An Electric Dolomite Conversion

[Robert 352]

I read much on this forum about those wanting to change things for what seems to me to be the sake of changing things, boosting their Dolomites and Toledos in some form, or repairing the ravages of living in a heavily polluted country where cars seem to melt away.

Nobody though has posted on the subject of where or how they have converted their car to electric propulsion. There must be some who read this forum who in acknowledging that the availability and use of fossil fuels is going to become less and less, and who have made the conversion.

I have here a perfectly sound almost 50 year old, petrol fuelled oil leaking Dolomite Sprint which in order to turn it into a very usable car in the future needs to be converted.

The first thing which I must acknowledge is the truly excellent job BL did in both designing and building the Toledo’s and Dolomites I have here, and in particular the last one which I have restored, which showed no evidence at all of rust forming beneath the standard paint systems applied in the factory. It has survived for nearly 50 years and with a fresh coat of colour should last for a good while longer.

I have had the Sprint up on a hoist and looked at all that space under the floor where the exhaust system sits. I have looked underneath a Nissan Leaf too and considered the transfer of batteries and control to a Dolomite. And perhaps since the very early versions of the Toledo/Dolomite were front wheel drive, maybe the complete drive train out of such a car.

Who then has already started a conversion and completed it and what comments can they make to make my project easier?

Robert

[xvivalve]

There have been some mutterings; here's one:

https://forum.triumphdolomite.co.uk/vie ... conversion

Unless you have an ability for home generation of electricity (I know you have plans for this Robert), my opinion is if electric vehicles are to be the forced (when the ICE was invented, the horse and cart was allowed to phase out naturally, they weren't banned under spurious ecological reasons) future, then the days of personal transportation for the masses are over. This is more than a theory, it is actually a stated aim of WEF's 'Agenda 2030'. My reasoning isn't supply for battery components, though that in itself is its own problem that won't be overcome, it is the sheer logistics of the electricity supply infrastructure. here in the UK our grid is 'creaking' already; most new developments that I deal with require a new substation (or several) and that is with current domestic demand. Think forward; a current 100A domestic supply can just about charge a single EV overnight, so a three car family of man, wife and adult offspring living at home are going to struggle...and that is where they have sufficient off road parking; where I live in Victorian terraces, most cars are parked overnight on the roadside where there is nowhere to plug them in. I've recently completed a whole house refurbishment project where the two rapid car charging points we installed were accompanied (against my advice) with an air source heat pump and to meet the demand of the three Western Power dictated a 3-phase supply which in turn required a new cable to be pulled down the drive. Overnight demand for electricity would dramatically increase...and solar (which we are told is the future) don't work so well at those times...even with a full moon!

If you think hydrogen gives the answer, the common and convenient storage media for hydrogen are water and methane...and unfortunately releasing the hydrogen from each requires more energy than burning the hydrogen then gives back!

[marshman]

Not done a conversion yet but ............. been thinking about about converting a small classic to electric for a long time, not my Sprint though, to me the whole point of the Sprint is the dinosaur juice engine

One of the biggest issues with an EV conversion is weight, especially the weight of the batteries. The early Nissan Leafs had a 24kWh battery which gave a range (when new) of around 80 miles. The battery consisted of 48 individual modules and weighed 185kg - as much as a couple of adults. You then need to add the motor controller and unless you charge at home all the time you need to also add on the charger/inverter, plus a fair bit of heavy gauge cable as well as a battery management system (BMS). Then you have the motor / drive train to think about.

Yes you lose engine/rad/cooling/heater, exhaust system, fuel tank etc. so "save" weight, but you also have to add in some form of heater, vacuum pump for the brake servo and a few other bits and pieces and also all the mounting bracketry. The batteries themselves may "only" weigh 185kg but they need to be housed in some pretty robust housings, most lithium batteries don't take kindly to any sort of physical damage.

