New life for wrecked iMiev

[DonW]

I have been commuting in a Mitsubishi iMiev since I bought it new in 2014. It had a failed battery pack earlier this year, one month before the warranty expired, and my local Mitsubishi dealer replaced the traction battery, high voltage charger, and low voltage charger. My son turned 16 in July and I gave him the car to drive. Unfortunately he got in an accident recently and damaged the front drivers side. It’s no longer drivable but since the battery is nearly new, there has got to be something I can do with this drivetrain.
I have tossed around different ideas including:
Put the drivetrain in a 1995 Geo Tracker I have.
Find a cheap first gen Miata and do the same.
Put the battery in my motorhome to run it for weeks while boondocking.
The reason for this post is to hear any advice anyone has concerning these ideas. I live near Seattle WA so if anyone knows of a local person who could transplant the drivetrain for me I would love to contact them. Thanks in advance, I can’t wait to hear your ideas!

 

[MickeyS70]

Hello
Check out below for an EV conversion using I-MIEV parts to give you an idea of what’s involved.
https://318iev.blogspot.com/2020/03/

Quite a lot I gather, therefore it probably makes more sense to remove the battery, BMU and OBC and use these parts to keep another one or two IMievs on the road?

Putting the battery into your motor home is relatively simple: split the pack into individual cells (beware HV), re-arrange them to suit your inverter and hook them up to a 3rd party BMS…

Mickey

 

[jray3]

PM Sent- luckily Don and I are in the same area!

 

[toimiev]

I have been commuting in a Mitsubishi iMiev since I bought it new in 2014. It had a failed battery pack earlier this year, one month before the warranty expired, and my local Mitsubishi dealer replaced the traction battery, high voltage charger, and low voltage charger. My son turned 16 in July and I gave him the car to drive. Unfortunately he got in an accident recently and damaged the front drivers side. It’s no longer drivable but since the battery is nearly new, there has got to be something I can do with this drivetrain.
I have tossed around different ideas including:
Put the drivetrain in a 1995 Geo Tracker I have.
Find a cheap first gen Miata and do the same.
Put the battery in my motorhome to run it for weeks while boondocking.
The reason for this post is to hear any advice anyone has concerning these ideas. I live near Seattle WA so if anyone knows of a local person who could transplant the drivetrain for me I would love to contact them. Thanks in advance, I can’t wait to hear your ideas!

Hi DonW,
Unless you have enough knowledge, time and patience to do it yourself, I would not allow any "BEV guru" to touch it. It will be an endless project, and by the time you realize it, it will end up costing you a fortune.
If I were you, I would either sell the car "as is", for a very good price, due to the almost new battery, or find a used, high millage 2014-2015 i-Miev for a great price and have the battery replaced by your dealer. With a bit of luck it will last you another 10 years.

 

[DonW]

Reviving my old thread. Thanks to everyone who replied, my life got real busy after I made that post so I’m sorry I didn’t follow up with anyone. The weather is better and I just might have a little free time so I’m tackling my iMiev project now.

As tomiev posted above, I think I need to be realistic and accept the fact I don’t have the time to convert my Geo Tracker to electric even that has been a dream of mine for years. That little truck is too much fun… and as for the RV battery conversion, they make so many great ready to go batteries for RVs that are plug and play. And I don’t have the time.

So I see two choices left, fix it or sell it. It has been my commuter car for 10 years and I honestly thought I would commute in it until I retire. I only have a 35 mile round trip.

I started tearing into it and here are some pictures. As you can see the forward drivers side was hit. Besides the obvious damage, the brake pedal just goes to the floor and the brake light shows up when you stomp on the pedal. Otherwise it starts up and everything appears to work fine.

I have removed what appears to be the lower control arm (not a car mechanic, so forgive me but I’m pretty good with tools) and I contacted Jay to see if he had one. I am concerned that when I replace that I will find more and more suspension issues and it will be ultimately undriveable anyways.

If anyone has time to weigh in, I would appreciate any thoughts/advice/criticism on my situation.
Thanks!

