Sensory Overload-the 1908 Experience, pt. 3

[John Wayland <dat1200@europa.com>]

Continued from pt. 2......

Hello to All,

>I would return on Saturday to get the car running (if I could)....she invited us to both
join
>them and a few friends for a special dinner party....I'd be driving my hybrid car up the
>next time. This lit up Jane...she seemed excited that one was going to come to visit her.

I hit the road Saturday morning driving solo in my 2000 Honda Insight, and brought an
assortment of EV tools and parts. Cheryl had said yes to the dinner party thing, but
already had stuff planned for the main part of her Saturday, so we worked it out to meet
back at the Wayland home in the late afternoon, where I'd pick her up and return with her
to the Hansen's place....sure, it's a 60+ mile round trip, but when you've got a nifty
Honda Insight that gets 75-90 mpg and runs squeaky clean, emissions wise, it's no big deal
:-)

Driving my Insight anywhere is always fun (almost as much fun as driving an EV), but the
drive back out to the country was even more entertaining as I whisked along in my silver
teardrop...the scenery was impressive in the morning light, quite beautiful!  When I
rolled into the Hansen's place, the Insight's digital dash reported an average of 76.4
mpg...not bad, considering the 70 mph freeway speeds and steep hill climb to the
property.  I was greeted by my new friends, but before digging into the EV repairs, it was
time for a little hybrid show and tell....Wayland style!  With their enthusiastic
permission, with the car poised in the rolling lawn surround by Jim's wonderful metal
sculptures, I opened the Honda's doors and demoed GrooveYard's new CD at pretty heady
volume levels....it sounded fantastic out in the open spaces surrounded by woods!  These
two are real music fans, it turns out, and they insisted that we play my son's band's
music later at the dinner party and use the Insight as the evening's sound system...cool!

I gathered my EV tools and went into the garage to begin the work at hand. I checked the
batteries to see where they were resting after Jim had charged them on and off since
Thursday, and was surprised to see they were all at around 12.7 volts each...amazing.
Still, I warned Jim not ot get too excited over this, and told him that the two center
batteries would probably have very little capacity. With lots of help from my
professor-dude-scuptor while his energetic wife was preparing awesome food up at the house
for the party, we began by making metal brackets and drilling holes to mount the
replacement motor controller.

The 1908 is super easy to work on from all aspects. To get at the frame area where the
controller was to be mounted, and to get to the throttle pot (chain driven via a roller
affair), we simply lifted up the floorboard and took it out of the car....in about 5
seconds! I changed the speed control pot to a two wire setup from the three wire mode, and
cleaned up its wiring, while Jim worked on the mounting brackets for the controller. With
the controller hung upside down beneath the floorboard and with the pot connected, it was
time to re-connect the power and motor wires, all of them 6 gauge and all of them red. The
wires had been disconnected by someone (Bruce?) but not labeled, so I had to carefully
figure out where they were all going to and coming from. It got a bit interesting when I
made my way to the mechanical contactor area. Picture the stubby shift level of a garden
tractor, and you'll get the idea of this system. There are two of these levers with ball
handles, one controls the main contactor 'ON-OFF' and 'CHARGE' positions, the other
controls the contactors for 'FORWARD-REVERSE'. I eventually got it all sorted out and
connected up, after re-doing several crimp lugs and lengthening one power feed wire.

I boasted to Jim that the car would work, first time, and with a big confident grin, I
moved the bottom lever to the 'ON' position, moved the other lever to the 'REVERSE'
position, twisted the 'start' key to the 'RUN' position, and eased down on the accelerator
pedal.....nothing! Damn!
Unfazed (not really) I went into my Plasma Boy trouble-shooting mode, and again, reached
for the trusty ACL. I connected its leads to the motor outputs of the controller, as Jim
watched in total awe (he still thought of me as an EV God at this point). When I nursed
the throttle a bit, the ACL instantly responded and lit up and down in response to the
throttle position.....Ah Hah! So now I knew that the controller, batteries, and wiring
were working, and in that instant, I knew that one of the two motors had to be open
circuited. With everything tuned back off, I slid under the rear of the car and checked
the left motor...totally open circuited. A check of the right motor showed continuity. I
came out from under the car, and pronounced to Jim that the car would be moving in
minutes....Jim was still grinning after the ACL controller test....my confidence was
impressing him, I guess. At this point, I was pretty sure I'd figured out the scenario for
the car's current status....An old tech controller faced with a low rpm motor load
situation, and a grandson most likely, flooring it often from a dead stop, and on that
fateful day when the accelerator was floored, the controller blew....max battery current
was sent to the series motor circuit, with the one motor frying first, opening the circuit
and hopefully, saving the other motor from the same fate. I explained all of this to Jim
while I was flying around the garage getting what I needed to make the car go. I was
absolutely determined to get it running, so that later on at the dinner party, we could
give rides in the yesteryear EV. I told Jim that the car would probably drive fine on just
one motor, though certainly not as well as with both motors in action together. Using one
of the 8 gauge alligator clip leads I had brought with me, I shorted out the left motor,
then got in the car and tried it all again. This time, in near total silence other than
the pleasant whir from the healthy right hand side motor below, the Olds proudly rolled
back out of the garage and onto the grass....Yee Haw! Jim had that EV grin on his face, as
did I. Using the tiller steering arm, I backed around, then selected 'FORWARD' and motored
away slowly towards the gravel drive that leads up to the house, but I could feel the
batteries sagging down fast, and aborted the mission and went back into the garage. I
jumped out, pulled off the seat, and measured the batteries...both outer batteries were
hanging in there, but the center ones were at sub 7 volt levels already. We put the car on
charge, and talked about what we'd do next.

