In the Summer of  1993 Lee Hart found 4 electric postal vans for sale.  After some discussion and a trip to Elkhart IN. to see the vehicles I recruited a couple of friends who where interested in electric vehicles, and we purchased all four Citivans.  The following is from a series of emails I sent in the first six months of getting the car.  As I dig up other old email I will add them to this posting.

Late Summer 1993

Here is the latest update on the car

1. The relay I bought from Murry's died on first use, I was really surprised
  I thought it should of lasted for at least a week.

2. Repaired the resistor again. Procedure:

    A. Remove pieces from car
    B. Grind The ribbon flat at the melted edges
    C. Overlap the ribbon by about 1/2 in. and drill six small staggered
       holes
    D. Bolt the strips together
    E. Reinstall on car.

2. Now that I have given up on six dollar relays,  I order a 27 dollar one
   from Newark last week, installed is yesterday and it seem to work fine.
   Drove it around the block again works a lot better with the resistor in
   the control circuit.

3. Greased kingpins

4. Inspected motor brushes have about 1 1/3 in. left

5. While inspecting brushes air hose flange on motor fell off.  Looks
   like it was originally pressed fit and then somebody glued it
   together.  I solder it back into place.

6. My horn was disconnected, If you need to find your horn look under
   the car below the motor blower.

7. All my lights and flashers are working.

8. I am now insured with AAA.

9. Found that 2 of may batters are installed backwards.  One was rather
   dry and with nearly no charge.  I am trying to charge this one now but
   I have little hope.  The second on seem to be working as well as the rest
   of the batters,  It may have been built backwards.

10. Current major problem is the brake switch needs adjusting 50% of the
    time after I use my brakes I lose power to the engine.  I may redesign
    the brake switch to use two switches.  The current setup uses one
    switch for both the brake lights and to kill motor power.  So if
    you should tap your brakes it also kills your motor.

11. I still need to fix the automatic disconnect I have most of it but
    need to find the connector and cables.

Sept 15, 1993

12. Drove the car seven miles with a top speed of 40 mph. Went
  from a 70% to 0% charge nearly did not make it up my driveway.

13. How to repair batteries once you have melted of the post:

     a. Buy a post adapter to change a GM side mount to a post.
        It should look like a post with a ~3/8 inch bolt sticking
        about 3/8 in out of its bottom.

     b. Carefully drill a 5/16 inch hole into the center of lead pad
        on the battery drill just a bit deeper than the length of the
        bolt.

     c. Thread the adapter into the hole (it will self thread).

Sept 22, 1993

14. Replace the backward battery that would not hold a charge. with
       one of the spares,  The battery post fix seems to work.
 

15. Melted down one of the battery terminal to day, got home on
   just on battery pack.  I need to replace this circuit breaker
   it never blows.

16. Replace Melted battery with another of the spares.

Sept. 29, 1993

17. Using The car to go to Kmart and Keoger about a 2.5 mile trip
    gone about 40 mile total so far. 7.5 on one charge. Goes 45
    till I drop to about 30% charge.

18. The low speed relay sometimes sticks.  I have added a big cap
    across it to reduce arcing.

19. I have a bunch of noise suppressing diodes to put across
    the relays.  Let me know if anyone needs some.

20. I am going to add caps on the hi low voltage relay also.

21. Finally got around to bolting the plate on the back, now I
    just have to get the lights working.

22. Tried the heater last night, didn't work.

23. started to sand off the decals.

Oct 2, 1993

24. Primed front hood.

25. Greased drive shaft, speed odometer cable

26. Failed to change transmission oil need to get a bigger Allen  wrench.

27. Failed to change diff. oil can not figure a way to get it out.

28. added an extension so that the right hand mirror could be used
    with the door shut.

29. Low speed relay still sticking will have to look for an open frame
    relay to replace it.

30. Greased door slides.

31. Decals are now removed from back door.

32. Install cable for plate lights and third stop light.
 

November 19, 1993
 

I have not had much time to work on the car in the last two months between
my Dad's death and the lack of light when I get home not much has gotten done.
Hopefully I can find some time this weekend and over Thanks Giving to make
some progress.  John and Fred have completed there refinishing and have
there cars in operating condition but they still do not have titles yet.

My charger has died the 72 volt regulator board had some corrosion on it
cleaning the board did not restore operation.  The unit comes on but there
is no current flow to the batteries.