If you want any sort of decent performance then you will probably end up with a water cooled drive motor and possibly thermal management for the battery pack - especially if you want to "fast" charge them.

I have some vague plans to convert (well rebuild with an electric motor as it is only a bare body shell) a Standard 10 Pick up. My thinking was it is designed to carry loads (around 250kg) in the back so I could simply dump the batteries in a wooden box in the back of the truck, and then fit something like a Hyper9 motor straight onto the gear box via an adaptor plate. Fairly simple (he says, tongue in cheek). No vacuum required for the brake servo (it doesn't have one), no heater required, (it wasn't fitted with one). and doesn't need a powerful motor either,( it never had one and didn't go that fast!).

There are plenty of companies springing up here in the UK and in Europe offering EV conversion "kits" for various cars, but they are not cheap - they seem to start around £20k and go up from there. That price does usually include a battery, but one that is pretty small and usually from a scrap Tesla.

If you go "DIY" you could build you own battery pack and potentially save a lot of money, source the cells direct from China, a single 3.3V 280AH LiFePO4 cell costs around $102 plus shipping - you need 16 for a 48V pack and 32 for a 96V pack. 32 cells currently cost around £3250 delivered to the UK including all customs & VAT. That will give you a 28kWh pack, good for around 4000 cycles. (1 cycle is a discharge to under 20% and then charge to over 90%). BUT a pack using those cells will have limited discharge capabilities of around 280A continuous or 560A pk for 30 seconds . On a 96V pack that is only 28kW (roughly 37 HP) for 30 seconds -hardly Dolly Sprint type power even with the advantage of maximum torque from 0MPH. The weight of the 96V pack will be around 180kgs - similar to the Nissan Leaf pack of similar capacity.

Anyway them's my thoughts!

[Magenta Auto Sprint]

There was a case recently of a guy who converted his classic mini to electric but DVLA failed it as an extra hole had been drilled in the shell for a cable, they considered this as a structural weakness, the integrity of the shell had been compromised, he wasn't allowed to weld up the hole either, therefore his car can not be returned to the road.

I personally wouldn't bother converting a classic to electric, the cost of replacement batteries will be prohibitive, if anything I'd consider LPG conversion.

Malcolm

[Carledo]

I personally wouldn't bother converting a classic to electric, the cost of replacement batteries will be prohibitive, if anything I'd consider LPG conversion.

Malcolm

Even if, as proposed, there are no NEW diesel or petrol powered cars after 2030, there will still be 20,000,000 left in Britain that still need fuel. Petrol won't disappear overnight. So, why are people obsessed with converting their cherished classics to electric operation that completely destroys their character (and value as historic objects)

OK, i'm old, but I don't expect to see the end of all petrol powered vehicles in MY lifetime. So I see little point in converting my classics to an inferior power source.

Anyone with half a brain knows how useless and ecologically unsound current battery electric tech is, I won't go into it here.

LPG isn't the answer either, unfortunately. Yes it produces less emissions than neat petrol, but it's still a fossil fuel, moreover, it's a by product of petrol production, no petrol, no LPG either!

Steve

[marshman]

I personally wouldn't bother converting a classic to electric, the cost of replacement batteries will be prohibitive, if anything I'd consider LPG conversion.

Malcolm

Even if, as proposed, there are no NEW diesel or petrol powered cars after 2030, there will still be 20,000,000 left in Britain that still need fuel. Petrol won't disappear overnight. So, why are people obsessed with converting their cherished classics to electric operation that completely destroys their character (and value as historic objects)

OK, i'm old, but I don't expect to see the end of all petrol powered vehicles in MY lifetime. So I see little point in converting my classics to an inferior power source.

Anyone with half a brain knows how useless and ecologically unsound current battery electric tech is, I won't go into it here.

LPG isn't the answer either, unfortunately. Yes it produces less emissions than neat petrol, but it's still a fossil fuel, moreover, it's a by product of petrol production, no petrol, no LPG either!

