1968 Land Rover Series 2a 109 Station Wagon

[Lowcoe]

Hello All,

Thought I’d start a thread here to share my project. I picked up what I thought was a Land Rover “Defender”. Since then I have been “educated”. This is a bucket list vehicle for me as I have always loved the look. I’m a Tesla owner/fanboy so my project has to be Tesla based. My approach is not unique, rather it’s inspired by projects that I’ve seen on the web. The vehicle was an estate sale find, purchased and stored several years by the seller. Last registered in 1985. It had a non working V8 conversion. Anything rubber on the car was rotten and required/s replacement. I have recently finished rebuilding both axles including bearings, seals, and brake hardware.

[Lowcoe]

More pictures. Not sure why pictures are rotated but if you click on them they rotate properly. Here is axle tear down. Pictures of the motor mounted into position. Note the 90* rotation of the motor to supply power to both front and rear axles.

[Lowcoe]

Did some trial fitting of motor and batteries using templates then brought home a LDU

[Lowcoe]

Continued working on the axles and ordered an openinverter board.

[Lowcoe]

This brings me up to date. Currently I am working on bench testing the setup. Unfortunately I have not sourced the tesla battery modules yet. I have leads but nothing concrete yet.
I was able to log on to WiFi after having to ask here


Couple issues I’m working through right now is
1)What is the lowest voltage I can bench test the motor? I currently have 24 volts available
2)Which parameters should be changed to reflect reduced voltage
3)How is the main contractor actuated. Write up says momentary starter switch but wiring diagram shows all 3 contractors actuated by ignition switch and main contractor activated through pin 23??

I am by no means an electrical engineer or computer whiz. I fear I’m dangerous

[wovenrovings]

Can't answer you voltage question for certain but I have heard of people testing toyota motors at 48V.
That's an insane amount of power! I hope you have a plan to upgrade the strength of the axles. Series 2 landrover axles weren't the most robust at the best of time. Just strong enough to cope with 80hp most of the time.
Just watched the youtube video by Johnny Smith just the other day.

Long time landrover addict here.

[LRBen]

Awesome project. I have a 1986 Defender I picked up recently that will probably get a hybrid electric drive through the PTO output.

You'll definitely want to watch the half shafts and diffs if you are going to put all that tesla power through it. Restomodders will commonly fit 450hp LS3 V8 engines into Defenders in the US and they are known to snap half shafts. Not sure if you can fit Salisbury Axles to a Series 2, but those are a very strong Differential available for Defenders, not common though.

[Lowcoe]

Thank you Woven and Ben.

There are aftermarket half shafts available that appear much stronger. I probably will explore dialing down the HP in the parameter settings. For now this thing has no seat belts and no real safety features compared to modern cars so I plan on taking it easy. Anyone know are the blue lines on the wiring diagram switched negative? I think that may be one of my issues.

[Thatguyoverthere]

1. 24 volts should work fine, just ahs to be able to supply enough current to get rotor to spin

2. Don't worry about this for now, just try to get it spinning in manual mode. Once you've done that, check out the "schematics and instructions" section on the wiki for some step by step instructions on how to get things up and running.

3. Yes the contactors are low side switched (switched negative).

[Lowcoe]

Thanks Guy,
Whats manual mode?

[Thatguyoverthere]

I guess manual mode isn't needed if you have a drop in board (read: ignore that). It's usually used for testing the bare bones functionality of an unknown motor or inverter by setting some parameters to have it spin at a fixed frequency. But, again most everything you have a question about may be answered on Damien's Github. Also, from the LDU support thread:

I advise you to go to that thread and search for whatever you may need. Enjoy!

[Lowcoe]

Tried again last night with the 24 volts. No luck. On page 8 of the LDU thread see what I can find...

[Lowcoe]

Page 20. May have just tripped on a you tube video to help decipher this schematic...

Specifically what does +rv mean...and where does positive come from to supply all low side( blue) lines?? I fear I’m out of my depth...

[muehlpower]

look at the first page of the Large Drive Unit Support Thread.

[Lowcoe]

Lol. No reference as to what +rv means there.. I don’t have the courage to ask these questions on the main board.. Just hoping someone will take pity on me in exchange for some progress pics..

[muehlpower]

Lol. No reference as to what +rv means there.. I don’t have the courage to ask these questions on the main board.. Just hoping someone will take pity on me in exchange for some progress pics..

look at the pictures , you can see that the contactors are connected to switched +12V, just like the signal switches for forward and backward and start.
That means +rv is actually in a normal car the ignition key (terminal 15). now clear?

