openinverter forum

Hi,
For anyone who might be interested;

I am starting a conversion of my Mercedes L409, originally fitted with the M115 petrol/benzin engine.
The gearbox seemed weak for the Nissan 110 kW motor I had planned, so I will get rid of the gearbox all together and use the Lexus L210 instead.

The rear axle has a ratio of 1:6.5, this might give me a low top/cruise speed. But I could always change it for a 1:43 from a Dudo/Mercedes 508 (same series)

Parts I have now:
- The L210 / G300h gearbox/motor,
- a 6.6 kW Nissan PDM
- and the Stelantis E-Corsa battery modules of a total of 50 kWh, using the RDW BMS.



As soon as I have more updates I will post them here.
Waiting for better weather...

I love this so much, these had a plywood floor right? Should make the battery mounting options easy enough. I was planning on converting my old mercedes 310D van to an EV with a GS450H transmission. The L210 will be a good option and much more compact.

Fab! Do you dare make a wild guess at your range? Go on, be interesting to look back when you’re done and see if you were right

We plan to do something similar with my partner's Mercedes L319, but the plan is to use a BMW six speed gearbox with a 110kW Nissan Leaf. There are no other axles available for the L319 and it has a similarly high ratio of 5.857:1, so Lexus gearbox was out of the question unfortunately.

crasbe wrote: ↑Sun Jan 25, 2026 11:00 pm We plan to do something similar with my partner's Mercedes L319, but the plan is to use a BMW six speed gearbox with a 110kW Nissan Leaf. There are no other axles available for the L319 and it has a similarly high ratio of 5.857:1, so Lexus gearbox was out of the question unfortunately.

I think the newer sprinter gearboxes are more suitable. Remember that you will only use one or two gears while driving. Six is a lot.
I went with the L210 because it matches the output rpm with the final drive and it has a reduction gear internally. My final drive is 6.5 and still it should go 110 km/h (on paper/excel sheet)

ianlighting wrote: ↑Sun Jan 25, 2026 8:16 pm Fab! Do you dare make a wild guess at your range? Go on, be interesting to look back when you’re done and see if you were right

We did a Daihatsu Rocky 4x4 and it uses 300 W/km dus to weight and gearbox/transferbox setup.
So, I am expecting 300 to 350 W/km, this will theoretically give me +/- 140 km of range with a 50 kWh battery. However, I am planning to install 100 kWh later.

Jacobsmess wrote: ↑Sun Jan 25, 2026 7:53 pm I love this so much, these had a plywood floor right? Should make the battery mounting options easy enough. I was planning on converting my old mercedes 310D van to an EV with a GS450H transmission. The L210 will be a good option and much more compact.

My plan is to install the battery where that motor was mounted, however, I can, indeed, add more all along the chassis frame. Plenty of room.

Indeed a plywood floor

PaulHeystee wrote: ↑Fri Jan 30, 2026 11:31 am I think the newer sprinter gearboxes are more suitable. Remember that you will only use one or two gears while driving. Six is a lot.

That is potentially true, but there are no adapter plates or couplers for the Mercedes gearboxes yet and I wanted to keep it simple
But I also didn't want to highjack your build thread

No problem, I understand. However, adapter plates and couplers are relatively easy to make. I designed an adapter for the old Merc bellhousing and th Leaf motor, which I am not going to use.