Steve

Don't disagree with that Steve, BUT I have always had an interest in "free" energy - 30 years ago I started heating our hot water using some scrap domestic heating radiators painted black and boxed in "preheating" an indirect hotwater tank, I was amazed at how much hot "free" hot water it made. 15 years ago I got a 2nd hand small (1kW) wind turbine off of eBay and ran it for 5 years before selling it for what I paid for it. It generated over 1000kWh per year. Then shortly after I fitted the first lot of solar panels which paid for them selves after 6 years - they are still going strong. A year ago I fitted a load more with some storage batteries and didn't use any grid electricity from April through to the end of September AND exported (gave away) 3000kWh to the grid that I couldn't use - enough for well over 7000 miles of EV use. So as I have plenty of Petrol & Diesel cars to play with and a "spare" shell of a suitable classic with no engine, I thought it would be kind of interesting to do and make a great little local run around which cost little or nothing to run.

That's my reasoning/interest at any rate.

No illusions that it won't cost a lot of money or is "planet hugging" in any real sense.

[Robert 352]

I am not interested in the views on whether or why or when to covert to electric propulsion, I am interested in how it is going to be done.

I am keen to make contact those who have carried out a conversion or are in the process of doing so.

Only Marshman has hinted at the points which he considers important in the adaptation of a Sprint to electric propulsion.

I have already established that living where I am, a heater won’t be necessary, a heated seat is all that is needed, and that I won’t need some sort of brake servo for the regenerative braking effect of the electric propulsion units will do most of the braking.

I am considering the adaptation of the mechanics from a 40Kw Leaf which has a range of over 200 miles to be more than adequate for the functioning of the car for what I intend to use it for.

Do I keep my perfectly sound rust free Sprint or do I cut it up for scrap as I did the last one?

Robert

[killysprint]

Blimey - 200 miles from a 40kwh battery. assuming 100% to 0% SoC.

That’s 5 miles per kWh -we ran an early leaf for 3 years and even driving like miss daisy the most we ever got was 4.2 miles per kWh on a warm day, with the a/c off.

200 miles of 40kwh will be hard to achieve, we struggle getting that from double that and more in our ipace!

There are a number of specialists now jumping on the electric classic bandwagon - so it’s not beyond the wit of man.

Will be very interested if and how you get on with the electric conversion

[marshman]

Got to agree with Killysprint. You will not get 200mile range on a 40kWh battery pack. But your post says 40kW, is that the motor power? Thought the early Leafs were 80kW with 24kWh battery. The latest ones have 61kWh battery giving around 240 mile range (miss daisy driving style I assume)

I think i would want to fit my own controller from Curtis or similar rather than fight with a proprietary Nissan system. Think I would also make my own custom battery pack so I could make it fit the car rather than making the car fit the pack. You can get individual LiFePO4 cells in a variety of physical sizes to build up battery packs of what ever voltage and capacity you want.

Still think a hyper9 or similar is the straight forward way to go.

[sprint95m]

I am not interested in the views on whether or why or when to covert to electric propulsion, I am interested in how it is going to be done.


Do I keep my perfectly sound rust free Sprint or do I cut it up for scrap as I did the last one?

Robert

I for one am interested in how this project proceeds Robert.

In fact I am very interested in this whole renewable energy subject.
Here in the north of Scotland there is a lot going on, not just for electricity but also
hydrogen production and use.
Nearby in Orkney, where they produce way more renewable electricity than they can possibly use,
the islands council is pioneering having all its vehicles running on electricity and the inter island
ferries on hydrogen.
In the news this week it was reported that there is massive opposition in East Yorkshire to them
receiving wind generated electricity from Scotland because this means having a switching station
somewhere on the coast, are they for real?

Anyhow, my vote is for you to proceed with the conversion.
Failing that, surely someone could use a rust free shell? I am even thinking it would make economic
sense for someone to import it to the UK……..

Please keep us updated
Thanks
Ian