# Proton Jumbuck EV Build



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Well after my 2015 VW Jetta Build hit some snags, especially around making Making Nissan EV stuff talk to the VW ICE stuff that I needed to leave in the car to pass compliance (such as all the safety gear) I was on the hunt for a new car.

After some back, forth, up, down, left, and right, I managed to whittle my plans down to:


Mid 90's Mitsubishi Nimbus
Mid 90's Lancer
2002-2009 Proton Jumbuck (basically a Mitsubishi Lancer ute)
These were the best cars because

No CANBUS, so no interface required
New enough to be comfortable or made comfortable
Parts readily available for non EV bits
FWD drivetrain
Good carrying capacity
So anyway, from what it looks like, I'll be able to drop the entire front subframe including motor mounts out of the eNV and slide it into the Jumbuck with minimal issues, I may need a new bonnet as the 4G15 is a very short motor and the eNV setup with the charger on top us comparatively taller.

Now the Jumbuck is narrower than the eNV, 1490 for the eNV compared to 1450 in the Jumbuck, but at 25mm a side, I don't think that will be a huge issue. I'll be getting custom front shafts made to retain the Jumbuck gear at the front because rims are easier to find.

As for weights, the eNV weighs in at an obese 1,667kg unladen, of which ~300kg is the battery and 124kg from the Drive Unit Assembly.

So we're looking around the 419kg mark on that gear.

The Jumbuck by comparison comes in at 1,045kg with a payload of 500kg, however the fuel tank full weighs just over 60kg and the 4G15 weighs in at 115kg, the transmission in the Jumbuck weighs in around 35kg dry, so looking maybe 40kg wet.

So 215kg out of the Jumbuck brings us down to 830kg for the car as it is.

Then adding our electric gear back in at 419kg, I'm gonna round to 420 because why not, brings us to 1,250kg which is only an increase of 205kg over the standard Weight of the Jumbuck and we'll within its rated payload.

This is also a good 417kg less than what the eNV200 weighs in at. I'm told every 10kg ≈ 1km of range, so if the eNV could do 180km as it was, I should get ~220km with it in the Jumbuck.

That's not counting the fact I'm going from a brick with bad drag over the flat back to a ute that, once I drop a tonneau on her, it will be fairly efficient by comparison.

Plus, at a GVM of 1,680kg and a Tare in at 1,250kg still gives me a payload of 430kg, which isn't bad.

However I could probably do a bit of jiggery pokery with the suspension and brakes (like discs in the rear) to then upgrade that more so I go back to having a full payload.

Now I tell you, my wife was utterly mortified when I got home yesterday and told her I've found a canary yellow Jumbuck for $600 on Facebook.

Attached is the only picture I have, because by the time I picked it up it was 8PM and I didn't get home and unloaded until well past 10PM, so I'll get more pics tomorrow.

But it needs:

Whole new dash (Will acquire Lancer dash)
Whole new front end and bonnet (Again will go lancer front end, more readily available)
Probably a whole rebuild of suspension and steering, it looks tired, it feels tired, probably is tired.
New rims and tyres, got those fully sick stockies on there for maximum skids at the moment
Tonneau cover, it just doesn't have one at the moment
LED conversion on all the lighting
Full Digital dash Conversion


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Ok, so I have measured my under-tray area and I can concievably cone up with ~1,600 long X 1,180 wide area to mount the pack.

So assuming that the eNV200 pack isn't much bigger than the Leaf at 1570.5 x 1188 then I should be able to make it work by moving the shocks a little bit and maybe different leaf springs.

Anyway, here are some photos:


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)




----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Yep, so a quick rough measure of the eNV200 pack seems to be in the same ballpark as a LEAF pack, so ideally I won't have to do any Pack Splitting to get this in. Even better!


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So the next thing I need to look at is the height, so from the eNV subframe to the top of the charger comes in at ~680mm which is nice









However at maximum, the Proton engine seems to sit in at around the 650 mark, which is a bit short. That's from where it's current subframe sits.










So there's a good chance this will necessitate a new bonnet that has a more substantial hump in it.

Thankfully Lancer bonnets and front ends 1992-1996 fit, so there's a good chance that I should be able to do some creative fabrication and get something together for the front end.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Another important distance here will be the distance between the strut towers, which on the Jumbuck is ~900mm










And on the eNV is closer to the 960mm










So for length of bay from any substantial structures such as firewall to front support panel, the eNV is ~680










And the Jumbuck is around the 810mm mark










So essentially the only real issue here is 30-40mm of height, and this is not a fundamental structure issue of the car, in fact this is easily overcome in the grand scheme of things


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So, I'm going to be the first person to admit that I'm very big at CAD but I'm also very big it just simply making stuff fit.

My plan here with this whole build is that from here now that I have both cars I'm simply going to drop the engine out of the Jumbuck, drop the motor out of the env200, I'm going to drop the entire rear out of the Jumbuck including the rear axle, and drop the entire battery pack as a complete unit out of the Nissan.

From there I'm simply going to lift the entire subframe assembly from the Nissan into the Jumbuck and maybe a little bit of a bottom spacer, I should be able to take up the majority of the slack that would be over height from the jumbucks current setup.

As for the backend, I intend to just lift the battery pack into place underneath the Jumbuck, I'll fabricate up some mounts to hold the battery pack in place, and then I will likely design a new subframe for the suspension to bolt to. As the suspension will be my width limiting factor at the rear.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So in direct contradiction to my previous post of "just make it fit" I'm finalising the CAD file for my rebuilt battery pack for the Jumbuck, I've finally sorted the layout, after clarifying some existing advice ended up with a pack that was waaaay too big.

Some people refer to a Module as a single battery, others refer to it as it's installed in the car, which is paired. Once I cleared that up I was back down from 570kg battery weights to a much more acceptable 260kg which is what it should be in just module weight.

Also explains why some people were saying the donor has 24 modules and some that it has 48, in fact it has both. 24 Modules made of 48 Modular Batteries. So that's what I'll find when I open the High Voltage Pack up. It will all be in pairs, which works for me. Definitely a tad confusing.

I will however be incorporating liquid cooling into the battery system, as evidenced by the blue chill plates sitting on top of and below the batteries. Not sure if I'll do a 3rd row, they weigh around 7kg each, so at this point, I think if I'm doing better than Nissan, I'm doing good enough. I doubt I'll be fast charging much or putting her under super high workloads, so this should be more than sufficient.

Total length of the pack comes in at 1,332mm and the width comes in at a respectable 700mm which should fit quite neatly up between the chassis rails.

I'm imagining that once I get the Jumbuck ripped apart and get the bracketry designed, I'll probably add around 100kg to the weight with the reinforced box that needs to be built, and then probably another 75kg with BMS, Wiring, Coolant Lines, Coolant, etc.

So next will be to CAD up the battery box in sheet metal, I have made the support beams will bolt the batteries top and bottom and ensure that they will withstand crash forces if they need to.

The lower beam will be welded to the sheet metal battery box and the upper beam will clamp via bolt to the lower beam through the batteries and chill plates holding it all together.

Then the top cover will slot over the whole lot to form the watertight box.

So this will be narrower and longer than the factory box in the eNV200, which although I could make it fit, it was not going to work well because it would have necessitated raising the back end of the ute by approx 100mm, which is 4 inches in the old money. Something that would make it harder to sign off on, look silly, and overall probably compromise the handling as it would raise the weight by that much as well.

This way I can stick all that weight between the springs and hopefully get a set of springs that will allow me to keep factory ride height, as I don't really want to go much lower as then suspension travel will cause me to slam the axle into the battery box, which over time could cause issues.

Worst case scenario I go with a minor lift, such as 25-50mm (1-2 inches) and can compensate the look by fitting something like 17" rims to the car with a half decent tyre and it won't look too off-balance.

