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Dear All,
Does anyone known what the 4.0 litre engine plus the manual gearbox with its ancillaries (air con, alternator, power steering pumps, exhaust manifolds, intakes etc) attached weighs?

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Two of us lifted a short block into the boot of a car and I would estimate that to be around 70kg. That transfer case alone weighs 75kg and the gearbox is heavier than that. I would think for the whole lot you are going to looking at over 350kg at the very least.

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From memory, mine with auto gearbox was over 800lbs, so Richards 350kg sounds like a reasonable estimate.

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Dear All,
Thanks, thats what i was thinking, 350 kg = 70 Tesla battery packs, should be enough range.........

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When I was 18 I carried 2 complete P6 V8's (no ancillaries) across the yard and into the back of a Transit van, I felt like Clint Eastwood in Any Which Way But Loose lol.

PC38 wrote:

Dear All,
Thanks, thats what i was thinking, 350 kg = 70 Tesla battery packs, should be enough range.........

I'm watching this thread!

How much will the conversion cost?

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Dear Simon(?),
No idea, all the conversion companies I've spoken to so far seem to switch off, literally and metaphorically, as soon as mention its a P38.........
£25 to £60K is the on-line range.

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There's a fella in USA who is buying all the 300tdi engines and gearbox's he can for replacing the V8 ---- I'm not keen on electric & I'm glad Thatcham scientists have realised going electric isn't that smart ---- like what to do as far as recycling or repair goes

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My mate who does mobile AC recharging enquired about the process for recharging the AC on an EV as the system not only cools and heats the car but it also cools the batteries. Seems he's got to do a 4 day training course before he's allowed to touch one. 48V at an almost unlimited amount of Amps can do you a lot of damage.....

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Symes wrote:

There's a fella in USA who is buying all the 300tdi engines and gearbox's he can for replacing the V8 ---- I'm not keen on electric & I'm glad Thatcham scientists have realised going electric isn't that smart ---- like what to do as far as recycling or repair goes

Why would you replace nice clean quiet cheap-to-run powerful V8s with noisy, smoky, dirty, smelly, thirsty diseasels?

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There's probably some bonkers regulations in the US that mean diesels are classed as trucks so don't suffer the same restrictions as petrol. A bit like how a pickup was a truck so was exempt from the emissions regulations so you got pickups producing far more power than sports cars.

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Perhaps in California. There are no shortage of petrol V8’s when I go south across the border. Even with the relatively low cost of fuel on this side of the Atlantic, some folks still really like diesels for their fuel economy. For the mountainous area where I live, I really like the power of my 4.6 petrol engine and would never consider a diesel.

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i've considered an ev conversion for a while now. It's very much not straightforward for anything newer than a RRC or Disco1. A huge amount of custom controllers would be needed for all the in-car electronics, dash, ABS, Steering, A/C etc and then needs VSA approval. The actual motor part is the easy part...

I'm sure in the years to come, someone will create interfaces to standard car BECM, ECUs etc so that retrofitting can be achieved at a sensible price.

I for one really want to be able to keep my P38 on the road after petrol/LPG stops being supplied readily.

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Maybe they will for more modern stuff that uses Canbus I doubt anyone would make the effort to try to interface the multitudes of incompatible and non-standard protocols used in the P38 and only in the P38.

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If petrol and LPG are stopped, while-ever there's still piped gas to houses in the UK we could have home CNG compressors and run our vehicles on that... Unless it's banned. Or maybe still get bottled LPG.

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You can always just make a still and run on moonshine ---- plus you could sell surplus as paint / varnish remover ----- it's not illegal to make it either

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Sadly, my area is turning into an LPG desert. The ASDA (14 miles each way) that was my best option is unreliable as they often don't have enough staff to open the petrol booth and the LPG isn't pay-at-the-pump.
The nearest garage (65ppl) is very often broken/out of gas and that leaves a BATA station that sells me gas at 73ppl (after a 2ppl discount). I can't help noticing that the inspection sticker on their tank is 2012 so I'm wondering if even that one will shut next year.

I can drive to the other side of York for the privilege of paying 79.9ppl at one of two matching independent BP stations on the A64 if I'm really desperate but that's 20 miles each way.

I suspect that an EV is coming my way sooner than 2030.

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Wouldn't take it as a guarantee that the tanks won't be replaced - the local Shell here has not long had new tanks. Unfortuantely at this point in time both the local stations are empty, as was Asda at Derby this afternoon when I tried to fill there. If they sell enough to make money on it, your probabbly ok for a while yet, particually if theres little competition for them

The independent BP garages you refer to are really MFG operated. Which unlike when they were operated under Malthurst seem to think they can ask prices that would be more suited to a motorway services, despite owning some of the most run down forecourts your ever likely to find. Unfortunately they now make up a sizable amount of the remaining pumps left.

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I must admit that I sometimes baulk at the thought of paying over 70ppl. I stopped at one garage that I'd used in the past and the price had been reasonable only to find it had gone up to 76.9. So I just put enough in to get me back home so I could fill up at Flogas at 58ppl. But thinking about it later, I'd saved myself a couple of quid, but it was still a lot cheaper than petrol at £1.28......

I do object to paying 1 Euro a litre in French motorway service areas though when over the border in Belgium it's under half that. In fact, in a recent discussion with my daughter we figured Belgium would be a decent place to move to. It's still in the EU, it's got cheap (and plentiful) LPG and chocolate. What is there not to like?

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Uhm ... perhaps it all rotten politically and socially wise? Sifting through the news does not seem to be so heavenly in spite of being the "virtual" center of the EU ... I'd never choose those areas for permanent living, but that's me :-)
I come and dwell in southern latitudes all my life!
Where LPG is plentiful, none the less ...

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I've thought about this a bit with mine.

Getting a motor isnt too hard, though there are some questions around what you'd do with the transmission. Most EV's end up with a single speed reduction of somewhere around 9:1. You could use a manual trans and lock it in 2nd/3rd to get the right reduction, but thats a lot of weight.

I've seen a conversion using a Tesla drive unit mounted sideways where the transfer case would go, with a new set of gears made to replace the built in reduction (because your driving the stock axles). However when i did the sums the resulting gear ratio still wasnt right for a P38, seemed better suited to a 90 with bigger tyres etc. Tesla bits are also mega bucks. A LEAF motor is a grand, Tesla one is 10.

The most appealing setup I've come across recently was using the hybrid gearbox from an GS450h... With some simple mods it can be run as a standalone motor, is pretty powerful, and costs about a grand. Theres also a 4wd version with a transfer case on the back, though those are significantly rarer!

The big sticking point for me is batteries. My LEAF has 30kwh pack, about 25kwh usable and that gets me 75miles or so on a decent day (faster motorway driving etc) i suspect 25kwh in a P38 is going to get 50miles, or maybe even less, just with the relative inefficacy. Thus for it to be a useful vehicle i recon it'd want 60-70kwh minimum.

a 30kwh LEAF battery costs around 3 grand. a 60kwh LEAF pack is more like 10. 75kwh Tesla packs are 13+ which feels like a lot of money to be pouring into an old landrover.

Maybe in a few years battery prices will come down a bit and it'll look more sensible!