openinverter forum

Hi Y'all.
Thank you for all the info, only just discovered this forum. A mine of info for sure..
This is just me starting a thread to document my progress.
I have a Defender 90 300 tdi I wish to convert. Online quotes are stupid, £150K? Really?
I'm about to retire so hopefully will have plenty of time and LOVE a project..
Many years spent writing assembler and C for microcontrollers but mechanically illiterate.
Currently at beginning stages, assessing motor options.
Thinking Tesla small motor and no gearbox. May have to change tesla gear ratios ?
Any advice appreciated..

Hi, good project. My suggestion is to take a Leaf stack without gearbox and bolt it onto the LR gearbox, use the original engine mounts for the Leaf motor. The output shaft of the Leaf can be connected directly to the input shaft of the gearbox. I believe Brat Industries has a universal shaft for it.
This is, in my opinion easiest and cheapest way to get your LR90 electric, technically. For batteries you can use, for example, Peugeot (Stelantis) modules or any other modules that make up the max voltage of 400 to 420 volts (depends on the number of modules you put in series). There are battery management controller on the market that should work with many EV battery modules.
I have done this with 3 Daihatsu Rocky 4x4 (Fourtrac) and it works very good.

Unfortunately there is no alternative gearset available currently for the Tesla sdu(small drive units) so ether model 3 du or Tesla ldu for that kind of set up. This leaves plenty of room for batteries in the engine bay, and is lighter weight. But lots of fab work.

As Paul mentioned, the leaf stack dose fit under the hoods of these vehicles, and makes for a much simpler conversion as 90%of the wiring and install is already done

I have adapter plates and couplers for the leaf and Landrover stuff, and with the zombieverter you can have a leaf stack up and running rather quickly

The only thing I would say about using the original gearbox is that it does noticeably affect the efficiency. I've worked on a 90 with the leaf setup into the original gearbox and it was around 1.5 miles per kWh.

Tesla Model 3 would be a better choice compared to the LDU I think. The LDU has it's issues and it's getting on a bit now.