Thankfully I don't have to waste a battery pack by slamming it into a barrier, they are happy for me to send them the CAD files and they will test this all in simulation, which is bloody awesome. Though the criteria under VSB14 are actually not that bad, it's only 20G, I think the limiting feature here would in reality be the actual Jumbuck itself, I'm not so sold the car itself wouldn't tear apart at 20G

So as a bit of a summary, I'm looking that including cooling in this setup, as well as chill plates, I'll be around the 430kg mark once the whole pack is completed, wired, and full of coolant.

Though as some of you may have ascertained, this is partially why I was chasing the axle weights that are allowable on the Jumbuck, as there may have been the need to look into increasing the axle weight limit over the back end.
As it stands, I won't be able to do much more than toss the dogs in the back, however that's probably more than enough for my purposes, as it's going to be the run to work and back car, the nip into town car, the get around car.
Once done though I am more than happy to take it to shows and stuff, and you guys just wait until you see the interior I have planned!

Hopefully I may be able to shed some weight off her in that department, as there's really no need for some of the stuff that's inside the car, I might find myself a really nice vinyl flooring that lightweight, and I'm sure a lot of the heavy, pretty, trim can be replaced with thinner, lighter, and just as functional appointments.
I believe the real weight savings will be in the driveline, as I understand there is a hell of a lot of steel in the Engine and Gearbox alone, which means that I should be well suited to be replacing this with the all alloy EM57 setup from the eNV200

So the 4G15 on paper is 115kg, and the gearbox is around the 40kg mark (I was told 70-80lbs by all the Lancer forums, Proton may have re-jigged the box, but I doubt it will vary that much), so a total of around the 155kg mark, whereas the EM57 Drive Unit comes in at 58kg, so that's a saving of 97kg over the front end.

I mean, the EM57 looks heavier, but hey, it's also all aluminum and heatsinks, so really it can't be that much weight in there.

My biggest concern here is that the front end would be too light, which I had the opposite in my old Jumbuck where the 5 Post bar made her understeer as the front end was too heavy. Now I may encounter the exact opposite problem as the front end may be too light, causing the same issues.














































So an update as I wrote most of the post while rendering images, and then decided to start doing the actual structural frame.

The Lower Mounting Brace comes in at 35.807kg and the upper in at 35.749kg, which did strike me as a bit odd until I remembered there would be a poofteenth of material for the threads, and 48 thread holes is a lot of thread holes.

So this has brought my entire weight up to 335.329kg according to Fusion 360, which isn't great, but it's not terrible.

Oh, what's that, got sidetracked with a brain spark on how to fold the sheet metal problem I've been having, and that was punch some holes in it to avoid intersections, in the real world I can always just weld those up later.

So back into fusion I went and made myself a box. Now an overly pretty box, but it's a box, and it will work as a box, and it will be the battery box. And basically my lid can now just be a lid, nothing special, just a flat piece of 2.5mm plate straight across the top.









So the weight of the box alone as it sits is 37.496kg, brining my total weight up to 372.824kg

So now I have to CAD up tomorrow:

Coolant Fittings
Coolant Lines
Coolant Line Junctions
Punch holes in the box to run the coolant lines through
All of the wiring
A lid
The plugs that need to go on the outside
Then I should be pretty much done
Bolts, McMaster Carr doesn't have appropriate bolts
I'm still not sure if I am going to put the BMS INSIDE the battery box or not, I'm thinking I won't, I might instead run all the lines in a loom down to a plug on the box, then just run a plug, that way if a BMS fries itself, then I can just replace the BMS without dropping the whole pack.

That way too I can change what BMS I am running if I later build a secondary pack and stick it somewhere else. As long as I keep the pinout, which I'll probably go with a 24 PIN Sealed plug and modules 1-24 will be pins 1-24, and on plug 2, pins 1-24 will be modules 25-48 which will also be easy to remember if I put them on the side of the bank they are on (Or I could cross them over for fun and be a real shit to the next guy that works on it)

Now I'm not sure at this stage if I want to go for weight reduction and trim every last gram off this setup, there is room for improvement certainly, but my target is <450kg and if I get to 390kg and then spend a week making it 370kg and then making it 3x more expensive to build, have I really gained anything? I think not.

I'm also using Steel in places I could use Alloy, and might have to change stuff where Alloy can touch steel to avoid electrolytic corrosion of the metals, but I plan to have all the alloy anodised and the steel brace bars coated in rubberised speedliner, so they shouldn't rub through those coatings anytime soon. Hell, this ute has Rhino Liner in the bed and I've already been told by the painter that I can go and get....well, you figure out the rest...if I want him to take that off, so it's hard wearing stuff. The coating probably cost what I paid for the ute.


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

You refer to the EM57 drive unit as "all aluminum", but only the motor and gearbox housings are aluminum. The gearbox is filled with steel gears, and the motor is backed with iron laminations, copper windings, and some chunks of permanent magnet, on a steel shaft... no aluminum inside at all, and little air space in the motor. An electric motor is much more dense than an engine (more mass for the same volume).


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

brian_ said:


> You refer to the EM57 drive unit as "all aluminum", but only the motor and gearbox housings are aluminum. The gearbox is filled with steel gears, and the motor is backed with iron laminations, copper windings, and some chunks of permanent magnet, on a steel shaft... no aluminum inside at all, and little air space in the motor. An electric motor is much more dense than an engine (more mass for the same volume).


Still, I'm pulling out a cast steel block, unless the numbers I'm finding on the weight of the EM57 are wrong, it's still a significant weight saving.


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Scotty274 said:


> Still, I'm pulling out a cast steel block, unless the numbers I'm finding on the weight of the EM57 are wrong, it's still a significant weight saving.


Yes, the motor plus single-ratio gearbox is lighter than the engine plus multi-speed transmission... just not because of aluminum housings.

Of course the challenge of EV weight is that even more certainly than the motor will weigh less than the engine which it replaces, the battery will be heavier than a full fuel tank for anything like the same range.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

brian_ said:


> Yes, the motor plus single-ratio gearbox is lighter than the engine plus multi-speed transmission... just not because of aluminum housings.
> 
> Of course the challenge of EV weight is that even more certainly that the motor will weigh less than the engine which it replaces, the battery will be heavier than a full fuel tank.


Oh exactly, I won't have much room beyond me, the wife, and the dogs in payload.

But I'll still be a LOT under what Nissan was running in the Van


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Ok, so after another day of adventuring through the countryside and getting stuff done, I didn't get much time on CAD today.

So today's effort has been to get the Coolant Lines installed into the front of the battery box, the Jumbuck stock radiator has 35mm inlets, I decided that I likely don't need 35mm of cooling to go into the pack at once, so I went with 25mm due to packaging constraints.

As none of the off-the-shelf fittings appeased me, I simply CAD'd my own, which is fairly simple to machine up anyway, so it's not much of a drama in that department. Yay! More custom stuff.

What I did decide to go with though was an external BMS, this will be in the cab and will make it easier to access and replace if the BMS decides it doesn't want to live anymore. I'm getting hit and miss reviews on every single BMS I'm looking at, so I'll just play it safe, I have the room external, I'll just make it easily replaceable.

So for this I went with the Plug Socket P48 48 Pin Straight Flange Male Receptacles Right Angle Female Plug Connector For BMS









Plug Socket P48 48 Pin Straight Flange Male Receptacles Ringht Angle Female Plug Connector


Features: P Series,P48,Plug,48 Pin,Female,Ringht Angle,Cable,Solder,Golden,P48,Socket,48 Pin,Male,Straight,Panel Mount,Solder Cup,Flange,Golden With anti-missing design Good insulation performance Stable work performance Simple structure, convenient user wiring Easy installation Cost-effective




www.elecbee.com





Elecbee Part No:EB-401-6008

This unit will do all 48 modules on one loom (Huzzah!) and reminds me of the overly complicated and over-engineered stuff I used in the Military, so it's a bit like the flag of Switzerland here, a big plus.

