The ICE pieces and parts have now been removed from the Ranger, and it is time to plan your EV component installation.

    Cardboard is an efficient and inexpensive way to lay out your components to fit your engine compartment.  This piece has been cut to nestle in above the new electric motor.  The notch on the lower right allows clearance for the power steering pump.  The area on the left is clearance for the AC compressor.

    This angle photo shows that the contactor and the disconnect have been marked for cutout.  This will allow for them to sit flush with the component panel above the electric motor.  The tab of cardboard marked "open space" will be cut out to allow for the two large conductors to drop directly and smoothly in to the engine compartment.
    Wires are laid out to allow for smooth bends and straight runs, no sharp angles.

    The newly designed component board is now out for metal fabrication as we are reasonably sure that the cardboard one will not hold up very well.  I would like to take a moment and show you one of the two components designed to fail in our vehicles.  This fuse is the secondary safety fuse, slightly smaller than the fuse back at the battery pack.  It is set to open at 50 Amps lower current then the one in the pack.  This will save you the trouble of having to drop your battery pack or lift your bed to replace  fuse back there.  Replace it only with the exact same size if you want to maintain this luxury.

    The component panel board has been fabricated from steel.  The tab marked "open space" has been removed to allow for the power lines to drop down to the motor.

    Parts are checked for alignment and fit again.  The panel will then go back to be drilled for mounting holes and powder coated for rust protection.  The left side of the board will have additional non-conductive protection for the high amperage connectors.

    Meanwhile, back at the ranch, one of the two battery boxes is installed below the bed.  Our batteries already come in armored enclosures.  The battery boxes just provide support and set the baseline to match the original clearance of the vehicles.

    The transmission adaptor plate assembly is done.  Since it is shiny, and metal, guys instinctively have to have one of these.  I might even get two of them for the bookshelves in the library!

    The second battery box is placed in its support to check the fit.  The box will now join the drivers side box to get anti rust treatment.  As you can see by the drive shaft in this picture, metal rusts pretty well in Pennsylvania.

    This image gives you a good view of the support brackets for the battery boxes.  Battery boxes of this size are not needed for lithium packs, but we chose to size them to allow for people to convert using LA batteries if they wish.  These boxes will hold enough LA batteries to give you just over 50 Miles per charge.

    The control board layout is proofed.  All of the pieces and parts play together nicely!  This assembly controls the motor speed and protects the battery pack.

    Part of the original pulley assembly from the Ranger is salvaged for use in the conversion.  It presents some interesting mounting issues but it is too nice to discard.  The pulley assembly is the final engineering task of the conversion.

    Click HERE to continue on to the conclusion of the conversion process.