Dissecting your specimen

"I heard it rained in Washington state today. It's all Bush's fault" -The Left


I'm not dumb. I know gasoline prices aren't going to stay this high but the point is, I'm sick of people telling me that there is no other way and that gasoline is a staple that you "have to have" like flour, sugar or milk. As a sailor with 15 years in the service 7 months of which I spent in the Persian Gulf protecting shipping from suicidal Islamists, I'm tired of wondering where my fuel comes from and who it's supporting. I make it a point to pay attention to world events when it could mean my ass gets sent to a foreign country "protecting" people who don't want my protection.

A lot of the EV newsgroups I've subscribed to are nothing but pulpits for Eco-Nazis to scream from. They have little or no technical content. I was publicly berated for suggesting we concentrate our topics on the technology and ignore the politics. Some of these people are simply nuts. Bush's conspiracy, Big Oil, Big Industry, The Big 3, The Man...I don't care what the cause of high fuel prices are. All I need to know is that petro-based fuels cost more than I feel like paying for them and I'm not going to let anyone tell me that I have to buy them.

So, back to the Comuta Van...

You can tell there were barely any vehicle safety requirements 25 years ago. This is a totally street legal vehicle made of PLASTIC and an aircraft aluminum tubing frame. Oh, and drum brakes all the way around. She'll stop on a dime....NOT.

For once though, I seemed to have done my homework. The wiring is all intact, nothing really broken. It's just dusty from 10 years of indoor storage. The brakes are spongy and the master cylinder needs rebuilt but that's to be expected. The ancient steering box is ok but the tie rod links have slop. Parts availability -may- be an issue but the seller and I keep in contact and he's a great help.

These old Citi/Comuta vehicles were controlled by a Frankensteinian mechanical contactor array that switched the battery pack from series to parallel depending on how far you pushed the pedal. That's how power was applied to the motor. It also made for an "on/off" mentality and a real jerky ride. I'm thrilled to say that my little "Dilbert-mobile" has been upgraded with something I'd never heard of before: A PCM (Pulse controlled modulation) type controller.

This is one reason why EV's are feasible now. It's a sealed black box with no moving parts and it feeds power to the motor by switching power on and off at an incredibly rapid rate. It's silent and it knows how much juice to apply by the potentiometer or "potbox" attached to the pedal. When you step on the pedal, it's smooth as silk. It'll probably outlast the van by many years.

As I pick at the wiring, I notice that all the warning lights and motor power switches have been disconnected because of the upgrade. I'll have to patch some of this stuff back together. A few accessory wires are disconnected but once I have batteries, I'll be able to figure out what goes where with my trusty multi-meter.

I are an engineer, after all.