Then I was looking at HV Connectors and decided on the EV Battery Connector HVIL 2Pin 200A Socket For Power Solutions









EV Battery Connector HVIL 2Pin 200A Socket For Power Solutions


Features: HVIL200 series,Female Socket,200A MAX,IP67 IP6K9K(Mated),UL94V-0 Sealing, IP67,Touch-proof ； Multiple coding positions High Quality with 30 days 100% Money back; From the OEM Original Factory, same quality with much better price. Appliance:　　 Specially designed for DC-DC, air-conditio




www.elecbee.com





Elecbee Part No:EB-406-0005

This is big enough, but not too big, and seems to be fairly robust for my use. Space is at a semi-premium under this car so I have to factor in not only the size of the components, but how they will fit internally and externally, no use getting a you beut overkill 1,000A Plug if it then makes the pack 50mm too big to fit in the car.

I have also countersunk the holes in the upper mounting frame, this way I can use Torx bolts with a countersink on them and save me from having an air gap at the top of the pack simply to accommodate the bolts. Bolts are flush, lid will sit flush.

Anyways, onto some photos:










Location of HV Mounting Plate (Yellow), the BMS Connector (Green), and the Brass Coolant Lines that I have made in CAD.










View from inside the pack showing where the placement of coolant lines and connectors is in relation to other things, there is a decent 20mm gap between the lowest battery connectors and the coolant lines, so that should be good, now I have to make a Coolant Junction Block to run Coolant to all 24 Chill Plates and then make it all combine again from 24:1 Line to return. I plan to attempt to use equal length hoses, so every plate gets equal flow and equal drain, otherwise no matter where I place the lines some plates will cool more effectively than others. I don't want this.

I will not be CADing up the coolant lines and wires, after looking into how it is done in Fusion, nope, no way, I could spend literally weeks doing it and still not come close to being done, it's not a fun walk, especially if you want to make equal length anything, I'm better off just building the pack and running the lines myself.










Probably an unnecessary render, however I have changed the colour of the contersink to show in yellow so that it's easier to see against the black powdercoat.










The pack! Complete! It now has a lid and the major fittings on the outside as well!

Also if you note along the bottom there is a rail running along, I have to re-do this, as some of the bolt holes intersect, however there will be 24 M10 High Tensile Bolts each side for a total of 48 High Tensile Bolts holding the pack into the rails that I make for the car (Need to strip car next to finalise design for that part, I may not even CAD, I may bolt it together and then just weld it up once it's in the car)

The whole pack will also be bolted to the car by my estimate, around 8 M17 Bolts either side utilising Triangular Braces and utilising body mounts that I will steal from a Toyota Landcruiser welded to the body of the car, this will have the unsightly effect of going through the tub to some plates, but a thick rubber tub liner with some grooves will alleviate the visibility of that.

This will also help dampen the pack from any vibrations or harshness of the road, although yes it will effectively become a moving weight at this point, and according to Fusion, 395.296kg of Steel, Stainless Steel, Aluminium, Lithium, and Plastic. Oh, and some Brass and Rubber.

Honestly, for a home project, I'm probably overkill on the effort, however the last thing I want if to one day get in a crash if it happens, plan for the worst, expect the best, but in a crash the last thing I want to do is flip the car and send a 400kg battery straight through the front of a McDonald's or a School and then have it catch fire.

Next up I will be running simulations on the pack once I have it "bolted together" in CAD and I can crash test it in theory, which if the results are accurate and pending the engineer re-doing the simulations, I'll be all gravy to send the plans to a local Fab Place and get them to CAD it up. I may send along a Leaf Module for reference, as I'm not 100% on the bolt holes being millimetre perfect even if the overall pack Dimensions are.

The hardest bit will be the box itself, for that I have to get it out of Melbourne from a laser cutter, as only one person I have found so far can laser cut such a large piece of sheet and then have the facilities to bend it. Thankfully, I have contacts down there that can handle the logistics of getting it from the fab shop to the powdercoaters and then onto a truck for me. Is good to run a 4x4 Accessories business sometimes. But with the state of Victoria in Stage IV Lockdowns at the moment, and if things don't improve, Stage V, then I might have to source the box from somewhere like NZ or elsewhere, which will be painful with the shipping costs. Might have to get it cut there and bent here, which is not a desirable outcome, as that could lead to issues with the alignment of things.

Thankfully the rest of the frame can be done just 10km down the road at a local fabrication shop, same place I am getting to build me a car trailer, so he's frothing at the mouth for this project, he's keen to buy the car off me when I'm done. Might just build him one instead.

I have to say, I didn't expect the kind of reception that I am getting from some people, I expected the naysaying, however every fabricator I have talked to, every Auto Sparky, and every HV Electrician I have discussed things with has been really keen to know more. Driving my wife nuts on this, because I go out for one tool and come back an hour later after a good chinwag, and most people see the advantage of a car that can do 150km on a charge, as expected, most people are driving less than that round trip daily, and when I tell them how cheap it will be to run, they want one.

But I bet most don't want to do the work to get one.


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Scotty274 said:


> I will however be incorporating liquid cooling into the battery system, as evidenced by the blue chill plates sitting on top of and below the batteries. Not sure if I'll do a 3rd row, they weigh around 7kg each, so at this point, I think if I'm doing better than Nissan, I'm doing good enough. I doubt I'll be fast charging much or putting her under super high workloads, so this should be more than sufficient.


While I don't think there's any question that an active thermal management system is good for performance and reliability, I'm not sure how much benefit there will be in this case. Each module is a stack of four pouch cells, and this pack is composed of double modules, so each double module is a stack of 8 cells. That means that there is a chill plate on the face of each module, adjacent to one cell but further away from the other cells. In the two-layer scheme, the upper double modules are sandwiched between chill plates top and bottom, but the lower double modules have a chill plate on only the top side. If cooling (or heating) is attempted at a significant rate, there will be a substantial temperature difference between cells, depending on how far they are from the closest chill plate.

In module of stacked pouch cells designed for liquid cooling, there is either a fin with circulating liquid between each pair of cells (the LG Chem design for the Chevrolet Volt), or a thermally conductive sheet between each cell pair contacts a chill plate along the long edge of the cell (such as the LG Chem design for the Chrysler Pacifica and Chevrolet Bolt). That's a lot more even than cooling (or heating) the top face of a stack of horizontal cells.

It would be interesting to place temperature sensors at extreme locations within the pack and see the temperature distribution while actively cooling (or heating).


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Scotty274 said:


> The whole pack will also be bolted to the car by my estimate, around 8 M17 Bolts either side...


Do you really mean M17 bolts, and sixteen of them? I don't think I've ever seen a bolt that large on a car. M14 is about the top end; wheel bolts are typically only M12. What size are the bolts holding the packs up into the NV200e and Leaf?



Scotty274 said:


> Honestly, for a home project, I'm probably overkill on the effort, however the last thing I want if to one day get in a crash if it happens, plan for the worst, expect the best, but in a crash the last thing I want to do is flip the car and send a 400kg battery straight through the front of a McDonald's or a School and then have it catch fire.


I don't think the design effort is overkill. Whether it is a single homebuilt unit or one of a million production vehicles, the hazards are the same and it is worth doing properly. The big difference is that a high-volume production design justifies more thorough optimization (for weight, and manufacturability, but mostly for cost).

I'm really impressed by the thought and attention in this design.