Found a source of cheap 00 and 0 gauge battery connectors.  Take a post to
side terminal adapter (the all lead kind that does not have the steel insert)
and drill it out to force fit your cable, then crimp in a machine vice.  This
seems to make a good connection.  A little silicon grease on the cable will
probable help reduce correction.

Other current problems:
1. Brake light switch still does not work.  I need to find a way to make
   the adjustment far less critical.
2. I need a new igniter for the heater.
3. Need new batteries.  Wall Mart has some that they list at $36 but do not
   stock need to special order.  I think these are the same as the ones Lee
   got at Sam's Club.
4. Need new controller. I have the FETs and the buss bar now for just a
   little time.

I have put over 50 mile on it so far.
 

 November  30,1993

Lee I got the box Saturday and tried the board out but it did not help.
Looks like my SCR are bad in the charger unable to find any specs. but
found some nice big ones surplus for $10 dollars each 70 amp 400 volts.
will have to drill out the heat sinks to 1/2" to make them fit.
 
 

Jan 14 1994 yet another year...

The good news is the car's heater is fixed.  For only $140 you can buy
a small plastic spark maker and have plenty of heat.  I certainly hope that
this module last awhile or this could get expensive.  John and Fred found the
following source for heater parts.

        Cummins Michigan Inc.
        3760 Wyoming Ave.
        Dearborn, MI 48120
        (313)843-6200
        fax 843-6070
        there Grand Rapids office (616)538-3830

Cummins Michigan is a 24 hour truck engine repair center 12 bays no waiting.

The bad news is the battery charger still is not working.  I called Lester and
was told they no longer had a test fixture for the board and because the circuit
patented they could not give me a copy of the schematic.  In the future I will
avoid Lester Chargers.

I found that both of my SCRs had opened but replacement has not restored
operation.  Neither my board or Lee's spare board makes any difference.
I am currently building a board which will give me manual control should
have it built in the next few days.

I had a major disaster with my power connectors.  I sprayed my connectors
with Connector Plus(a connector lubricant) from Miller-Stephenson Chemical Co.
and five minutes latter it looked like someone had taken a hammer to all my
connectors (each connector was now in 10 to 20 pieces).  The instructions
on the can had no warnings about this kind of reaction.  The temperature at
the time was about 25-30 degrees.  If anyone would like to repeat this
experiment I still have the can of spray(which is 1,1,1-Trichloroethane,
Carbon Dioxide, Polyphenyl ether).

                        that's all for now,
 

Melt Down

Have not found any of my old email for this section so here is a quick summary:

After getting the last bugs out of the car I started to drive it to work.  Various minor breakdowns
occurred the first month include, failed wheel bearings, and designating tires.  Most of the problems where directly related to general age.  Then the melt down occurred I was pulling into the driveway of my office and took my foot of the pedal and tried to down shift.   The main contactor had welded its contacts together.
My main cutoff switch was under the hood.  In an attempt to regain some control I tried to force it back into gear it quickly became apparent that this was not going to work.  So I stopped the car pop the hood and got out and reached for the big switch.  Unfortunately I heard the motor stop just before I through the switch.  The motor need a complete rebuild and the transmission was junk.

After The Melt Down

Here is the latest on my EV:

The transmission is under the car and bolted into place.  This was done with three adapters.

 The first was a 1/2 inch plate of aluminum that went between the transmission and the motor adapter, this plate provided a method to match the bolt holes of the two units( note this would have worked better if the plate was 5/8 or 3/4 inches thick).  Washers and a layer of 1/8 inch cork was used to thicken the plate slightly to keep the transmission bolt heads from being higher than the plate.

Adapter two was 1/2 aluminum plate about 7 inch by 4 inches which bolted under the tail of the transmission and to the cars rear transition mount. A chunk of hard rubber was used here between the plate and the car to help absorb noise.

Adapter three replaces the forward transmission mount (which was first cut off as close to the car as possible).  The old transmission mount was bolted to a piece of angle Iron about 7 inches long and holes where drill for a 3 inch ‘U ‘bolt through the angle iron piece.  This was attached to the 3 in pipe that runs over the transmission.

Things I need to do:

Mount the motor

Mount the shift lever (which is now behind the transmission it was in front).

Connect the cable to the motor (some may need to be lengthen)

Connect the power wire from the headlight relays to the battery

Put the floor back in over the transmission.

Do some thing about the speedometer ( the cable does not match the transmission connector)