T2 VW bus convert to EV

[Clatter]

[79 EV VW]

Wow! look at all the replies. Back to the EV conversion

The missing 1/2 shaft were ordered from EBay and finally arrived. Below is a photo of the installed 1/2 shafts. This was another adventure in VW bus design and part installation.

I decided to scrap the entire shag rug interior and start over for EV conversion. This was an easy decision given that I am still waiting on China to ship batteries. I am now in the process of re-designing the entire bus interior. The EV battery layout drove the desicion to gut the the van. The batteries will be on the floor in two battey boxes. Above the battery boxes will be 2 bucket seats. One seat and supporting brackets will be removable on the sliding door side to allow transportation of a folding recombent trike. Photos below show the gutted bus and pile of old shag carpeting.

Below is a photo of the battery box and rear bucket seat layout as seen from the sliding door

[lil-jinx]

just doing some reading on roof racks and the load limits,vw say 220 lbs on the rack suppprted by the gutters,so according to that you could put half of your batteries on the roof,lol no worries about cog ,biggest concern is the fore and aft placement of the weight.
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https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=668799
1974 Bay Westfalia. she likes to be called Ethel.
1968 Dune Buggy sold dec 2024

1974 parts bus
A smart man learns from his mistakes,a very smart man learns from other's mistakes.

[79 EV VW]

That is an interesting Idea to put batteries on the roof. I can think of a couple of problems with implementing this design. It could work, but the problems may not be worth the internal space that was saved.

The big problem, of course, is where I would mount my surf board?

The center of gravity would be quite high.

There are a lot of cables that have to be routed, including 2-Ought high voltage welding cable, thermister cables, and battery monitoring lines to each battery cell. On the floor this is easy: under the bus. On the roof will require holes in the roof, or run them outside the bus, Frankenstein style.

The gutter rails on my bus are about 50% rusted out. I plan to repair them with grinding and bondo. I dont think bondo will hold 200lbs.

I will stick with my design, but Keep sending ideas, new thoughts will improve the design and layout

Alan

[79 EV VW]

I just re-read the previous posts and realized I did not respond to a question airschooled asked. "what do I plan to do with power brakes?"

My 2-proge brake approach is
A) Push harder on the brake pedal. Eliminate the power brakes, do not install a vacuum pump, but leave the brake booster and vacuum line in place in case this is a bad idea. I learned to drive on a '55 ford and know that you can stop with lots of leg on the pedal. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

B) Install a vacuum pump and canister and go with power brakes if A) does not work.

My 36 LiFePo cells are on the way to Canada. CANev is sending me a new approach where the
BMS is enclosed in the battery box. That simplifies wiring because all the cell taps and thermisters are wired at the factory. I am the first real user of this approach, CANev has only showed it at a symposium. Other suppliers have already used this method of common design to simplify the issues of battery box build, especially true with Tesla Lipoly batteries.

I now need to hurry up and finish the interior so it is ready when the kit and batteries arrive.

Yes this is a hobby, and an expensive one at that. I am not trying to save global warming, or save gas cost, or virtue signal to the WOKE crowd. I am just having some fun.

[79 EV VW]

The next step in preperation for battery installation was repairing all the holes the PO had drilled into the sheet metal floor. There were dozens of small holes from sheet metal screws, plus an assortment of larger holes, from 1/4 inch to 3 inches

The large 3 inch hole was presumably were a pedistal table was installed. When the POs installed the shag carpet floor, they did not bother to seal this large hole, they just layed foam padding and carpet over the hole. This caused some rust damage. There were three 1.5 inch holes behind the driver seat. I guess these were for water lines for a sink. These also had water and rust damage because they were not sealed before shag carpet was installed

I patched the holes by first grinding away the rust on the edges. Then I painted the area with black Rustoleum primer to protect the holes from further rust. The last step was to plug the holes to prevent road water from coming in to attack the new floor.. Rubber plugs were used on the holes from 1/4 inch up to 1.5 inch . Sheet metal holes were plugged with silicon/latex sealant. The l large 3 inch hole was covered with an aluminum plate from the bottom, then caulked around the corragated edges. Extra caulk was added on the 1.5 inch holws because they tended to be oval shaped. The large 3 inch hole can be seen in the middle of the photo.

I would have finished the floor in one day, but I waited for the caulk to dry before laying down a 7/16 in foam padding.

I put padding down because my experience with building a class B van. Plywood directly onto a corragated sheet metal floor would cause squeakes as you drove over bumps. The thin padding would compress when screwing down plywood, and degrade over several years, but still prvent squeaks.

Next steps: install a plywood subfloor then cover the entire floor with linolium.

Alan

[lil-jinx]

i wasn,t suggesting putting the batteries on the roof ,but having the ability to load 200 lbs up there sort of negates the worries of raising the COG by placing batteries inside the bus,200 lb on the roof would be like 400 lbs a foot so above the floor.
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https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620186
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=668799
1974 Bay Westfalia. she likes to be called Ethel.
1968 Dune Buggy sold dec 2024

1974 parts bus
A smart man learns from his mistakes,a very smart man learns from other's mistakes.

