The conversion of the Ford Ranger is well under way, and by now you have recognized that the technology developed by Ford is a modern marvel.  It seems a shame to remove all of that technology, but our goal is to eliminate the use of fossil fuels.  They are bad for the environment, and the major producers of oil don't like us all that much.

    On with the conversion!

    Tons of room after you remove the engine and stuff.  You could house a family of four in here. 

    This is the electrical harness from the engine compartment.  This is partly responsible for making the "Check Engine" light come on your dash display for no reason at all, which causes you to rake out some cash that you hadn't planned on spending in the first place, only to find out that it was just having a bad day.
    EV's have very few moving parts, they don't pollute, and they don't have a check engine light.  If you treat it right you will spend about $20 in maintenance per year.

    The power assist for the brakes, and vacuum reservoir are maintained to retain the original braking dynamics.  The same goes for the power assisted steering shown at the bottom center.  The 12VDC battery is also retained as is the alternator.  This is used to provide for the original accessories including lights and fans.  The load of the alternator is minimal in relationship to its benefit.

    Motor out, belt off.  The engine's size is required to produce enough energy to drive the truck with expanded air.  Gasoline only expands the air in the cylinders, that is what drives the vehicle.  The electric engine that replaces this has a foot print of 1/3 the area.  No hot air required!

    Ford steering is default manual in this setup, but by maintaining the hydraulics we can provide a more realistic and comfortable drive for owners.  The pump from the engine is mounted on the secondary shaft of the Electric motor along with the AC compressor and the alternator.

    Here is where it gets interesting!  This is your transmission interface.  The adaptor plate will align the electric motor with this transmission input shaft.  Get it right and you are going to be a happy camper, get it wrong.......well....that is another story.  Fortunately we sell the adaptor plate as part of the conversion kit.  It will save you a lot of headaches.

    Motor manufacturers provide a lifting loop on the motors as they arrive.  Use them.  They might be small but they are heavy.  The loop comes off after the installation.
    This is a dual shaft motor, the larger end inserts in to the transmission, the smaller carries the aux pulley assembly.

    The motor face.  This shaft will interface with the transmission shaft directly.  Unlike gas engines, electric motors do not stall, so a built in shear will have to be created to protect the motor and the transmission.  This is incorporated in the adaptor plate.

    Secondary shaft side.  Motor ready to be lifted in to the engine compartment.

    This is a better shot of the motor showing the two shafts.  The shaft is continous through the motor.  The left side is the transmission interface, the right is the aux assembly interface.

    The battery boxes are prepared under the bed.  These boxes were designed to accept all models of batteries that are currently being manufactured by LionEV.  Rather than designing them and limiting them to one particular model of battery. 

    To effectively estimate range you have to monitor current in to the battery pack, and out.  This little assembly does that quite nicely.  It samples current and records the data in the monitor/BMS.

    High current contactors control the battery supply to the controller.  One fires off the ignition switch, another off of the safe/secure circuit.

    This is a pot box.  The lever connects to the accelerator pedal cable and converts that mechanical energy to an electical signal to the motor controller.  
    In the olden days the accelerator pedal was called a foot feed and you kept your pot box hidden under your bed back in the college dorm.

    The motor controller is next in the line of electronics.  This device stands between the 2,200 amps of power in the battery, and the electric motor.  The output is cycled DC and controlled by the input from the pot box.
    This is 500A output controller, though our vehicles never approach that load under normal conditions.  The controller is protected by a 450A fuse.

    So far everything has been pretty mundane.  Take off a hood and bed, yank an engine.  Just about any of us can do that, even me.  Well, ok not me, I probably would have missed those two lower tie in on the bed and stood that thing on its front wheels.

    Things from this point get a little more high tech, and of course we are going to share less of the process with you, and more of the results.

    The above image shows the milling being done on the transmission adaptor plate.  In the years that I have worked for LionEV I have seen many EV convertor's approaches to creating an adaptor plate.  All of them have worked to an extent, some good, some not so good.  This machine does it right!!!

    From this point on we are going to show the final assembly and dyno tests.  When the page begins this LINK will become active.