Z3 EV Conversion

Andybpowell

Zorg Guru (II)
Supporter
British Zeds
Joined
May 19, 2022
Points
116
Location
Southend-On-Sea, essex
Model of Z
105Kw ev
Spent the morning welding Aluminium and I hate welding Ally especially cast :mad:
Anyway you may remember I spent a few hours machining the original Nissan Leaf charger housing to take my Volvo charger which promptly expired and I had to change over to a Mitsubishi charger

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The other reason for using the old Leaf housing was that it housed the High Voltage connectors to the inverter that's the port on the bottom left in the picture above (Blue Arrow)

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The green arrow on the above picture is the new Mitsubishi charger and the red arrow is pointing to the High Voltage bus bars that feed the inverter rather than finding something to use as a junction box as the original leaf housing will no longer fit with where I have located the new charger I decide to cut and shut the old housing
These are the sections I cut from the old housing

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I then introduced it to my milling machine followed by my welder

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and you know what it doesn't look too Frankenstein after cleaning up and painting it'll look half decent

:)
 

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Andybpowell

Zorg Guru (II)
Supporter
British Zeds
Joined
May 19, 2022
Points
116
Location
Southend-On-Sea, essex
Model of Z
105Kw ev
This is the cleaned up and painted High Voltage junction box

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So on to other issues the power steering the pump I bought didn't work so I bought another one which did exactly the same which seemed extremely unlikely so after even more scouring of the forums I had no answers or any mention of this fault/issue all of the information out there says connect the power and it will turn on and off using the enable line and run in fall back mode at 70% except it doesn't the only other connections on the pump are the can bus so long story short after a long morning staring at a computer and programming I have a working pump
which also has full speed control so I will be able to reduce the power steering automatically at higher speeds

power steering
 

Andybpowell

Zorg Guru (II)
Supporter
British Zeds
Joined
May 19, 2022
Points
116
Location
Southend-On-Sea, essex
Model of Z
105Kw ev
Since my last post things have been really slow going, I had a leak on the power steering which took me a whole day to find and fix so that's all sorted
I've made up three mounting brackets to mount the charger on top of the inverter

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and just as most of the welding is finished on this project my welding is starting to look ok again 🤣

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the cooling system is now complete with no leaks the only thing it needs is a proper mounting bracket for the pump instead of a couple of cable ties





once the pump mounting bracket is sorted I need to mount the vacumme pump and resevoir for the brakes god it's never ending 😵
don't get me wrong I'm not complaining if I wasn't doing this the wife would find me something else to do :eek:
:)
 
Last edited:

Andybpowell

Zorg Guru (II)
Supporter
British Zeds
Joined
May 19, 2022
Points
116
Location
Southend-On-Sea, essex
Model of Z
105Kw ev
Just a quick one
This project is moving quite slowly at times because I'm literally making this up as I go, I have no detailed plan it's more like I'm heading in a general direction 🤣 my point is if anyone has any views on how I'm doing this or you think I'm doing it wrong please say I won't get all defensive and arsey, it might save me a lot of time and trouble and as my wife likes to remind me I'm very far from perfect

Repaired the wiring loom around the headlights yesterday where a previous owner tried fitting halo headlights and made a right pigs ear of it also made and fitted the earth strap to go between the motor and body also fitted the vacuume pump for the brakes
Right time to get back to it
:)
 

Andybpowell

Zorg Guru (II)
Supporter
British Zeds
Joined
May 19, 2022
Points
116
Location
Southend-On-Sea, essex
Model of Z
105Kw ev
Been a bit of a slow weekend it's just too damned hot
I made up a lifting beam specifically for the front battery box and fitted 4 lifting eyes into the bottom plate of the battery box better safe than sorry

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also made up and drilled the mounting/cooling plate for the top 3 modules

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and test fitted a couple of modules onto the bottom plate so that I can locate the top plate and mark/drill the mounting brackets this is a lot of messing about fitting things and then removing them again but it has to be done this way as getting swarf into one of the battery modules has the potential to be catastrophic lithium batteries have the potential to be very dangerous

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also made up the mounting plate for the charging socket which will be welded in behind the filler cap

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:)
 

Dxbolton

Zorg Guru (II)
Joined
Jun 19, 2020
Points
114
Location
New Forest
Model of Z
2.8 auto
have you seen Tom Cheeswright on YouTube? He’s completed an ev conversion so may be able to offer advice. I think he’s started a second swap too
 

