Electric conversion

[DirtyComanche]

How would you feel about an electric MJ?  Would it be a project you would find interesting, or would you feel it is blasphemy of the worst sort?

 

I've had long drunken conversations with an ex-coworker of mine about converting a vehicle, on the basis that the currently offered electric vehicles are either ugly econobox commuter cars, super expensive/not available (Bolinger), or not really practical for living where I do with the lifestyle I have (Tesla).

 

There's a guy on Pirate with an electric Samurai that is able to run the Rubicon, I need to dig into it a little more to see what it's really capable of, but it's set up with three Chevy Volt batteries and an 71HP A/C motor with regeneration.

[dasbulliwagen]

There are e few companies that will do conversions like this to any vehicle you want them to. I'm not sure its been done to a Comanche, but I see no reason why it can't be, or why it wouldnt be good to do. 

[Dzimm]

I am one who always votes for internal combustion, especially in an old vehicle.  I do however think it would be absolutely hilarious to see an MJ launch and produce basically no sound whatsoever.  Assuming you were to use a good electric system that is actually fast. 

[carnuck]

Sounds kind of cool. I had a design for my Jtruck to be hybrid with lpg to run the backup system.
I considered putting a 2.5 with 4 4D batteries in front and 6 more under the deck then run an electric motor on the front driveshaft on top of the tcase.
With a NP208 or 242 case I could shift to neutral, which would leave front and rear diff locked for 4x4 with Electric .


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[Jeep Driver]

Think diesel-electric. 

 

My little 3 cyl Kubota will run/mow for 3 hours at full throttle on 1.5 gal of diesel. 

 

No reason why a diesel-electric could not get about 180 mpg. 

 

 

[Money_Pits]

I have been, but not with any seriousness.  There's been quite a few S10's converted to electric, and there really isn't a terribly big difference between an S10 and a Comanche in regards to the logistics of it. Across the street from my work is a dealer that carries the motors and controllers needed, and down in cape girardeau is a business with a lot of resources on the subject of home made conversions, http://evtv.me/

 

The reason for the lack of seriousness is strictly due to cost of installation vs effectiveness of the swap. It's still very expensive even using used battery packs and such.

 

EVwest (from the video above) is another excellent resource, especially for speccing motors.

[DirtyComanche]

1 hour ago, Jeep Driver said:

Think diesel-electric. 

 

My little 3 cyl Kubota will run/mow for 3 hours at full throttle on 1.5 gal of diesel. 

 

No reason why a diesel-electric could not get about 180 mpg.

 

I was just going to get a Honda Eu2000i to recharge it if I went too far.  I believe that's all the guy on Pirate uses.  To actually fit a hybrid system permanently would require much more trouble, and isn't really what I want it for.  90% of the time I drive to town and pick up steel, wood, groceries, etc, and drive back, which is about a 100km round trip as a maximum.

 

The reality is the economics of such a project would never make sense though, I drive a mixed fleet of my own vehicles maybe 15000km a year, and this could not replace every vehicle (nor would I want it to) so the economics are somewhat beside the point.

[DirtyComanche]

5 minutes ago, Money_Pits said:

I have been, but not with any seriousness.  There's been quite a few S10's converted to electric, and there really isn't a terribly big difference between an S10 and a Comanche in regards to the logistics of it. Across the street from my work is a dealer that carries the motors and controllers needed, and down in cape girardeau is a business with a lot of resources on the subject of home made conversions, http://evtv.me/

 

Yes, lots of S10 and Ranger conversions are out there.  But they're S10s and Rangers so they suck.

[Money_Pits]

13 minutes ago, DirtyComanche said:

 

Yes, lots of S10 and Ranger conversions are out there.  But they're S10s and Rangers so they suck.

 

Yea, my dd is a ranger, and it is my motivation to try to get my comanche up and going haha.

[DirtyComanche]

Here's the Zuk I was talking about:

 

It's funny because with no engine noise you can hear all sorts of stuff...  And no shouting directions or anything else.

[HOrnbrod]

Boring maximus Dirty.  

[carnuck]

If he added a curved skid under the diffs he wouldn’t hang up as much.

 

What’s the weight of that 3 banger Kubota motor? The guy who did the yard work at my place really liked his.

I just found an ‘84 Maxima with the LD28 diesel that lost reverse (Jatco overdrive automatic so it’s probably worn valvebody that caused reverse and drive at the same time. It’s a common issue around 100K) that might be a fun swap in a 4.0L Comanche with the later trans and tcase swapped in during rebuild.

The Kubota 3 cyls are available cheap out here but the reason I like LPG is it’s just a backup source and the fuel has no issues with long term storage. I prefer the exhaust smell too. That’s why I’m parting my NPR 3 ton with Turbo diesel rather than fixing it.

 

 

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[DirtyComanche]

17 minutes ago, HOrnbrod said:

Boring maximus Dirty.  

 

I'm torn on if I agree with you or not.