----------



## Isaac97 (Jun 3, 2019)

That CAD is looking amazing! Glad to see you're being careful about battery storage (I'm not, might have to fix that someday).

I have 2 things to say -- first, the Leaf/eNV200 is 96 cells, packed into 48 modules, so you need 96 (97) cell taps for the BMS.
Second, that awesome 48-position plug and socket is only rated for 125v, and if you use 2 of those there will still be ~180v across each plug. I hope you can test those thoroughly before installing - a 180v short isn't pretty.


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Isaac97 said:


> I have 2 things to say -- first, the Leaf/eNV200 is 96 cells, packed into 48 modules, so you need 96 (97) cell taps for the BMS.
> Second, that awesome 48-position plug and socket is only rated for 125v, and if you use 2 of those there will still be ~180v across each plug. I hope you can test those thoroughly before installing - a 180v short isn't pretty.


Good catch - I skimmed past the BMS details so I missed both the off-by-factor-of-two pin count and the voltage rating. 

It's actually 192 cells, but 96 groups of two cells in parallel each (96S 2P), so for BMS purposes the important part is the 96S configuration. The centre tap terminals of each module are actually in the CAD renderings, although they appear to be shown as identical to the power terminals (I assume they're actually smaller, as they are in a Leaf: power terminals are M6 and the centre tap terminal is M4, and the post is a smaller square). This image provided by daltonguitar in another DIY Electric Car thread nicely illustrates the terminals (of an early Leaf single module) and how they relate to the internal configuration:


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

brian_ said:


> Good catch - I skimmed past the BMS details so I missed both the off-by-factor-of-two pin count and the voltage rating.
> 
> It's actually 192 cells, but 96 groups of two cells in parallel each (96S 2P), so for BMS purposes the important part is the 96S configuration. The centre tap terminals of each module are actually in the CAD renderings, although they appear to be shown as identical to the power terminals (I assume they're actually smaller, as they are in a Leaf: power terminals are M6 and the centre tap terminal is M4, and the post is a smaller square). This image provided by daltonguitar in another DIY Electric Car thread nicely illustrates the terminals (of an early Leaf single module) and how they relate to the internal configuration:


Ahh I see, as I have done 4 rows of 6 batteries, assuming each battery had 2 modules in it, for a total of 48 modules.

I then thought 48 spots to stick a wire to meant I needed 48 wires.

As for the CAD, yes, I just made them look the same as it was one of the things I didn't need to be millimetre accurate for this rendering.

As per your picture I thought the new ones were simply 2 of those stuck together?



brian_ said:


> Do you really mean M17 bolts, and sixteen of them? I don't think I've ever seen a bolt that large on a car. M14 is about the top end; wheel bolts are typically only M12. What size are the bolts holding the packs up into the NV200e and Leaf?
> 
> 
> I don't think the design effort is overkill. Whether it is a single homebuilt unit or one of a million production vehicles, the hazards are the same and it is worth doing properly. The big difference is that a high-volume production design justifies more thorough optimization (for weight, and manufacturability, but mostly for cost).
> ...


Yes, M17, might go to 4 per side if I don't need that many, but that's what mounts the tray on my ute, what mounts the tow hitch in, etc. So overkill yes, but overkill is underrated.



brian_ said:


> While I don't think there's any question that an active thermal management system is good for performance and reliability, I'm not sure how much benefit there will be in this case. Each module is a stack of four pouch cells, and this pack is composed of double modules, so each double module is a stack of 8 cells. That means that there is a chill plate on the face of each module, adjacent to one cell but further away from the other cells. In the two-layer scheme, the upper double modules are sandwiched between chill plates top and bottom, but the lower double modules have a chill plate on only the top side. If cooling (or heating) is attempted at a significant rate, there will be a substantial temperature difference between cells, depending on how far they are from the closest chill plate.
> 
> In module of stacked pouch cells designed for liquid cooling, there is either a fin with circulating liquid between each pair of cells (the LG Chem design for the Chevrolet Volt), or a thermally conductive sheet between each cell pair contacts a chill plate along the long edge of the cell (such as the LG Chem design for the Chrysler Pacifica and Chevrolet Bolt). That's a lot more even than cooling (or heating) the top face of a stack of horizontal cells.
> 
> It would be interesting to place temperature sensors at extreme locations within the pack and see the temperature distribution while actively cooling (or heating).


See I didn't think the lower ones would need as much thermal management as they are basically right next to the underside so they will get some benefit from airflow over the box when driving.

I could add more plates, but at an estimated 7kg a plate, a further 12 of them is a further 84kg.

I mean, doable easily, just a weight concern, as I only have 500kg to play with over the back end here.


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Scotty274 said:


> Ahh I see, as I have done 4 rows of 6 batteries, assuming each battery had 2 modules in it, for a total of 48 modules.
> 
> I then thought 48 spots to stick a wire to meant I needed 48 wires.


It's more obvious in more typical modules, which have more cells in series (and therefore there are fewer modules)... but a BMS monitors at the cell level, so there is voltage measurement to make and possibly a discharge resistor to connect across each cell group... 96 of them in a typical modern EV pack, regardless of the number of modules.

Other modules normally have a multi-pin connector attached to connect to the BMS wiring harness, of much smaller gauge wiring than the power wiring. In the Leaf, the module BMS connector would only have 3 contacts, so instead Nissan uses a harness with individual ends to connect to each terminal, and probably only made the centre tap as large as M4 because a smaller screw is awkward to handle.



Scotty274 said:


> As for the CAD, yes, I just made them look the same as it was one of the things I didn't need to be millimetre accurate for this rendering.


Sure... but it's a detail that needs to be considered before you make the wiring harness.



Scotty274 said:


> As per your picture I thought the new ones were simply 2 of those stuck together?


Yes, although those early modules have complete metals "cans" and the later ones have less metal, the double modules are (in dimensions and electrically) simply two of the ones pictured, stacked together with the power terminals in opposite orientation (so the positive of one module is beside the negative of its partner). So the pair of modules have six terminals: two positives, two negatives, and two centre taps. If you connect all modules in series (as you will to use the Nissan motor), the positive of one will connect to the negative of the next, and the centre taps connect to nothing except the BMS, so in the set of 48 modules there are 49 power terminals plus 48 centre taps, and thus a total of 97 connections to the BMS.



Scotty274 said:


> Yes, M17, might go to 4 per side if I don't need that many, but that's what mounts the tray on my ute, what mounts the tow hitch in, etc. So overkill yes, but overkill is underrated.


Do you really mean M17, or do you mean a hex bolt with a hex head which is 17 mm across the flats (fits a 17 mm wrench)? "M17" would mean that the outer diameter of the thread is 17 mm. A typical Japanese (JIS standard) automotive M12 (12 mm diameter thread) bolt has a 17 mm head (ISO is 18 mm and DIN is 19 mm for the same M12 thread). I'm not sure about tray bolt sizes, but hitches, brake calipers, and similar major fasteners are commonly M12. A tray (or pickup box in North American terms) is commonly held by only four or six bolts and needs to contain a ton or so of load laterally, so it might have bigger bolts... but an F-150 uses six 7/16" or 12 mm bolts.



Scotty274 said:


> See I didn't think the lower ones would need as much thermal management as they are basically right next to the underside so they will get some benefit from airflow over the box when driving.
> 
> I could add more plates, but at an estimated 7kg a plate, a further 12 of them is a further 84kg.
> 
> I mean, doable easily, just a weight concern, as I only have 500kg to play with over the back end here.