I hesitated about pulling the dead motor out of the car, because I didn't want to disable
it and we both wanted to have fun giving rides later in the evening. Then, I realized that
with the car's design of having a motor on each side of the differential with its own belt
going to the twin groove pulley, I could pull the one motor and still drive the car...in
fact, with the parasitic drag of the dead motor (these puppies have very strong PM's and
don't spin easily off power) and its belt, the one motor left in the car would work a
little less and be able to move the car using less battery power. Back under the machine I
went, and in about five minutes, I had removed the motor. The 8 gauge alligator lead I had
shunted this motor with, had begun to melt its vinyl covers off, indicating that the  one
healthy motor was drawing some pretty serious current to move the car on its own.

It was fairly routine taking the dead motor apart, and just as I had hoped, the brushes
were pretty much vaporized, but the armature still looked as new. This Bosch motor has
unique brushes, that instead of contacting the commutator from a perpendicular side angle,
they are facing up from their mountings in the end bell, pointed straight at the output
shaft end bell, and make contact with a commutator that has a radial face rather than an
axial arrangement. The brushes, what was left of them, were weird shaped, like slices of
pie, but would be super easy to install, it seemed. Jim looked troubled over the special
design and strange shape of the brushes, but I was convinced I could find new ones.

With the batteries having been exercised after the maiden voyage and after they had come
back from the one hour charge, I backed the car out of the garage again, and it seemed to
have quite a bit more spunk. I got a bit more adventuresome and decided to make a run for
the house, up the steep driveway. The 1908 charged ahead on its one motor pretty well, but
half way up the hill, I could feel the batteries going south on me again, so I turned
around and barely made it back to the garage....OK, time for batteries! Jim seemed
thrilled just to see the old buggy running again, and decided that getting four new group
27 batteries was a no-brainer, so off we went in his new Tacoma pickup to the local Les
Schwab tire dealer.

Those who know me, know that my hyper state needs to be refueled often (an Insight, I am
not), so Jim treated me to a killer burger at a country burger restaurant. Over the late
afternoon lunch, we discussed battery strategy, and I vowed to find him a good deal, even
if we weren't in my neck of the woods (Portland) where I can get good prices on most
anything I need. The first post lunch stop was at Les Schwab, they had the batteries in
stock, but wanted a steep $75 each...ouch! We passed. Making calls, I found out that the
local NAPA auto parts stores just happened to be having a big battery sale, and they had
the group 27 style deep cycle batteries for just $54. We drove into the town of Battle
Ground and got caught up in a classic car show that coincidentally, was going on adjacent to
the NAPA store....a bonus treat! There was even a local rock band playing in the NAPA
parking lot, but they kinda sucked and were a bit low on talent :-(   Nonetheless, as
often happens, the EV adventure was continuing to be entertaining for me.

We were only able to get two of the four batteries we needed at the first NAPA store, but
they had another store 10 miles away, and had them hold two more for us. It was getting
towards 4:00 in
the afternoon by now, and I still needed to go back to Oregon and pick up my wife, then
drive back in time for the planned 5:00 get-together. Jim took me back to his place where
we agreed that he would go get the other two batteries while I retrieved my wife.

To be continued......

See Ya......John Wayland


'EV Awareness Day' just three days away, Saturday, August 3rd at OMSI!

Come see the 1908 Olds in person and even take a ride in it!