Wow. There's a hell of a lot more involved in this build then just an engine swap lol. It should be interesting to see though!

 

what he said ^

 

wow this is very interesting i'm gonna keep a close eye on this

 

The NP321 looks like its for a Jeep Wrangler... Will it bolt on, same bolt hole pattern and splines? Or is there an exact part number I need to look for?

Also, I don't think I need the shift lever, I should just be able to lock it into 4-HI and then never touch it again. Thaughts on this?

I can place the transmisison in neutral when driving around in electric mode, and this way the speedometer and everything will still work.

I should beable to re-purpose the 4WD selector buttons into forward/reverse/neutral for the electric drive train.

Also need to force the hub locks to be engaged all the time...


Its never easy.

 

sounds fun, cant wait to see how this works out

 

This is gonna be very interesting!

 

You will have a lot of additional drag, but this should allow your speedo to work.

The NP231 was used on the GM s-series trucks as well. Grab one from a 93-97 or possibly later if you can find one s-series truck and it should bolt right up. The front driveshaft will be different though so you'll want that too.

If you are looking to use the 4wd buttons for another purpose, get a 3-button switch from an NP233 equiped s-series truck. The NV236 4-button switch doesn't actually have direct switches with independent wires, but contacts that bridge parallel resistors together and only use 2 wires down to the TCCM to control shifting. You would need to modify the circuit board inside to get what you want with your current switch. The NP233 switch has dedicated wires.

As far as the 'hubs' go, if you do get an NP231 transfer case and leave it in 4HI, then your front axle will always be supplied with vacuum which will leave it engaged all of the time.

Without the motor running and with the transmission in neutral, you may end up causing damage to the transmission driving around in electric only mode. You may want to have the gasoline engine running all of the time to keep the transmission lubricated.

 

The way out of this problem is to take the front diff and convert it to a manual sytem. There are several threads on this. That way he can leave it 4HI and the front wheels will freewheel and save his tranny. Although the OP will have to convert to the NV231 transfer case. That way he could just lock the TC in 4HI and not have to worry about changing ranges. Just use the front diff lockout to control it. But you would have to stop the vehicle to engage the front diff.

You would have to have some type of system to swap between electric and gas. I think it would work it's just going to take some engineering.

As far as the speedo is concerned, either use a GPS unit to tell your speed or maybe a second VSS that you could switch back and forth. The GPS unit would be a lot easier to do though.

*EDIT*

I just read thru the OP's page on EV's, I never knew GM built an electric truck. That was very interesting reading.

 

I was planning on having the engine idling in neutral while driving around in electric mode. That way I would still have power steering and brakes, air conditioning, etc...

At a later date I might looks into what it would take to be able to go all-electric. My electric truck has a seperate motor for the power steering:
http://www.wolftronix.com/E10/images/P3310203.jpg
Seperate vacuum pump, for the power brakes, there is also a rather large accumlator tank under the truck:
http://www.wolftronix.com/E10/images/P6160203.jpg
And a seperate motor for the air conditioning:
http://www.wolftronix.com/air_condit...s/IMG_7527.jpg

The last two I had to make for the truck, since they where missing...
Click here if you want to see everythng I had to do to make the electric truck work again:http://www.wolftronix.com/E10/

I will do a similar write up for the Blazer, when I get started on it.

I could add another electric motor to pump transmission fluid around in the transmission. But that would be at a much later date.

I would probably make a new circuit board for the 4WD buttons, since I would need different control logic for the motor controllers anyway.

 

If the gas engine is running, you should be fine. You could start off leaving the NV236 transfer case in and putting it in 4HI, but I am not sure how much it will like doing that.