That makes sense.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

brian_ said:


> It's more obvious in more typical modules, which have more cells in series (and therefore there are fewer modules)... but a BMS monitors at the cell level, so there is voltage measurement to make and possibly a discharge resistor to connect across each cell group... 96 of them in a typical modern EV pack, regardless of the number of modules.
> 
> Other modules normally have a multi-pin connector attached to connect to the BMS wiring harness, of much smaller gauge wiring than the power wiring. In the Leaf, the module BMS connector would only have 3 contacts, so instead Nissan uses a harness with individual ends to connect to each terminal, and probably only made the centre tap as large as M4 because a smaller screw is awkward to handle.
> 
> ...


Ok so if I understand you here, I need to have 1xBMS line running to the centre post of each module, and 1 running to the positive post of each module, so that's 2 connections for each group of connection points?



brian_ said:


> Do you really mean M17, or do you mean a hex bolt with a hex head which is 17 mm across the flats (fits a 17 mm wrench)? "M17" would mean that the outer diameter of the thread is 17 mm. A typical Japanese (JIS standard) automotive M12 (12 mm diameter thread) bolt has a 17 mm head (ISO is 18 mm and DIN is 19 mm for the same M12 thread). I'm not sure about tray bolt sizes, but hitches, brake calipers, and similar major fasteners are commonly M12. A tray (or pickup box in North American terms) is commonly held by only four or six bolts and needs to contain a ton or so of load laterally, so it might have bigger bolts... but an F-150 uses six 7/16" or 12 mm bolts.


Now that I've looked into it further, I probably could get away with smaller bolts, I didn't really see the need to go at the bare minimum standard, but maybe M17 would be overkill? I suppose I could get away with 4 x M14 each side, or even 6 x M12's, I just want to be absolutely sure that it will stay where I want it.


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Scotty274 said:


> Ok so if I understand you here, I need to have 1xBMS line running to the centre post of each module, and 1 running to the positive post of each module, so that's 2 connections for each group of connection points?


Yes... and that's 2x48=96, plus one more on the end negative post of the pack, for a total of 97 wires.



Scotty274 said:


> Now that I've looked into it further, I probably could get away with smaller bolts, I didn't really see the need to go at the bare minimum standard, but maybe M17 would be overkill? I suppose I could get away with 4 x M14 each side, or even 6 x M12's, I just want to be absolutely sure that it will stay where I want it.


So you really mean M17? Okay - I was mostly trying to clarify the intended size, rather than criticize the choice of size, but that is surprisingly big. Of course larger than necessary is better than not big engough. What bolts are used to hold the e-NV200 pack into the vehicle?


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Ok so it's been a bit of a while since the update.

Because this car has sat for so long everything on it is either seized or rusted, making removal difficult, including the gearbox which is shattered somehow internally, which means getting the CV Retaining nuts off was fun. In the end, rattle gun to the rescue.

Biggest things:

The springs on the Nissan are 70mm and the springs on the Jumbuck are 60mm, however the mounts are the same distance apart! So the Nissan Rear Axle will switch into the Jumbuck, giving me an upgrade to 4 wheel Discs
The Upper Strut mounts are both 70mm centre to centre on the Nissan and the Jumbuck, as is the Lower COntrol Arm Ball Joint Mount, which means the Nissan hubs will be a straight swap over
This means I will be able to swap the 4x100 Mitsubishi Gear for 5x114.3 Nissan gear, giving me a much greater range of rims that can take the load, handle the power, and meet compliance.
I'm heavily leaning on the idea of a MOTEC M1 system to control everything, as that seems the easiest way to get this running with the compliance and an off the shelf automotive designed system.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So work, procrastination, and lack of willpower have stalled the project for a while.

Consistency is a killer at the moment, I've been jumping from prep engine bay, to strip interior, to what fabric I should retrim stiff in, what dash I want to use, oh, what colour will I paint it?

Hopefully get back to it this weekend.

I think I'll clean the bloody shed out, then drag the Nissan down there and pull the batteries and motor. Once it's apart I'll be set I think.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So I figured I can _just_ squeeze the battery under the tray.

So I designed this cradle.

It will mount to the factory suspension points, and then I can use the eNV200 rear suspension

























Also here's some pics of the van:


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So I pulled the trigger on the controller today.










No turning back now! The wife is aware this is costing money now.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Right, so I've settled on using a MoTec display for the build, which are nice but pricey. But they directly interface with the CANBUS.

I did find a bunch of decided leaf codes in a DBC, bit I've emailed Isak to see if he has others, or even better, a decoded DBC of eNV200 ones, which would be even better.

At this stage I have imported them into the MoTec display creator, and had a fiddle, looks good so far and I think I have the hang of it.

Here's a screenshot for you all.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

It arrived!

Unboxing to come!


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So I'll add another update while I'm here:


Looks like I'll need to find somewhere to either get a CHAdeMo plug under $900 + Shipping (around what AliExpress is selling them for) or I'll have to reuse the one that I have.
When I started the project, the Resolve Controller hadn't been released, so that was an issue there. Now the way I'm going to wire this in is different to how I planned to wire the Thunderstruck controller in, so I'm basically going to have to De-Loom the car, pull apart the loom, and Re-Loom the car. That will be the nearest way.
On a side note I'm looking to buy a Laser paint stripper and strip the paint that way, then I'm going to Rhino/LineX/Raptor Line the engine bay and interior of the cab and underbody, as well as sound deaden the cabin. These were noisy cars with the ICE, but you could hear the 1.5l of pure Malaysian licenced fury
My plan is done sort of primer, sealer, and then just a vinyl wrap. That way when I get bored, I'll just re-wrap it.
I may at some stage look into a Muxsan range extender, I'll measure up the tray, stick a false floor in, and see if Muxsan can custom build one, but I know at the moment they are chat stick getting the standardised ones out the door. 24kWh will do me for now with the ability to fast charge.
At the moment the furthest I'll likely drive the car will be to see a friend in Mooloolaba, which is a fair hike to the other side of Brisbane, so using EVnavigation I get this:









That same trip in ABRP gets me this:










But both seem to be the "Just in time" charging and I can't figure out how to change it.

I don't do long trips in my ICE vehicle by going "I have 700km of range on my Diesel, at 10.4l/100km I need 30l to get me there, I'm only gonna put 30l in the car"

If I'm on a long trip, I'll just fill the car, because I'm gonna use it. From what I can understand the most damage occurs when you keep driving below 20% or if you leave it constantly over 80%


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Well that was anti-climatic.

I have never done an unboxing before in my life, and I thought this would be way more interesting, but it is just a VCU.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Right, so today after much deliberation on the _how the hell am I gonna do this without a hoist_ I got advice last week from someone on another forum.










Bloody hell timber is expensive these days, $63 for two treated sleepers to cut up.

Jack her up, sit the tyres on the sleepers, and dropped it out.

Now unlike what people say, there is *8 bolts holding the battery pack into the eNV200, 18mm heads, not 17mm*

Thankfully I was able to locate them all.

There is roughly 1 metric crapload of 10mm bolts holding the plastic splash guard on (that's 2.2 Imperial Craploads for the Americans in the room) as well as around 8 metric Craploads of plastic trim retainers (17.6 imperial Craploads)

So we didn't get photos, but we shoved some wheeled removalist Dolly's under there and a car trolly jack and dropped it onto that.

However it didn't quite roll on the grass









Mostly out is out right?

So after wiggling the engine crane over, I got it back on the Dolly's


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

More pics of the pack:

















Left to right: Air con connection, HV Plug, I believe the granny charge plug, and the BMS plug









That's the main pack fuse, the pack was dead when I removed it, and I didn't want to spend 15 minutes pulling interior apart to pull it from the cabin.

























LeafSpy gives some funny readings when she's dead...


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Then we have all the safety instructions.

I understand only one label, this one:








Thankfully, I don't need to. So yeah.









Funnily enough, that warning I think is redundant....I don't think this will fit in my kerbside wheely bin....

Who disposed of an EV pack in a wheely bin to require this warning to be there?