[aeromech]

That flooring looks like it would trap water
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Lead Mechanic: San Diego Air and Space Museum
Licensed Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic
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Boeing 727,737-200-300-400,757,767
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DC9/MD80
BAe146
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VW type 1 1962,63,65,69,72
VW Type 2 1971 (3 ea.) 1978, 1969
VW Jetta
VW Passat
Capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound

[79 EV VW]

Yes it would trap water, but at least the water would be from an internal spill, like a mongo sized orange drink being spilled.

The previous 'shag carpet' floor had numerous floor holes, Including the 3 inch pedistal hole and 3 1.5 inch plumbing holes. None of these were blocked and water sprayed in from underneath. The wood, carpet, foam padding and floor metal all had deteriorated around those areas. The wood was rotted out around the 1.5 inch holes.

The linolium is water proof. I plan to do what is done in motor homes, where spills are inevitable: use latex silicon caulk around the linoleum edges. That stops water from running down the edge and getting soaked up by the floor padding. This scheme has work well in my class B van, and is used in most home built vans.

Alan

[79 EV VW]

Oh! Now I understand your comment about roof weight. If the the roof can hold 200 lbs. then the bus should not have a CG problem with 400lbs of batteries on the floor. good point.

Alan

[Abscate]

[lil-jinx]

where does the cog fall when there is 400 lb of humans in the front seats,and another 600 lbs in the rear seats,
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https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620186
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=668799
1974 Bay Westfalia. she likes to be called Ethel.
1968 Dune Buggy sold dec 2024

1974 parts bus
A smart man learns from his mistakes,a very smart man learns from other's mistakes.

[79 EV VW]

400 lbs in front seats, 600lbs. in rear seats is probably what VW anticipated and you could still put 200 lbs on the roof. The CG would be high and the handling would suffer, but the bus would (supposedly) handle it.

In my design I have 400lbs of battery on the floor, and 2 bucket seats over the batteries. If you had 2x 200lbs passengers you would have 800lbs in the rear and nothing on the roof. That is still totaled to 800lbs. in the rear, but the CG is lower than a roof load.

In my opinion there is not a problem here, especially when you take into account the electric motor is much lighter than internal combustion engine and gas tank, all which are behind the rear suspension.

[Shonandb]

Met a guy yesterday who used a Tesla 3 for his swap into a Spit Bus. He used the 58KW battery pack and built an aluminum carrier that fit nicely underneath between the frame rails. He installed the steering rack and steering column too so the Bus handles very well with the LCG. He also extended the heat and A/C lines and mounted most of the sensors and cameras. Said he gets about 250km -300 km on a full charge and he said that he has converted several Bugs, a Thing, this Bus, and a few Buggies to electric.

I passed him and a few others on the hwy doing 120kms and he accelerated to pull up beside me within a few seconds - scary quick acceleration!
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76 Westy with a 2.5L Subaru SOHC + Vanagon (010) Automatic Transaxle
Build & Trip Thread: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=758760
Previous 1973 Panel Bus:
Click to view image

[79 EV VW]

I continue to make progress renewing the bus interior. The floor is now complete, and I have started on covering the walls

The new bus floor was a four layer process. First I plugged all the floor holes with caulk, then I laid down a layer of foam padding to stop squeaks. Next came the custom fitted plywood sub-floor, and finally a layer of linoleum. Debra approved the installation, so I was happy as a lobster that didn’t go into the trap.

The photo shows the plywood subfloor. The white areas are caulking to cover the seams and sunken screw heads.

This photo shows the floor completed. I learned to hate vinyl floor adhesive, as it sticks to everything it touches

Next step: cover the walls. I am using thin 0.1inch plywood. The thin wood is flexible to cover the curvature of the bus side and wheel wells. I tried straight walls, and it did not look good, so I went back to curvature.

Alan

[79 EV VW]

The batteries are still on their way from China, so I continue work on the interior. Where I left off was a completed floor.

Thin 0.1 inch plywood was cut to shape and installed on the bus walls. The thin plywood allowed the wood to conform to the rounded bus sides Sheet metal screws attach the wood to the bus sides. The transition from bus side to ceiling is also shown. Note the rear dome light. The first photo below shows the first panels after installation.

The final installation of plywood siding looked like this

Painting the ceiling was next. The first effort was a failure due to me being frugal. I tried to use old paint, thinned with water. Coverage on the dark venier ceiling was piss poor. I decided that using old paint on a $25K project was maybe a mistake

New paint gave better results. Still to work out is the front dome light. I spent 2 days fixing the wiring of the PO. Then I fixed the corroded switches in the door to get the lights to come on when the door opened

After I get the dome light installed I will move onto making and installing door panels, and final painting and touch-up of the interior.

My motto is "Better is the enemy of good enought"

[Abscate]

Looking good. Yeah, I’ve travelled the road of trying old paint, usually with bad results.
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