The blog for conversion of vintage BMW 3.0 CS coupes to Tesla powered electric vehicles
The Transplant is Successful
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I've successfully transplanted all the components from the donor Tesla Model S into my 1973 BMW 3.0 CS coupe. The last organs to be inserted were the 10 battery modules up front. Now, all 14 batteries are in place, the motor, inverter, and differential unit is installed, the iBooster is operational, and even the Tesla electric air conditioning compressor is in place.
Tesla drivetrain fully installed
I slid in all the batteries, wired them all up, and made some cooling manifold mounts. After failing to keep my cool previously, I rerouted all the battery cooling lines in parallel using a couple 10 port manifolds so the box is all ready to be connected to the radiators. Once everything was in place and hooked up, I installed the acrylic skin and put the box on the winch.
Ready for installation
All wired up
Cooling hoses all connected
Needs a small adjustment to get the strut bars to fit
No extra room on the right, just enough for the A/C hoses
A perfect fit
No extra room on the left
I was able to lower the battery box into the car quite easily, all my myself one evening. It went in like butter. There's no extra room in the engine compartment but everything fits like it should (See below).
As you probably know, I'm not converting just one BMW 3.0 CS coupe to Tesla power but two. One for me and one for my son-in-law, Alex. In fact, I'm involved in a third project for a customer as well. Brett Perkins at P3 Conversions is handling that build and I just consult a bit but I thought it would be interesting to compare how each project has tackled similar problems in different ways.
My priorities are all wrong. The car still needs a restoration and at the moment isn't even moving under its own power but I got side-tracked. In my defense, this all started over two years ago, when I had more momentum on the project. And it isn't uncommon for auto restoration projects to start with parts accumulation. Often they end before completion but I'm hoping that's not the case here. But I digress (again).
Two and half years of negligect haven't been kind to my batteries. While I was finishing up the silver car, my car just sat in the garage. Actually, I pirated some fuse box parts from it use on the silver car so it wasn't even drivable any longer. When I finally got around to working on it again, I relocated the BMS from the ill-conceived "bubble" into the trunk area. But when I tried to test the BMS wiring, I found that all my batteries were well below desired voltage. As a result, the BMS refused to charge the pack.