I don't understand the Japanese.









The full warning placard.









Panel 1









Panel 2

And you saw panel 3 with the wheely bin.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

There were also 2 earth straps I bent a little bit CJ's I missed them just beside the rear mounting points









Rear mounting points


----------



## floydr (Jun 21, 2021)

Scotty274 said:


> There is roughly 1 metric crapload of 10mm bolts holding the plastic splash guard on (that's 2.2 Imperial Craploads for the Americans in the room) as well as around 8 metric Craploads of plastic trim retainers (17.6 imperial Craploads)


Crapload and Shitload are pretty much universal in the english speaking world usually accompanied with other colorful words. I appreciate The conversion though. The more colorful words before crap/Shitload is directly related to skinned knuckles, dropped bolts.
Later floyd


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So I started stripping the dash apart today because I was bored, and I found something incredibly bizarre.

More on that in a minute, but just so you know, there are only 4 bolts holding the shifter linkage into the eNV200 dash, however, you have to remove a lot.

Easier to show you:






On to the bit that surprised me.

The eNV200 has a *PHYSICAL SHIFTER LINKAGE!!!*

This was entirely enexpected.

I have sent Isak at Resolve a video, and we are discussing how this may work.

Everything I have found online says the same thing, they're the same box as the Leaf, just different ratio.

The box side of things I can't find a physical linkage, maybe I need glasses....

So this raises some questions:

Is my eNV, being an early 2014 model, different because it was an early one? I don't think so because at this point they'd already been building the Leaf for years, the rest of the parts were the same. Why would Nissan make a whole new part and reinvent a wheel that works?
Is my eNV being a JDM model, rather than EUDM, different? Is there some obscure Japanese law saying you need a physical linkage? I think not as electrical shifting has been a thing pioneered in Japanese cars. Why would the van be any different?
So yeah, those things had me confused just a tiny bit.

My other theory is the Combi was an afterthought to the eNV200 work van, tradespeople are _rough_ on gear, so there could be a magic Box converting the linkage to the CAN signals buried somewhere, and that the linkage is designed to help stop abuse.

Maybe Nissan did this to make the shifter more "Normal" for normal people.

I've done a _lot_ of thinking about this, and it's screwing with my head. I'm mad that it's dark now, and I can't go looking more and poking this more. It's nearly 10pm here and I can't stop thinking this over and over.

Either way, here's the point I realised:


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Now that I have the battery out of the van, I was able to take some precise measurements off it and adjust my CAD.

In some ways for those who have been following, there's some radical changes.

Rather than adjust my prior CAD drawings, I started from scratch again and got a much better result.

The subframe is designed to pull out the suspension, fuel tank, spare tyre, and all, and bolt in as a replacement using the axle from the van.

However with the rims I've picked here, I'm a bit naughty, overall I have a 60mm track increase for that #stance for those that are into the #stanceculture this will fit right in hahaha.

Well actually, it's not the rims, it is the hubs and stuff, turns out the van has a staggered track, which I hadn't factored in.

Thankfully some modified GLSi rear flares should get me out of trouble in that regard.

I'm designing the whole thing to be fully reversible where possible, so that if I ever decide to go back to combustion, the door is there (I probably won't, but it's also less engineering if everything is bolt in)

As for this design, I end up with a really whopping huge cavity above the battery back that's just dead space. I don't know what I am going to do here, but I may design up something so I can stick a fridge in there and have cold beers everyday for when I finish work. That sounds like a worthwhile endeavour for me with this.

Hopefully now that I've shoved the suspension and wheels on the CAD, you should be able to better visualise what this is doing, and for the eagle eyed, yes, that's a 5x114.3 stud pattern on the rims.

Weight, I know some people will want to talk weight.

The battery comes in at 290kh which is by far the heaviest bit here, the whole assembly comes in at 409.787kg

Now I save around 60kg on the fuel tank, around 100kg on the factory rear axle, another 55kg per rim and tyre.

So offsetting all that, I save ~325kg so this really only adds 85kg over the back end, which is according to my maths, just shy of 3 cartons of beer.

Plus in the front, I'm saving ~100kg on the Drive Unit compared to the original engine, so I'm still in the green here by 15kg

For those that want to know, the frame itself weighs in at only 48kg, which is a far cry from my piss poor previous iteration tipping the scales at 147kg! I was advised by many people that 75mm Tube with a 5mm wall was the stuff they build literal truck parts out of, or structural members for buildings! So instead I'm going with 50mm and 3.2mm wall (Actually 48.3mm) which has saved me weight significantly. This is a tad heavier than the 2.5mm that they build roll cages out of, and on par with what literally the entire body of the van is made of, including the battery mounts.

According to the stress tests, I'm going to tear the battery mounts off before I break the frame (and before I hit the ADR compliance rules for how strong the frame needs to be, but I get a pass here as the battery is build like that from Nissan, I haven't modified it, so it's the weak point and it's not my problem)

As for the battery being in there, the ONLY things that need to be removed are the axle, wheels, shocks and suspension and the battery drops out.

Realistically this is 2 shock bolts, 2 hydraulic lines, the handbrake cable, and the 4 suspension bolts and the whole axle assembly with suspension can roll clear, then I can pull the battery for servicing. Something it likely will never need, but I don't plan for the "Never"

Finally, all nuts on the battery mounts are captive M12 nuts with a 19mm head that will be welded in place to hold everything together. That way I only have to fiddle with one end of the bolt, not both and I'm not doing something up blind.

All in all, happy with how this turned out, now just to send this off and wait for the fabricator to call me with how much this is gonna hurt my wallet.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)




----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)




----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So I've also worked out that I'm going to be around 980kg once done, better than the 1,595kg the van was.

Or around 40% lighter.

Given the van had originally a 190km range, hopefully this means I gain ~20% on the range....

Or around 230km range!


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So today I got the battery moved, took me about an hour of faffing around to get it moved. What I thought would be a nice easy tow into its new home with the mower turned out to be a lot more of a pain.

Here's a video!


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So now I have most of the front end pulled off.

So many 10mm nuts, so many plastic clips!


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Ready to pull the motor tomorrow!

So happy!


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Motor is "out"


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Now the motor is actually out:


----------



## Kato659 (Aug 5, 2019)

Scotty274 said:


> Now the motor is actually out:


Congrats on getting it out!

A cable Come Along (or "Hoist Puller") would have helped there. Lots of control and more oomph than the mower. Can't argue with results though!


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Kato659 said:


> Congrats on getting it out!
> 
> A cable Come Along (or "Hoist Puller") would have helped there. Lots of control and more oomph than the mower. Can't argue with results though!
> View attachment 123293


Oh 100% it would have been easier to use a come along.

However I got there, and hopefully I can lift it with the crane, stick it on the dollies like I did the battery, and it'll be easy to wheel into place under the other car soon.

Then hopefully I can have it all sitting at the right heights and get her bolted up.

I'm standing here looking at it and I can't Bieber how close the K-Frames are.

The Proton was built in Malaysia in 2007 off early 90's Mitsubishi stampings, and the Nissan was built in 2014 by Nissan.

Yet so many things are so close!


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So I found out that the Jumbuck Strut Tops fit onto the Nissan Struts perfectly!






And my CAD model is finished printing and I now have it test sat into place for the Dash:


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So the motor is ready to roll into position!


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So I was able to get the motor into place:


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

I have also done a test fit of the motor for sizing:


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

And for todays exercise, I have shown my workflow for creating the adaptor plate, I'm not sure if I quire like this yet, but we'll see how it goes.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Scotty274 said:


> And for todays exercise, I have shown my workflow for creating the adaptor plate, I'm not sure if I quire like this yet, but we'll see how it goes.


