wrecker but I'm doubtful he'll separate it. I'm also afraid there's wiring on the engine that I'm going to want.

@robertwa, this photo from your thread:

shows a harness that looks identical to the one I see at the top of the motor in my son's photo. It looks like you combined it with the harness that has the resolver runs? I can only read some of the masking tape in this photo:

Edit4: ok. After comparing Greg's photos, it looks that's a critical harness. Crap. This wrecker guy is going to make me buy the whole motor. I just know it.

[HerbP]

Looking at the damper assy online, the splines on it are reminiscent of the old Toyota H55F 5spd transmission input shaft for a 3B motor:

It looks like the LS600HL and H55F input shafts have the same spline count (21 I think). If the diameter coincidentally matches, I should be able to cannibalize an old clutch plate from the 3B I have out back.

[robertwa]

It's for sure much easier to get the 2 full harnesses if you can. Although you can get them elsewhere if your guy won't cut you a deal. The GS450H harnesses share all the same critical connectors, they just have a couple differences - 1) the main inverter plug is the same part, but pinned differently, and 2) the connector between the two harnesses is different, but not a big deal as most end up changing the length anyway.

Here is a LS600H transmission harness currently for sale with resolver connectors:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/234254818922?_ ... R7CUvYPEZQ


Also - just measured the input spline on a GS450H transmission I have, 21 spline, 26mm diameter

[HerbP]

Thanks. I tried to measure my old H55F clutch plate yesterday but it's still attached to an engine in a pressure plate. I'll be dismantling that today.

I went down to the wrecker yesterday and picked up the transmission. He wants $900CAD (around $650USD) for the Inverter which he came up with by checking eBay. So $900CAD is cheaper than what I'm seeing on eBay before shipping. There's probably some value getting the inverter from the same vehicle that the transmission came from. I'll have to put that off for a bit (hobby budget).

I also grabbed the Ford Escape battery.

He definitely wouldn't separate the wiring harness from the engine so $200 (plus $100 international shipping yikes!) seems the way to go. He also wouldn 't separate the damper assy. Wants $2000 for the engine.

I found the oil pump controller. Nice and accessible but has a lot more connectors than I would expect from something that probably just generates a PWM signal. There must be more going on in there then I imagine.

Found the inverter connector in the engine compartment that disappeared into a giant harness that seemed to snake all over plus into the vehicle. It definitely looks trapped behind a bunch of other stuff like oil/coolant/refrigerant lines. (yellow arc in this photo).

I couldn't get any quality time crawling around on the car though so I could be wrong. He was standing around waiting for me and I think his patience with me was as long as the length of his cigarette.

Still so much more reconstruction ahead of me.

[HerbP]

So this makes my day... This is the clutch disc from a 1980's Land Cruiser BJ60 (in case some future Google searcher is looking for this). The 3B diesel manual transmission have an input shaft that seems to be a perfect match for the LS600HL input shaft. There is no discernible play.

[Jacobsmess]

That's good to know and really useful information. If you could get the part number and put it on the wiki it would mean it's not lost in this thread. You can login using the login details for the forum.
Re: the oil pump controller it doest have many connections (5-6 wires from memory) and you only use a few of them also. Are you sure you were looking at the oil pump controller?

[HerbP]

That's good to know and really useful information. If you could get the part number and put it on the wiki it would mean it's not lost in this thread. You can login using the login details for the forum.
Re: the oil pump controller it doest have many connections (5-6 wires from memory) and you only use a few of them also. Are you sure you were looking at the oil pump controller?

ok. I've put it on the Wiki on the GS450H page. There are a handful of crosses to other Denso applications as well like Isuzu etc.

This is what I was looking at.

I didn't remove the large connector though, which seemed overkill for what I imagine the thing does. I see now (while editing the Wiki) there's actually good section on the oil pump controller.

[HerbP]

I took the Ford Escape battery apart yesterday as well. I see now why he was eager to just get rid of it. The corners of the case were smunched and the smaller compartment had a pool of blinker-fluid in the bottom which poured out when I tilted it (and explains why the back of my truck bed was wet when I got home on a bright sunny day.

The battery section seemed dry and the controllers all seem to be in their own sealed cases so it might be ok.

I'll maybe drive it out to the middle of my driveway and turn the lockout and see if there's any juice in there. Might be dead and my biggest variable DC supply can only do 75vdc@40A. Kinda half tempted to connect it in parallel with one of the MPPT's on my inverter. One of my strings will go to 350vdc@10A on a sunny day. Seems like a potentially bad idea.

[HerbP]

Today was a journey down my TODO list but it ended on a high note. The news just keeps getting better.

This is the transfer case from a 1993+ Land Cruiser 80 series (FZJ-80, HDJ-81) or Lexus LX-450. It is known as an HF1A and has 2Hi/4Hi/4Lo modes (and there is an HF2A that has a limited slip lockable center diff). I don't know much about the JF2A but I suspect it might fit as well.

The input to this transfer case matches the output shaft of the transmission.

Here's a brief video that demonstrates quite handily why I don't have a youtube channel.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TPJhsGkttbBnSQpf7

Now I just need to 3D print an adapter plate (just kidding, I'm going to make it out of Maple).

[Jacobsmess]

I foresee a lot more landcruiser EV conversions in the future! Great news.