[Jack Bauer]

Ref this thread and the attached guide :
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=565

I know Tesla stuff has this aura of complexity that some like to encourage but we don't do that here. To run any Tesla drive unit with an openinverter board just needs a throttle signal and a few 12v inputs. Thats it. No magic. So slow down and read your way smart before doing:)

[mappleton]

Are you adding a limited slip / lower to the Tesla differential? Seems without one you'd be making this into a 2WD Land Rover with power shuttling back and forth from the front to rear axles?

I like the build though! I hadn't thought of a Tesla drive unit replacing trans and transfer case...

[Lowcoe]

Thanks all. Very helpful. I find this board to be friendly and helpful but don’t expect anyone to “suffer fools” so I’m trying to read myself smart . I’m having fun! Giving the ol coconut a workout! I will keep you posted. I saw on someone’s setup on page 29 that there are multiple inputs connecting to the contractors. I need to go back and overlay the different diagrams

I think.

And yes I’m putting a quafe lsd into the motor as well as a gear set from zero ev that will allow the rover to do over 40mph. Also due to offset differentials the motor is mounted such that it needs to run in reverse so a modified oil pump housing from zero ev is in order. For a very fair price I would add. Just don’t tell my wife the cost of everything... She’ll want me to take her on a trip or something....

[leman2112]

Hell yeah! this is what I want to do. Hope Zero EV will have the gearset ready soon! Can't wait. That is a cool 4x4!

[Lowcoe]

All the bits and pieces have been coming in including 85 Kw battery pack, Orion BMS, and I put the money down for the rear gearset with ampREVOLT with the promise it would be arriving to their shop before the end of the month...

[prensel]

Awesome project. I have a 1986 Defender I picked up recently that will probably get a hybrid electric drive through the PTO output.

I have 1966 Series 2A 109 waiting for some conversion and making it a hybrid has crossed my mind.
Did you found some resources on what the PTO output can take, or examples ?

[LRBen]

I have 1966 Series 2A 109 waiting for some conversion and making it a hybrid has crossed my mind.
Did you found some resources on what the PTO output can take, or examples ?

I haven't look into it in allot of detail. The British Army did some testing in the early 90s on hybrid Snatch Defenders so they wouldn't wake the locals on early morning shopping runs, or something like that. They use I think a 48v motor connected to the PTO output, powered by some aviation batteries. They only made three or four before giving up on the idea, but they did move.

Given how over engineered all that old stuff is I would expect the PTO output to be able to take moderately normal driving torque. The series transfer boxes were apparently stronger than the later Defender boxes as well.

The trouble with hybrid is that you have to go through all the same hassle as pure electric, plus figure out a reasonable interface between the ICE and electric motor. But you'll only get a low range unless you fill all the cargo space with batteries. On the other hand, it's quite a cool idea to get hybrid drive through the PTO.

[prensel]

I have 1966 Series 2A 109 waiting for some conversion and making it a hybrid has crossed my mind.
Did you found some resources on what the PTO output can take, or examples ?

I haven't look into it in allot of detail. The British Army did some testing in the early 90s on hybrid Snatch Defenders so they wouldn't wake the locals on early morning shopping runs, or something like that. They use I think a 48v motor connected to the PTO output, powered by some aviation batteries. They only made three or four before giving up on the idea, but they did move.

Given how over engineered all that old stuff is I would expect the PTO output to be able to take moderately normal driving torque. The series transfer boxes were apparently stronger than the later Defender boxes as well.

The trouble with hybrid is that you have to go through all the same hassle as pure electric, plus figure out a reasonable interface between the ICE and electric motor. But you'll only get a low range unless you fill all the cargo space with batteries. On the other hand, it's quite a cool idea to get hybrid drive through the PTO.

I still have plans (ever) to go on a trip to Iceland with the old Lady and having it both on diesel and electric would be perfect.
The only problem that kept me from converting her to pure electric was the EMC approval and stuff but this changes as per 01-01-2021 here in the Netherlands vehicles over 50 years old are exempt of tax and any yearly roadworthy testing So this opens up new possibilities in converting it to either pure electric or hybrid.

[leman2112]

Any luck getting that motor spinning? I am kinda trying to understand what +rv means as well. Watched roadster cycles videos a million times. Wish I could see where all the wires were going on his switchboard.

I understand that +rv stands for variable voltage with a quick google search. This makes me think that it has something to do with the throttle input.

Terminal 15 is labeled as accelerator ground on the chart provided. So does that mean that all the blue wires connect to +rv wich is terminal 15(accelorator ground)?