So I decided after much chopping and changing that building that plate alone out of 3mm or 5mm would be excessively hard to bend up and shape and be super heavy.

So I changed up the design to use 2.5mm plate which is cheaper and easier to bend and added a heap of inserts to it, and some nice beefy 50mm tubing to make up the rest of the load carrying.

This way load is more evenly distributed, and although I drop below a factor of 1 on the stress test, those parts will actually be seam welded, so the load is actually not going to find hard corners, instead it's going to find a lot of welded edges to take the strain.

Thankfully I know a few structural welders.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Okz so it was time to do the CAD for the CAD of the rear motor mount.

So Cardboard Aided Design assisting computer Aided Design


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So I 3D printed my motor mounts!


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Ok, so I have said it before, but THIS is my final idea for the front K-Frame Adaptor Plate.

I have put it up on GrabCAD as I know those of you in England have both the JUmbuck and the eNV200, so this may come in useful for some of you.

Free CAD Designs, Files & 3D Models | The GrabCAD Community Library


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

*REALLY REALLY BIG PROGRESS THIS WEEK!!!!*

So I have the design for a rear subframe nailed down, and I have decided that my best way forward will be to flip the eNV200 Battery Upside Down.

I am going with Independent Trailer Suspension similar to this:





Which ends up giving me this:









































Now that CAD file I have for the independent suspension isn't great, so it's not entirely accurate beyond the mounting points.

However I have it off to the engineer, and he's all over it like a fat kid on a cupcake, really excited for the build.

So next week I should know what I need to do from here.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

So a lot of people on Reddit commented that the Suspension doesn't look real, doesn't look like it would work, and so on and so forth.

So...updated Suspension.










































Everything is now in there very tight, very close, but it all fits.

Just.


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Scotty274 said:


> So a lot of people on Reddit commented that the Suspension doesn't look real, doesn't look like it would work, and so on and so forth.


Comments like that are strange, given that this is a simple straightforward trailing arm design, and in details is nearly identical to some production suspensions (typically in Australian off-road-capable camping and travel trailers).

As with those trailers, the shock absorber mounting angle is poor - that may be the source of some "won't work" comments. If the isn't room to mount them vertically outside of the frame, it would be preferable to at least angle them forward so they have a rising rate of travel rather than falling.

An issue with any trailing arm suspension is the adverse effect on toe of lateral force in cornering; that's why this design is now rarely used in production cars. Without a compensation from linking the arms on a twisting beam at the pivot, the remaining approach to improving this is to make them slightly semi-trailing: the pivot axis should be angled off of purely lateral by placing the inner pivot slightly rearward of the outer pivot (and aligned with each other, of course).


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

brian_ said:


> Comments like that are strange, given that this is a simple straightforward trailing arm design, and in details is nearly identical to some production suspensions (typically in Australian off-road-capable camping and travel trailers).


Yeah well that's where I got the idea, as an Australian, I see these on trailers all the time, it's super common to me.



brian_ said:


> As with those trailers, the shock absorber mounting angle is poor - that may be the source of some "won't work" comments. If the isn't room to mount them vertically outside of the frame, it would be preferable to at least angle them forward so they have a rising rate of travel rather than falling.


Yeah that could be an option to me, absolutely, I'm just concerned about restricting the travel of the trailing arm is all, as there is very little room under the car.



brian_ said:


> An issue with any trailing arm suspension is the adverse effect on toe of lateral force in cornering; that's why this design is now rarely used in production cars. Without a compensation from linking the arms on a twisting beam at the pivot, the remaining approach to improving this is to make them slightly semi-trailing: the pivot axis should be angled off of purely lateral by placing the inner pivot slightly rearward of the outer pivot (and aligned with each other, of course).


One option I've seen is that being 50x50x5 box, some people are inserting a 40x40x5 box through the centre going full width, and also welding a 50x50x5 box between then, essentially making it a trailing solid axle.

When I have a few hours I could CAD it up, but essentially joining the two arms at the trailing edge.

Why people do this on trailers, I'm not exactly sure, but I've seen it on car trailers, likely because the loads vary and they want a "predictable" system.


----------



## Greengearhead (Apr 21, 2015)

Nice build thread. I have a 15' leaf and sort of think about using it for a conversion with a resolve ev controller. Your info is helpful and entertaining. Thank you


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Greengearhead said:


> Nice build thread. I have a 15' leaf and sort of think about using it for a conversion with a resolve ev controller. Your info is helpful and entertaining. Thank you


More than welcome mate, hopefully if I get time in the next few days and the weather plays nice, I'll start wiring the loom for the controller


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Scotty274 said:


> One option I've seen is that being 50x50x5 box, some people are inserting a 40x40x5 box through the centre going full width, and also welding a 50x50x5 box between then, essentially making it a trailing solid axle.
> 
> When I have a few hours I could CAD it up, but essentially joining the two arms at the trailing edge.
> 
> Why people do this on trailers, I'm not exactly sure, but I've seen it on car trailers, likely because the loads vary and they want a "predictable" system.


If you connect the trailing arms with a beam to make them into one part, the effect depend on the location of the beam.

At the pivot axis, the system is still an independent trailing arm suspension, with the beam twisting as an anti-sway (stabilizer) bar and keeping the arms from changing in toe; my Toyota Sienna has this, but the first generation of VW Golf/Rabbit was the first one that I remember seeing.
At the axle line, the system becomes a beam axle (not independent at all), and trailing arm portions must be able to twist to allow roll; when this is done a track rod is usually added (in cars, but not in heavy truck trailers).
Midway between pivot axis and axle line, the system has a compromise between beam axle and independent geometry; this was the most common rear suspension design on inexpensive front wheel drive vehicles for many years.
In any position, integrating the two trailing arms into one large component requires parts of that component to flex for the wheels to travel different amounts (meaning that the vehicle is leaning), and resistance to that flexing provides roll stiffness. A 50 x 50 mm box is very stiff, and no production car uses something like that near the pivot axis (where it is required to twist); usually they use a C-channel with enough bending stiffness to maintain alignment but not so much torsional stiffness.

Integrating the arms together also means that the resulting arm/axle/beam only needs to pivot on two frame mounts. If the frame mounts are designed appropriately, as lateral force shifts the assembly left or right due to bushing compliance it moves one side forward and the other side rearward to "steer" the whole assembly into the turn for stability.


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Scotty274 said:


> Yeah that could be an option to me, absolutely, I'm just concerned about restricting the travel of the trailing arm is all, as there is very little room under the car.


I understand why the shock absorbers are tilted, but if you have equal height available ahead of and behind the axle line (as it appears you do), tilting them forward instead of rearward still allows the same travel and provides better geometry.


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Scotty274 said:


> Yeah well that's where I got the idea, as an Australian, I see these on trailers all the time, it's super common to me.


The Reddit comments just illustrate that well-intended comments sometimes result from missing critical knowledge.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

brian_ said:


> I understand why the shock absorbers are tilted, but if you have equal height available ahead of and behind the axle line (as it appears you do), tilting them forward instead of rearward still allows the same travel and provides better geometry.


Interesting, as the manufacturer shows these always going rearwards.









CRUISEMASTER XT FREESTYLE


Classic independent arm off-road suspension




cruisemaster.com.au


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Scotty274 said:


> Interesting, as the manufacturer shows these always going rearwards.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes, the Australian trailer suspensions routinely have that shock mounting. That doesn't make it right, it just means that nothing has forced them to improve it. Given that they're competing (in the trailer market) with leaf-sprung beam axles and with rubber-sprung trailing arm suspensions with about 75 mm of total travel and no shocks, by just having long independent arms they still come out on top.

