Night Train

I know this is a bit OT but it will be for an 'off road' vehicle project, albeit a small one using an electric motor and a Lada Niva transfer box. I want to get a splined shaft that is 3/4" diameter with 10 splines to fit into a female spline on the motor. Does any one know of anything that is cheap and easily available that would have a spline like this? Pump? Gearbox primary? Half shaft? Machine? Masonary drill bit? Tractor PTO? I figured that if anyone would know it would probably be someone on here. Thanks. NT

A standard Albright solonoid pack for winch control will allow the supply cables to the winch to change polarity. Basically, you have pos and neg supply to the solonoid pack and reversable polarity from the pack to the motor. The wireless box will connect to the solonoid pack following the instructions. If you have used the wireless to supply current to the motor directly then I would guess it is not a dead wireless controller. I have a similar type of winch for the back of my car for trailer loading and tree tushing. Mine is 3300lbs, which is about as much as the car can take before it lifts off the ground or stretches the body work! I have a wired remote operating the solonoid pack mainly due to me never being that far from the winch and also I can't loose the wired remote and it is fixable on site if it goes wrong.

A lot of the weight saving will be from what you remove. All the engine, fuel and exhaust system adds up to a lot of weight. The adaptor and coupling could also save weight is you use aliminum plate for the adaprtor and then use a fixed coupler instead of the flywheel adn clutch. You may even be using lighter weight wheels and tyres and replacing the bumper and those sorts of bits and pieces with light weight or smaller parts. Winches and jacks can be removable and only fitted when you know you will use them for instance. Anything that you can remove will help in reducing weight and that will not only give the motor an easier time reducing current demand but also allow you to have more batteries if you need them. It all really comes down to what you want to do with the Land Rover. Simonr's is a good example of short range possibilities using minimal cost and components.

It's not just a misguided thought that electric is green or 'eco', there is much more to it then that. Whatever your thoughts on the environment it cannot be denied that fossil fuel will eventually run out and will polute while in use. Electric drive is more efficient then the existing ICE and mechanical transmission elements and many people are doing a lot of R&D into how to improve the affordable end of the EV market. Granted there are a lot of environmental issues around battery manufacture and disposal but there is as much, if not more, issues regarding oil. Granted also that there are issues around coal powered generation and the 'long tail pipe' issue with electric vehicles but if the vehicles are there then the methods of generation will become cleaner over time. Hydrogen is a bit of a red herring at the moment as, between the power station and the car, hydrogen adds another stage to the process and all the losses that come with energy conversion. Until hydrogen is made using less energy, compressed using less energy and transported using less energy, it is all added losses. In the future vehicles will be powered with electricity, regardless of how it is generated or stored. Some of us are just getting ahead of the game.

The general case for direct drive is to have around a 6:1 ratio between the motor and wheels in a car. For a Land Rover you may want a lower ratio to allow for the weight and the larger diameter wheels. This will allow the motor to run at a higher RPM as unlike and ICE electric motors are more efficient at higher RPM. Slow speed running will cause the motor to pull very high current causing over heating. One way around this is to use siamesed motors. Loads more torque too, so maybe straight onto the transfer box will do. Joined with a coupler http://photos.plasmaboyracing.com/albums/buildsequence/Dual_Motors.jpg Or factory made http://photos.plasmaboyracing.com/buildsequence/Siamese8?full=1

I think that perception is a little outdated. Cobbled together with car batteries is no good (except for Simonr ). Proper deep discharge lead acid batteries are used but also LiFePO4. Have a look at This video of White Zombie. My conversion is looking at a range of 70miles at 70mph in order to meet my commuting needs.

I just found this blog that you might want to read. The chap is converting a Series 3 Land ROver to electric.

The Enertrac outrunner is worth watching as it is currently a motorbike wheel motor with plans for car wheel use. 10kw and 30kw peak, per wheel, I've suggested to him to stack the motors so they can run in pairs or triples. Unlike other wheel motor manufacturers this chap, Mark, is happy to sell single motors to anyone.

I'd like to use the Solton1 or a Zilla 1K but I think at my budget I will be looking at a Paul and Sabrina's open source kit.

I look forward to seeing you on DIY Electric Car. I'm Woodsmith over there. Not land Rover related but have a look at Plasma Boy drag racing White Zombie on YouTube to see what a couple of motors and a few batteries can do.

