simonr

I should have mentioned, EVWest and ZeroEV in the UK can supply a new gear for the tesla transaxle which gives it the correct ratio to drop in to a Land Rover as shown above. This has got to be one of the simplest conversions! You do loose the locking centre diff - but I think someone makes an ATB / limited slip diff for Tesla.

You will need the gearbox & transfer. The reduction ratio of both is really necessary. You end up driving in 1st or 2nd generally. You're right about the efficiency of the drivetrain being poor. However, that's mostly because we're driving with squidgy tyres and the driveline isn't well adjusted. If you get some stiff road tyres and rebuild the axles properly, it's not much worse than a modern car. You will loose a few percent on the range but it's not as bad as you might think. Series have an advantage of being able to run in 2WD. Better still with Freewheeling Hubs.

I'm sensing a bit of negativity in this thread 🤣 Any of you who have not driven an EV - go and take a test drive in something. Just treat it as a fun day out - rather than an admission it might be any good. I think you might be surprised! Even some of the more crappy ones are really fun to drive! I used to think a V8 was the best engine to drive, on or off road, until I bought a Td5. With a bit of tweaking, that knocked the spots off most V8's. Unfortunately, it still sounds like a bag of spanners compared to the lovely sound a V8 (petrol) makes. Then I built an electric Freelander (Mk1) - which is a fairly crappy car. With the electric drive, it transformed it. The quietness & smoothness rivaled the most expensive Range Rover. The torque / acceleration were way too much for the Freelander chassis - I could feel the whole body twisting as it took off. I ended up tuning it right down to make it safe to drive on wet roads. In it's original form, I could spin the wheels a any speed! Also, driving fast / accelerating hard, murders the range. The whole thing cost me under £1000 to build, including the car. It only had a short (27 mile) range - but that's all I needed to get to work & back. Eventually I scrapped it - but only to build a better EV. The problem is, I never found the 'right' donor car. Right, for me was something small, lightweight, mechanically simple which could handle a lot of power. Until now - that is! I bought a Polaris General XP1000 last year. It's great fun to drive, has a huge amount of torque (and handles pretty well) and only weighs 600kg. It's engine is about 100Hp and VERY LOUD! The only negative is it's full of CANBUS & Electrickery - but I can deal with that. My conversion (later this year) will reduce the power to 80Hp. It will only have a range of 60 miles & will weigh 50kg more than the original. I do have a very specific use / need for a vehicle like this. It's kind of an experiment - as I have another future Electric 4x4 planned which will need a lot of the same CANBUS hacking. I have no illusions about it being 'green' - and don't really care. They are just amazing fun to drive! That said, I've just put in planning permission at home for a 12kW Solar 'pergola' - which is enough to run the house and an EV, particularly if I use one EV as part of the battery storage. I find this evolution of the automotive market really interesting & exciting. There's hardly been any big changes to the car in the last few decades - other than trying to turn them into a disposable fashion accessory. The manufacturers have developed a product that people buy and have not needed to push the envelope, just a series of small incremental changes The last really big change was from Steam to ICE. That brought about a total change in the manufacturers who dominated the market. The same is happening again and that more than the change in fuel will change the mindset of what a car is. Go & try one! It might change your mind! They are not ideal for everybody or every application - but they definitely have a place, even if just from a smiles per mile point of view!

Another option (which I've tried) is Sacrificial Anodes. They are usually used on boats - and corrode preferentially to the steel. On a boat, you fix them close to the waterline so they are in air but stay wet - to get the best result. I fitted 4 Magnesium Anode blocks, one behind each wheel - so they were wet when it was raining. I welded the blocks to the chassis (the Magnesium came bonded to a steel plate), for the best possible electrical connection. Make sure you don't paint them with anything and wire-brush the surface when you can be bothered. I cut up the chassis of that vehicle (it was a 1986, 110) back when they were worth nothing. It was in good condition, with an MOT but I still couldn't sell it for £100. I got more for it as scrap metal. Anyway, the inside of the chassis, beneath the mud only had a thin coat of surface rust. Even the inside of the bulkhead was clean. The reverse side where the anodes were welded was perfect. The Anodes themselves had corroded almost to the steel plates. I've meant to do this on subsequent vehicles - but they've all had good Chassis and I never got around to it. I did use them though, on a machine I built for work which was intended to be used in water and live out in the rain. 5 years on, it was still spotless!