 

[MickeyS70]

If anyone has time to weigh in, I would appreciate any thoughts/advice/criticism on my situation.
Thanks!

I’ve see cars bashed up a lot more and they were back on the road in no time. I would compare the damaged side with the good one and see what needs mending.

As for the brake issue, I would suspect a leak/air somewhere in the system, check out workshop manual (section 35A basic brake) below
http://mmc-manuals.ru/manuals/i-miev/online/Service_Manual/2012/index_M1.htm

Not that I have much experience in bodywork repairs, but it would be a pity to get rid of it without trying: “nothing ventured, nothing gained”

 

[DonW]

Well, I may have answered my own question on whether to fix or scrap. After putting the front end on jackstands and removing both front wheels, the brake pedal just goes to the floor and I hear it trying to build up pressure to no avail. Probably air in the line since there is no obvious leak. The steering is my main concern though. I thought the steering would work after the damaged front end was removed but it still won’t turn lock to lock, and it has variable levels of resistance when turning the steering wheel. Probably damaged the steering box with the hit.
My wife made the decision for me to wrap it up and get it out of the driveway.
Next

 

[DonW]

I’ve see cars bashed up a lot more and they were back on the road in no time. I would compare the damaged side with the good one and see what needs mending.

As for the brake issue, I would suspect a leak/air somewhere in the system, check out workshop manual (section 35A basic brake) below
http://mmc-manuals.ru/manuals/i-miev/online/Service_Manual/2012/index_M1.htm

Not that I have much experience in bodywork repairs, but it would be a pity to get rid of it without trying: “nothing ventured, nothing gained”

I was thinking air in the lines as well. I have bled motorcycle brakes so I can probably handle that but the steering issue worries me more than anything.
I don’t even care about the bodywork, it’s a commuter car plus both my kids learned to drive in this car so it has a lot of “love marks” already!

 

[DonW]

I’ve see cars bashed up a lot more and they were back on the road in no time. I would compare the damaged side with the good one and see what needs mending.

As for the brake issue, I would suspect a leak/air somewhere in the system, check out workshop manual (section 35A basic brake) below
http://mmc-manuals.ru/manuals/i-miev/online/Service_Manual/2012/index_M1.htm

Not that I have much experience in bodywork repairs, but it would be a pity to get rid of it without trying: “nothing ventured, nothing gained”

Thanks for the link to the manual. I’m checking it out now regarding the steering.

 

[DonW]

I disconnected both tie rod ends and the steering issues remain. Narrows it down to something deeper than my knowledge level.

 

[pbui19]

It all depends on your situation, ... as well as your wife. If your area has frequent outage, consider repurposing the battery pack for V2H backup. Is it possible that the steering linkages are just stiff from lack of use ? I would incline to pound that arm back into shape. It's functional isn't load bearing.

 

[DonW]

It’s possible the linkages are stiff, but I also noticed the wheels are not parallel. The passenger wheel will only go from hard right to straight. Won’t go left much. Oh well. Worth a shot. I just need to find someone in the Seattle area that can rearrange the battery pack cells for me to make an RV battery.

 

[DonW]

Thanks everyone for your help, but we waved goodbye yesterday to “Meep Meep”. Jray3 came and took him to his new home.

 

[jray3]

Thanks @DonW- the inability to steer made loading interesting, but it towed just fine with the front end lashed to a tow dolly (drive system in Ready and Neutral). Now to see, will Meep live on as one, or many? -Jay
btw- those lower control arms must have some sort of heat treatment for stiffening. We dented the mangled member with a sledge, but couldn't get it to EVen consider bending back!

 

[jray3]

Well, replacing the lower control arm made Meep drivable, but only in circles, as the steering rack definitely seems to be damaged internally. The warranty-replaced battery tested beautifully at 47.5 Ah, so it’ll go to upgrade my daughter’s 2012; BlackAdder. At 69k miles, the Adder’s main negative is 26.4 Ah of capacity, which would be no fun come winter. Meep has essentially the same mileage, and I could replace the steering rack but the body is rougher, so Meep goes for parts.
If you’ve already put in a parts request, I’ll PM shortly.