Great idea. No problem putting a motor where the engine used to be and using the standard gearbox and transfer box. You can do it with or without a clutch and flywheel and you will have loads of space for batteries under the seats and in the wheel wells. The motor can be directly coupled to the gearbox without further gearing as the gearbox will do all that for you. A series wound DC motor will be the simplest and cheapest to set up and a three phase AC motor will be the most complex and expensive but gives the ability for regeneration. Note that without regen the DC motor spins freely on the over run so there is no 'engine braking' at all. You will need to rely on your brakes. Motors can be found in fork lift trucks. You will want to find one that is 48v or higher, 60+ volts is good. It will need to be around 9" to 11" diameter and have many long commutator bars on the armature. The brushes should be around 2 1/2" - 3" long. They will only run at 1700-2200rpm but if you over volt them then doubling the voltage doubles the rpm. A 60V 2200rpm motor could be run at 144V and 5200rpm if the brushes are advanced by turning the end cap of the motor for example. Another factor is the comparison of power. An electric motor with 20-30kw is more then a match for a 100bhp petrol engine. Added to that the maximum torque of a series wound DC motor is at 0rpm and is considerably more then most clutches can cope with. You will be able to pull away in 2nd and do all your urban driving in the one gear. Change up to 4th for motorways. The motor will run at highest efficiency when at its maximum rpm so you will want to try and keep it there. What you will need to do is work out how much weight you can shed from the Defender so you have as little weight s possible. Then you need to consider how much range you need, not want but need, and how fast you want to be able to drive. Also you need to consider the budget. The most expensive thing is likely to be the batteries. For a decent range and speed you will have to look at Lithium (LiFePO4) batteries. For my Toyota MR2 conversion I am looking at £8k to £10k for the batteries. The cost is justified by the life of the batteries and is a bit like buying all your diesel for the next ten years in advance and then only paying £1.50 for each 70 miles driving at 70mph. If range isn't too much of an issue then Lead Acid is usable though heavy. Have a look at www.diyelectriccar.com (also see my link in my sig) and you will see a lot of people converting all sorts to electric. It is a great resource for knowledge and expert advice. If you want to look further into this then it is worth joining and asking some questions there. Also Simonr, here, has an electric Freelander so he is also worth talking to.

I suppose someone who doesn't have a screen could buy it, install it and then make a fraudulent claim on their insurance for a replacement screen.

I used to use a stirup pump. It had a good blast on it for each pump and a little bit of excercise soon got the rad clean with only a couple of gallons of water. How about a PTO mounted water pump?

Are you really going to take to the public road with a known fault in your brakes just because you want to have a play before you can fix it? Glad you're not local to me.

Just a note to say if you use diesel make sure it isn't bio diesel, worse then useless for degreasing. I have 5 gallons of it that my car no longer runs on and tried it for parts cleaning, it just moves oil, grease and muck about and leaves it on the surfaces.

I'd fit a fluorescent caravan type light for overall illumination and then use the LED lights for local lighting as they are very directional and cast shadows.

I don't think there is a legal restriction on height in the UK on the basis that there are enough physical restrictions in place but a notice of the height is required over a certain limit but I can't remember what at the moment. If you do get a roof mount then just make sure that you measure the height and fix a notice of it in feet and metres that is visible to the driver. If it were me I would be tempted to adapt a roof rack to take the bikes lying on their sides with the handle bars just over hanging the edge of the roof. Easier to get up there, one on each side, and much lower overall height.

It is a good idea, though I'm sure that I have seen it before. About 25 years ago there was a magazine article about making one that replaced the standard cup on the jack and placed the cup in a new off set position to go under the diff.

Would thish winch be big enough? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180430520426&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT Compare it to the axle stand holding one end of it up!

Looks familiar.

Even if it isn't waterproof could you not just extend the wiring so that the unit lives inside the cab where it will stay dry?

The buzzer would have been a standard kit of parts to fit in a car or van. For a temporary solution for the test you could run a length of hose pipe from the buzzer to somewhere inside the cab. You will hear it then! I have a buzzer in my tow car and when stopped at a red light for a turn and it is red for ages I end up turning the indicator off for a while as it is so annoying and distracting. However, It has caught me and reminded me when I have tried pulling away with the trailer unplugged after messing with it.

I know how you feel Simon. Sometimes working in less then ideal conditions on your own is disheartening enough. If I was closer I would come over and help out, a different eye on things and someone to do the boring/tedious bits and make the decision and go with it on the problems helps a great deal. I am currently tackling an electric conversion on an MR2 and some days I just sit and look at it trying to decide what to do with it. Usually I make a decision, go with it and then immediately after the point of no return I get the brain wave idea that would have saved me time, effort, money and a now unwanted hole in the car! For your gear stick problem, try ignoring, for the moment, what you have and what the constraints are and place them where you want them. Then work backwards to see how you can make that configuration work either with different linkages or changing the shape of the tunnel or just the tunnel surface. It doesn't have to be fitted to the tunnel directly, maybe a centre console rising up to the dash with the the stick on it would work for example.

The width and height of the trailer body is so that it fully obscures vision through the rear window and hence the rear view mirror too thus requiring the driver to have to rely on door or wing mirrors. However, the examiner still needs to be able to see to the rear of the vehicle and so a mirror for the examiner is required. From what I gather, I think the mirror would be positioned so that the examiner can see the side view as offered by a door or wing mirror. At least, that is what a driving instructor told me.

If you are going to use this type of secondary lock make sure that the lock barrel is set in a steel plate with a tight fitting hole that will prevent the lock body from being turned. The plate can be glued to the inside of the door panel. We used to be able to jam a bar into his type of lock and turn the whole barrel reaming the hole at the same time and unbolting the lock.