I had this issue! I very lightly sprayed them with Acetone (which disolves ABS) which left quite a convincing mattness.

I set up a Corsa C box to be radio controlled. It provides plenty of torque to steer, even a big car remotely. You can buy boxes on eBay which will fool the built in ECU into thiking it's connected to a car - and to dial up the amount of assistance you want. On a car (generally) the amount of assistance is inversely proportional to the speed. If you tell it, its stationary - you get loads of assist! I believe they provide more torque than necessary for the lane departure warning thingy which lurches back in to the lane when you try & overtake without signalling 😮

I was going to say - but the second bit vanished! If you do a lot of Sheet Metal or Weldments, find me on - the solidworks forum, I've posted some useful macros on there. Particularly one which will traverse all the parts in an assembly, find the sheet metal bits, export the flat patterns as DXF's (for laser / Plasma / jet cutting) along with a Bill of materials for how many & of what material & thickness. I use that every couple of days! Are you the same Landy_Andy I used to know? Big Pete's sidekick?😉

Check the oil level. The reverse clutch is the biggest & the last one to be starved of oil if it's low.

>I have a hidden switch for fuel pump solenoid - how can i lock off Starter Motor etc. In a very similar way to the pump solenoid. There's one thin wire which connects to the solenoid (plus two very thick ones). Just put a switch in that. >Also do pedal locks help? The more the merrier! There's no single foolproof anti-theft device - your best option is to go for a number of cheap, different options. The more time it takes to overcome the security, the less chance they will bother. >What else can i do? My favorite, which worked like a charm when I lived in a rough part of London with nightly car thefts from my road, was to leave the doors unlocked - and leave an oily copy of the haynes manual, open on the Engine Problems page, on the drivers seat! One night, a Series 3 parked in front of my 110 was stolen. They'd had a rummage around mine & left the drivers door wide open - but decided the S3 was a better option! Back then (1994) S3's were worth nothing. Another one is to put air-horns inside the cab and wire them up to the ignition circuit. Not so much as an alarm - but it makes it pretty uncomfortable sitting inside! Once or twice I forgot to switch it off before I started the truck & it frightened the life out of me! I then built a DIY Alarm (based on a Z8 Microcontroller!) which first sounded the horns. If it got a second detection after that, it triggered a Smoke Grenade and if that didn't put them off, a large Ground Maroon (Flash Bang). I test-fired the maroon & it blew out one of the windows! That option was deleted from the final version! I'm sure the Smoke Grenade & Maroon were highly illeal - but back then, I didn't consider that. We didn't live in a surveylence state back then. Who would have guessed I'd end up working in Special Effects! 😉

I detect Solidworks 🙂 I'm guessing you use it professionally - unusual to see a fully defined sketch! If you do a lot of Sheet Metal or Weldments, find me on You're making a beautiful job of it (the build). I've seen Hydro Boost brakes - but never seen someone adapt one to a Land Rover. Si

What I was trying to achieve with mine, was a single gauge which could replace everything apart from the speedo. Set high or low limits and display those values preferentially if out of bounds - that's the only time you are really interested in them! The point was to de-clutter the dash.

I like the gauge! The idea of a rotatable ring bezel sounds good, but at first thought, it could compromise waterproofing. On second thought, I figured you could make a snap-on ring with a magnet built in and add a Hall Effect device to the inside of the casing. That could even be used as an analog input - move the ring fast to change mode, slowly to change brightness for example. I had a go at making a similar gauge using a mixture of sensors & reading OBD data https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjrugu0hZ-0 Waterproofing buttons was an issue so I tried using the little Piezo sensors (like the speakers you used to get in the back of digital watches) as a 'tap' sensor. They don't need to be mounted directly behind the glass, back of the display seemed to work. When you tap the display, you get a little voltage spike which is fairly easy to differentiate from general noise / touching. You can also use it as a buzzer. I tried a capacitive touch sensor - but they were too prone to accidental touches.