[DirtyComanche]

3 hours ago, carnuck said:

Sounds kind of cool. I had a design for my Jtruck to be hybrid with lpg to run the backup system.
I considered putting a 2.5 with 4 4D batteries in front and 6 more under the deck then run an electric motor on the front driveshaft on top of the tcase.
With a NP208 or 242 case I could shift to neutral, which would leave front and rear diff locked for 4x4 with Electric .

 

Do you mean have the driveshaft pass through the motor?  Since most of these motors have keyed or splined drives on each end.

 

I don't know if you would get enough torque unless you went big.  Everything I'm looking at is retaining the transmission and the transfer case for any sort of usage beyond just going fast.

 

And I want A/C for regenerative braking, because then it actually holds you back or can even stop you.

[carnuck]

The electric motor We has was a variable belt drive for clutching. In the Jtruck it fit under the floor on the tcase front output. AC regeneration braking might stop better but converting to go to the batteries lets off a lot of heat.


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[Jeep Driver]

Check out Formula E.................not boring. 

 

Best vid I can find of an E car on road course. 

 

 

[Jeep Driver]

 

[DirtyComanche]

21 hours ago, carnuck said:

AC regeneration braking might stop better but converting to go to the batteries lets off a lot of heat.

 

I want it for the braking, having had and lived through several vehicle brake failures; you're left with pretty minimal options if the motor is freespooling and you have no brakes, at least with a normal combustion engine you can gear down or even throw the transmission in reverse.  It's certainly cheaper to just run a DC setup and not worry about it, and the guys that are interested in going fast and only going fast certainly do that.  You only really see something like a 10% increase in range with the regenerative braking, but that's still something, especially with my intended 'route' featuring a couple long hills that you have to go both down and up.   I don't want to build a hybrid, I think it would be way too heavy to have any use, I'd be better off just throwing the little Kubota diesel in the thing and running dual transmissions.

[mjeff87]

Dumb question, but I'll ask it anyway.  Wouldn't you in effect have a manual steering vehicle with an electric engine?  (no power assisted anything).

 

Watching that Zuk maneuver got me to thinking about how much that might suck trying to change front wheel position, especially on anything heavier than a Zuk or anything turning a wheel over 28" or so.  Especially when not moving.

 

 

[Money_Pits]

I didn't look into how accessories operate, but evwest has this very expensive option for power steering http://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=363

[DirtyComanche]

26 minutes ago, mjeff87 said:

Dumb question, but I'll ask it anyway.  Wouldn't you in effect have a manual steering vehicle with an electric engine?  (no power assisted anything).

 

Watching that Zuk maneuver got me to thinking about how much that might suck trying to change front wheel position, especially on anything heavier than a Zuk or anything turning a wheel over 28" or so.  Especially when not moving.

 

 

 

You can get standalone vacuum and hydraulic pumps that are run off pressure switches.  The zuk I linked has a vacuum pump from a diesel VW.  He has manual steering.

[DirtyComanche]

1 minute ago, Money_Pits said:

I didn't look into how accessories operate, but evwest has this very expensive option for power steering http://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=363

 

There's much cheaper OEM components that can be used.  And they're probably more reliable.  I forget what the common power steering pump is to use, I think it's off an Audi or something.  It doesn't have as much jam as an engine driven one but it will still probably be adequate for anything I'd do.

[Money_Pits]

1 hour ago, DirtyComanche said:

 

There's much cheaper OEM components that can be used.  And they're probably more reliable.  I forget what the common power steering pump is to use, I think it's off an Audi or something.  It doesn't have as much jam as an engine driven one but it will still probably be adequate for anything I'd do.

 

Yea, I figured there would be cheaper ways. I just need farm truck capability, so I'm sure anything above manual would do (and manual would still probably be fine).

 

When I was doing my list of Comanche (86 with 2.8l and ax5) needs, I did two, one based on make it run and stop, one on doing it right and taking care of as many known issues and upgrades from the start. The second list was crossing into the expensive territory, so I decided to compare it to doing over the top upgrades (engine/tranny swap/ev conversion) to get a better idea of what I could do with that budget. But going the ev route requires a quite a bit of research still, and I'm not very knowledgeable on the workings of ev's to begin with.

[DirtyComanche]

5 minutes ago, Money_Pits said:

 

When I was doing my list of Comanche (86 with 2.8l and ax5) needs, I did two, one based on make it run and stop, one on doing it right and taking care of as many known issues and upgrades from the start. The second list was crossing into the expensive territory, so I decided to compare it to doing over the top upgrades (engine/tranny swap/ev conversion) to get a better idea of what I could do with that budget. But going the ev route requires a quite a bit of research still, and I'm not very knowledgeable on the workings of ev's to begin with.

 

My 86 is in the same boat, it basically needs one of everything to be usable.  There is a fair amount of info out there on EV conversions and some good forums, and one of the better known retailers and manufacturers of conversion parts is in the same province as me.  It would be a huge task to do a clean and useful conversion, and I believe I would be into it for at least $15k, but need to do more research.

 

That said, I find I'm far more able to get my own projects completed if other people are enthused about them, it makes for a positive feedback loop when you post updates, and I'm not sure this is going to go that way.