Andybpowell

Zorg Guru (II)
Supporter
British Zeds
Joined
May 19, 2022
Points
116
Location
Southend-On-Sea, essex
Model of Z
105Kw ev
have you seen Tom Cheeswright on YouTube? He’s completed an ev conversion so may be able to offer advice. I think he’s started a second swap too
Sorry for the late reply, Yes I follow Tom on Youtube he's been very helpful even though our conversions are quite different in many ways
:)
 

Andybpowell

Zorg Guru (II)
Supporter
British Zeds
Joined
May 19, 2022
Points
116
Location
Southend-On-Sea, essex
Model of Z
105Kw ev
So I was going to weld a steel adapter plate over the opening for the fuel filler neck to mount the charging socket to but to weld it in place I would have had to remove the rear quater and I didn't want to so I went with this plastic adapter plate which also allowed me to keep the rubber boot that went between the inner and outer panels that the filler neck passed through which will help keep the charging socket dry

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I've also crimped all of the wires into the back of the charging socket including the led status indicator on the socket which is usually left disconnected

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and run it through it's lary orange conduit and into the engine bay just need to connect it to the charger

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and here we are with another job ticked off the list

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:)
 

Andybpowell

Zorg Guru (II)
Supporter
British Zeds
Joined
May 19, 2022
Points
116
Location
Southend-On-Sea, essex
Model of Z
105Kw ev
I've finished connecting the charging socket to the charger and have finished up the fabrication of the front battery box and started assemblying it
it's taken quite a while as I had to drill out 48 studding connectors to use as spacers for the battery box (very tedious)

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The battery box is larger than it needs to be as it will also house the 2 pairs of contactors, precharge relays and resistors the connector for the rear battery box and some of the electronics
:)
 

Andybpowell

Zorg Guru (II)
Supporter
British Zeds
Joined
May 19, 2022
Points
116
Location
Southend-On-Sea, essex
Model of Z
105Kw ev
Continuing the front battery box build this seems like very little progress for a days work but it did involve a lot of staring and head scratching as I only want to do this once this is the high voltage contactors, pre-charge relays and resistors, fuses and the plastic block I've made to mount one end of the fuses

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and this is roughly where it's going

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didn't turn out too bad

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the connector on the right hand side is where the second battery pack that will be mounted in the rear will come in (at some point)
I still have all of the control boards to fit yet and the last picture is of the main fuses with a pen for scale to show just how big these fuses are and why my gloves are so thick :dead:
:)
 

Tom Cheesewright

Zorg Guru (I)
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British Zeds
Joined
May 6, 2020
Points
90
Location
Manchester, UK
Model of Z
Z3
Continuing the front battery box build this seems like very little progress for a days work but it did involve a lot of staring and head scratching as I only want to do this once this is the high voltage contactors, pre-charge relays and resistors, fuses and the plastic block I've made to mount one end of the fuses

View attachment 232273

and this is roughly where it's going

View attachment 232274

didn't turn out too bad

View attachment 232275

the connector on the right hand side is where the second battery pack that will be mounted in the rear will come in (at some point)
I still have all of the control boards to fit yet and the last picture is of the main fuses with a pen for scale to show just how big these fuses are and why my gloves are so thick :dead:
:)
How come you have two fuses and two relays in that box?
 

Andybpowell

Zorg Guru (II)
Supporter
British Zeds
Joined
May 19, 2022
Points
116
Location
Southend-On-Sea, essex
Model of Z
105Kw ev
How come you have two fuses and two relays in that box?
The fuse will be moving to the rear battery box when I get around to building it and the rear box will have an isolator but both set's of contactors will be in the front box it's only in the box now so I don't lose it between now and when I build the rear box 😆
 

Tom Cheesewright

Zorg Guru (I)
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British Zeds
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May 6, 2020
Points
90
Location
Manchester, UK
Model of Z
Z3
The fuse will be moving to the rear battery box when I get around to building it and the rear box will have an isolator but both set's of contactors will be in the front box it's only in the box now so I don't lose it between now and when I build the rear box 😆
So will the connection between the rear box and front box be live when the 12v is off?
 

Tom Cheesewright

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British Zeds
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May 6, 2020
Points
90
Location
Manchester, UK
Model of Z
Z3
I take it you're not a fan of the Idea
I'm aiming to isolate all HV inside the battery boxes when the 12v is off. Pretty sure this is what all the OEMs do for safety. So contactors at each end of the cables connecting the two packs. Wiring can be very simple: just have them come on with 12v.
 
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