Lanolin must work - when have you ever seen a rusty Sheep? 😉 I guess that applies to Snakes with Snake-Oil too! Just sayin' 🙂

What he said - but not for the same reason 🙂. It can be difficult to purge all the air out of the box. Bleed it via the screw on top with the engine off as has been suggested. Then work the steering back & forth, lock to lock (much easier with the axle jacked up) with the engine running. This will gradually push the air out of the pistons in the box. Also, Ralph is correct, it's worth lubricating the steering UJ's as they seize up. If still no joy, look at the steering pump. You can get an idea if it's working by loosening the bleed screw with the engine running. If it makes loads of mess, the pump is pumping at least.

I guess you've checked all the fuses & relays are OK? I would imagine SRS is powered separately from everything else as it's the last thing you want to fail. If so, I would have a look inside the dash binacle. Try pulling apart & reconnecting the multi-way plugs. It could just be corrosion.

My bet is you have disturbed an earth connection somewhere. It may be that it was a bit corroded / oxidised and just touching it has broken the connection. I'd be surprised if the earth to all those things was somewhere in the headlining - but you never know. I would try jumping the connection to the seat to earth (since it draws the most power) and the connections are easy to access, under the seat. If that fixes the problem, go hunting for earth connections. Clean them then cover in petrollium jelly before reconnecting.

Mo - we agree on omething at last! 🤣 I quite like the car (even with CANBUS & a plastic Engine) - but find this aspect of it very dissappointing. At a point in our history where we really need inward investment and manufacturing (I'm not going to mention the B word), I would of thought a British company, not least one that supported the B word, would have put their money where their mouth is! I have nothing against French vehicles, I drive a Renault Van & it's great - but I don't think I'll be buying a French Grenadier, even if it has a £160 union flag glued to it.

The last time I replaced mine, I machined my own out of 316 Stainless with genuine seals & retainers. Never touched them again. I'm often suspicious of things described as 'Stainless', particularly when they don't specify the grade! I guess, legally, Stainless just means it doesn't have any stains on it now. I bought a 'stainless' bike chain - which was just a zinc & passivate coated steel chain. For the price of it, it ought to have been made from Gold!

There should be some slack in it, but 25mm sounds a lot to me. By disconnecting the ball joint at the FWH end, you should be able to rotate it gently to see whether the play is in the half-shaft spline or the FWH. Si

The RS Iron is just a re-badged Atten (it says Atten on the label on the bottom). The first one I bought is identical to this, 80W. RS no longer keep that one, just the (slightly) higher power version. When I bought mine, it was about the same price as the Atten one too. That's what I'd buy today - it really is very good. I also have an RS heat gun thingy for SMD - though, in practice I use it for heat-shrink more than SMD. It's also top notch for the price.

Ain't that the truth! He (and the rest of Flying Spanners, even Fridge 😉) left an impact on me! Jez is definitely worthy of our support, in whatever shape that comes. For me, he showed that you really can do anything you put your mind to, no matter how unlikely. This is a great example of the same thing.

I just put them roughly in the middle. The force is likely to be about the same in either direction, in cornering. Thus the hole will probably widen equally in both directions.

Can't help with the actual issue - but could you not just use a Time Switch + Contactor to turn on the charger at the appropriate time? I appreciate it ought to be able to do it - but rather than pull your hair out, work around it (The suggestion has land rover written all over it!)

I don't know whether the tread pattern is legal - they look a lot like Maxi-Cross which you couldn't even take to most sides as they tore up the ground so much! Fantastic tyres off road though! However, I used to run 37" Tyres on my V8 Auto Defender. The transfer box was whatever came as standard in a V8, 90.. It did have uprated half shafts (after I'd broken too many standard ones) and Diff Locks. It went fairly well. A bit wobbly at times on the road. I didn't have any issues crawling with it. If it were a Manual box, I think you'd have more issues - but the auto has a Torque Converter (which turns RPM into Torque). I think that increased the input torque enough not to really notice the difference in torque available at the wheels. Still my favorite vehicle I've owned!

Or, place a small ball bearing (about 5mm diameter) inside the compression fitting. Even done up finger tight, it seals the fitting pretty well