If you look at the image that Cruisemaster uses for the web page for the XT, you can see that tilting the shocks forward would interfere with the springs and structural bracing... and there we see why they put them rearward.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

brian_ said:


> Yes, the Australian trailer suspensions routinely have that shock mounting. That doesn't make it right, it just means that nothing has forced them to improve it. Given that they're competing (in the trailer market) with leaf-sprung beam axles and with rubber-sprung trailing arm suspensions with about 75 mm of total travel and no shocks, by just having long independent arms they still come out on top.
> 
> If you look at the image that Cruisemaster uses for the web page for the XT, you can see that tilting the shocks forward would interfere with the springs and structural bracing... and there we see why they put them rearward.


Yeah so I'll still have that issue sadly, as there's not a great deal of room under there.

Maybe I'll be better off tossing the stock ones in the bin and going a decent remote reservoir model like the Amada Extreme or something?



https://www.superiorengineering.com.au/amadaxtreme-shock-absorbers



I suppose once I've got it ticked off, I can do what I want with it to improve it, as long as I don't "fundamentally change the design"


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Scotty274 said:


> Yeah so I'll still have that issue sadly, as there's not a great deal of room under there.


Unlike the Cruisemaster XT example, you will have coil springs instead of much wider air springs, so if you mount the shocks inboard enough they could lean forward pass by the springs. 

Another alternative would be to mount the shocks ahead of the springs and axle line, with the lower end of the shock extending down through the opening in the arm. 

The off-road trailer suspensions typically have the lower shock mounts on the arm at axle height, and at least the version above with blue control arms does that as well (the spindle location is not clear in the latest version with the red arms). There's no reason for them to be that high: conventional automotive shocks almost always mount much lower than that, because an on-road vehicle doesn't need that much ground clearance for the shocks and doesn't have anywhere close to that for other components anyway. A lower mounting point makes the forward location more reasonable, and would even help with the rearward location.



Scotty274 said:


> Maybe I'll be better off tossing the stock ones in the bin and going a decent remote reservoir model like the Amada Extreme or something?


Since the problem (which isn't a big problem anyway) is with the geometry, causing the shock to lose effectiveness as the wheel moves up because the shock doesn't travel as much per unit of wheel movement, changing shock type isn't likely to help much, or to be necessary.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

brian_ said:


> Unlike the Cruisemaster XT example, you will have coil springs instead of much wider air springs, so if you mount the shocks inboard enough they could lean forward pass by the springs.




Oh I was going to go with the Cruisemaster XT Coil, it comes in 2 models. Air and Coil.

I did look at modifying the main units they already make, but here the opinion is "Nope, you modified with suspension, now start everything over and do destructive testing on the modified parts!"

So I'd then need to buy 2 kits. Maybe more.


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Scotty274 said:


> Oh I was going to go with the Cruisemaster XT Coil, it comes in 2 models. Air and Coil.
> 
> I did look at modifying the main units they already make, but here the opinion is "Nope, you modified with suspension, now start everything over and do destructive testing on the modified parts!"


Yes, if you're using purchased components rather than building your own, there are consequences to modifications. No physical problem (these are straightforward steel fabrications), but legal consequences and you do need to understand the effects of your changes.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

brian_ said:


> Yes, if you're using purchased components rather than building your own, there are consequences to modifications. No physical problem (these are straightforward steel fabrications), but legal consequences and you do need to understand the effects of your changes.


Yeah exactly, and the thing is, now that I'm considering this as a business venture after pressure from people watching my build, and the fact that it might be viable, I'm starting to realise that off the shelf parts are good, custom making things is bad.

I mean I could leave the shocks on that trailing arm and relocate where they go to in order to make them more vertical and avoid some of the travel issues, or switch them out for a different length (if they are too long to do that)

Honestly when I started this project, I wasn't considering this as a business venture, not by a long shot. I had the business name and business under to get me cheaper parts from wholesalers (nice little life hack if your county allows that)

But now, there's been enough interest that it might be viable.

I mean as you say, we could build it and have it handle like absolute crap, so back to the drawing board.

However stock, both me and the engineer are amazed that this was allowed on the road, the single parabolic leaf that was in them was just horrible, way over tensioned, empty they buck like an angry bull, loaded they are so wallowy and unresponsive they like to get up death wobbles.

We're trying to find a nice middle ground, at the end of the day it's a commercial vehicle, not a sports car. And we keep having to remind ourselves that no one is street racing these, they go to the hardware store or to go shopping.

At least that's what I'm using it for, and 99% of people, the very few that are dropping big horsepower 4G63 motors in them generally are rebuilding the rear end differently anyway, and not for load carriage.

I mean, for all I know the FEA could come back and this being an inherently flawed system that shouldn't be on anything, even trailers. Just the rules that allow it on trailers are pretty fast and loose.

But we don't know just yet where that will end up.

But I have an idea and I'm gonna go play in CAD for a minute, stay tuned.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Right, so first update in _months _and this one is painful to say.

*I WAS WRONG!*

So it is going to be a colossal nightmare where I am to get independent suspension engineered to go in the car, manufacturers won't even talk to my engineer over the FEA for the suspension, not even a report to say "She's good"

So we are resorting back to Leaf Springs! Huzzah! Yay for bumpy rides.

So I need to get the car together enough that I can get the old springs out, build the subframe, get the battery in, and then measure up what springs I need. I have CAD models, but it's a pain in the arse to rust simple CAD modelling.

Further, I don't believe I will be using the Resolve VCU anymore.

I have an entire eNV200 sitting here with a (mostly) intact wiring loom and full suite of computers, and as they say, if it ain't broke...something something.

If I had no car, then yeah, the resolve would work, but as it stands, I have all the wires I need, a full modern dash, airbags (Which I may yet disable, or at the very least relocated to a common area that I wouldn't mind being exploded in a crash), and all I really need to do is trim 10mm off the dash either side, lose the inverter under the dash, and....well that's about it besides extending some wires between 30-100mm...


----------



## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Although swapping in a different suspension appears to have been ruled out, in the time since the suspension design was being discussed the Ford E-Transit has been shown in more detail... and it has a properly designed semi-trailing arm independent rear suspension that mounts under a van floor structure. It is also driven, but that doesn't matter - it would work fine without the axle shafts.
Ford releases e-Transit details
Of course given the relative sizes of the Transit and NV200, the actual E-Transit suspension would probably be too large (too tall, too wide) for the Nissan.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

brian_ said:


> Although swapping in a different suspension appears to have been ruled out, in the time since the suspension design was being discussed the Ford E-Transit has been shown in more detail... and it has a properly designed semi-trailing arm independent rear suspension that mounts under a van floor structure. It is also driven, but that doesn't matter - it would work fine without the axle shafts.
> Ford releases e-Transit details
> Of course given the relative sizes of the Transit and NV200, the actual E-Transit suspension would probably be too large (too tall, too wide) for the Nissan.


I suppose good it's not going in the Nissan.

But at this point, I don't mind, it gets the ute on the road quicker, and that's all I care about.


----------



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Ok, so the new big update:

*Steel Supply*
The steel Supplier finally called me, they have steel availability (though not a great price, but hey, it is what it is at this point in time)
So I am placing my order for the steel box for the chassis this week, and I finally got my welder fixed, so that's a bonus I guess.
I'm being told 5mm is overbuild, and commercial chassis that are comparable are 3mm, but overkill is underrated, and I have the capacity for that few extra kg in the build, I'm saving maybe 15kg overall if I use 3mm. Not worth it in my opinion.

*Wiring*
I have given up on the Resolve controller, for no other reason than I have a _full damn car sitting here that doesn't know it's been crashed_

Therefore I'm just going to fully strip the eNV200 and make the Jumbuck think it's a Nissan. I'll have to radically shorten some wires, hide some others, and extend some more, but this is an easier prospect than building a whole new loom for the Resolve.

I can also keep things like the push button start.


----------

