(Click for a larger image)My C5 Story
The Launch Off to Comet A Fortune Saved One Broken C5 A New Home
Fast Forward to the Year 2000 The C5 Fixed Paul to the Rescue Again!
The C5 was launched on the 10th January 1985, with the first television advertisements being run at peak-time on that evening. Having followed the exploits of Clive Sinclair for several years, and purchased all of his products up to that date, my wife was in despair! She realised as soon as she saw the C5 had been launched that I would be wanting one.
There was however one problem: Money!
We had only been married a relatively short time, and were still gradually paying off our debts, so it was very difficult to allocate £400 to Clive's latest baby. I could see that it would be an uphill struggle to try and persuade my wife as to the virtues of the C5, given our current financial situation.
Anyway, despite my wife's objections, I immediately telephoned the freephone information hotline, and requested a C5 brochure. That arrived a few days later, and renewed my yearning for Clive's latest product!
Over the following few weeks, we disagreed several times over the requirement for C5, and eventually I gave in! No C5 for Roy!
As the year progressed, it became more and more obvious that the C5 was not going to be the commercial success that Clive had hoped for. Various stories appeared in the press, extolling the fact that the C5 project was gradually failing, and that the retailers who had taken the plunge, and decided to stock the product, would be left with them on their hands before too long. The stories also mentioned that the retailers would have to heavily discount the product to clear out the remaining stocks. This was my opportunity!
A trip down to my local comet at Sandiacre confirmed what I had read. Chatting to the salesman there, he said that sales had been very slow, and they still had five or six boxed C5's in the warehouse. To sell these vehicles they had just slashed the price from the normal £399 down to just £139.99! At this price I had to have one, even if it was just as a Sinclair keepsake and collector's item.
Out came the cheque book, and one cheque for £139.99 later, and I was the proud owner of a new Sinclair C5! This would be delivered free of charge by Comet, on the following Saturday - the 23rd November 1985.
At about lunchtime on the following Saturday, the Comet delivery van pulled up outside my house. The C5 was delivered in a huge cardboard box - so huge in fact, that I had to assist the driver in carrying it down our driveway, and putting it around the back of the house. There was also a separate small (but heavy!) cardboard box containing the battery. The driver wished me luck, and said I would have great fun, but warned me that I should keep the tyres well pumped up! As the van drove off, my wife and I began the job of unpacking the brand new C5.
First of course, I had to charge the battery. I looked at the instructions to find out how everything was connected, and duly gave the battery its first charge. I resigned myself to the fact that this was likely to take the rest of Saturday, and it would therefore be Sunday before the maiden run could take place!
After leaving the battery on charge all of Saturday night, Sunday came. Now for the exciting part. My wife helped me take the C5 outside again, and I installed the battery. As per the instruction manual, I jacked up the driven rear wheel, and tested that the motor drive was working OK. I also did a quick check on the lights. It was now or never!
I slowly pedalled the C5 to the end of the driveway. After checking for oncoming traffic, I pedalled some more, and then gently pressed the power button. I was amazed to feel the kick as the motor burst into action. A huge smile came across my face. Wow! This seemed more like 35 miles an hour, than 15 miles an hour! How good it was to feel the wind in my face! This may sound a bit corny, but only if you've never driven a C5. You are so close to the road in the C5 that your speed seems to magically multiply!
Over the next few weeks I returned many times to my local Comet store. Gradually, from my local store, and a couple of others within the area, I managed to buy all of the Sinclair C5 accessories at bargain cut prices. The list goes as follows (my bargain price first, and the official Sinclair price afterwards):
|
The C5 Vehicle |
£105.00 |
£399.00 |
|
C5 Battery |
£34.99 |
------- |
|
Mud Flaps |
£2.99 |
£6.95 |
|
Grey Side Panels |
£7.99 |
£19.95 |
|
Seat Cushion |
£3.99 |
£9.95 |
|
Indicator Kit |
£7.99 |
£19.95 |
|
Mirrors |
£5.99 |
£14.95 |
|
Tonneau Cover |
£3.99 |
£7.95 |
|
Horn Kit |
£3.99 |
£7.95 |
|
Weather Cheater |
£13.99 |
£34.95 |
|
Seat Booster Pad |
£3.99 |
£9.95 |
|
Grand Total |
£194.90 |
£531.55 |
Making a Grand Saving of £336.65!
I spent many a happy evening fitting the various accessories. The most challenging without doubt was the indicators. First of all, these needed me to make holes in the precious C5 bodywork. Also, the wiring was fairly complex, even having the instructions to hand. After about a week or so, the C5 was resplendent with all the accessories fitted and working.
Over the next few months, I took the C5 out for short runs around about where we live. Usually, these runs had no particular purpose - the C5 was simply fun to drive!
Each time we would have members of the family come to visit, I would ask if they would like to have a drive in the C5. This meant that many people came to drive the vehicle, and almost without exception, seemed to enjoy it. Perhaps Sinclair should have simply marketed the vehicle as a fun and recreation product, rather than as a serious electric vehicle. Certainly everyone I know who has tried driving it has found it both fun and exhilarating.
I think it was around about 1988, when one relative or another had come to visit, and had taken the C5 out for a spin. As the C5 came up the drive, all of a sudden there was a large click click click noise coming from the drive. Further inspection revealed that the wheel wasn't actually being driven, and so the clicking must have been coming from the drive mechanism. The first problem!
Mechanical things are not a particularly strong point with me. I'm not too bad if I have instructions to follow, but when it comes to working these sort of things out on my own, I'm not particularly good. After reading the C5 manual, I came to the conclusion that the drive belt must have stretched. It was the drive belt slipping over the cogs, and this was making the clicking noises.
I tried tightening the drive belt, by loosening the motor mounting bracket, and twisting the motor within its mounting. The clever cam shaped design of the mounting moves the motor closer or further away from the main drive pulley, therefore tightening or loosening the toothed drive belt. Try as I might, even when the belt was at its tightest, as soon as I tried the drive mechanism by applying power, the loud clicking noise was still there.
My next conclusion was that the drive belt must have stretched too far for the slack to be taken up by the motor adjustment mechanism. I needed a new drive belt. After making a few inquiries, and eventually contacting Sinclair Research, I found that all the spare parts for the C5 that Hoover had sold when the project officially closed, were held by a company in Liverpool. A couple of weeks later, and I was the proud owner of a new drive belt.
The Offending drive belt:
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After fitting the new belt, I was dismayed to find that I still had the click click click sound whenever I tried the power button. I deduced that it couldn't be the belt, and thought perhaps one of the gears had stripped inside the C5 gearbox, on the end of the motor.
I did make some inquiries about obtaining a new gearbox, but was quoted about £90, rather a lot of money considering I didn't even know if this was the part I needed! On that basis, I resigned myself to the fact that the C5 was broken, and it effectively went into mothballs.
In 1992 we moved house. At our old house, the C5 lived in a brick-built shed at the bottom of the garden. This would have been an out-house when the house was originally built, early last century. As it was, it was just about big enough for the C5. One problem it did have was a corrugated iron roof - this was never particularly weatherproof, and so the C5 had to be well wrapped in plastic sheeting to stop it getting filthy. When we moved in 1992, our new house had a nice big double garage. Therefore the C5 was allocated a little corner, and at last it had a nice dry, comfortable home.
Fast-forward to the year 2000.
By now, space in the garage was at a premium. There was never any question of selling the C5, so some alternative means of storage was needed. Paul, a good family friend, (and resident mechanical genius!), came to the rescue. After some judicious measurements were taken, we decided that it was feasible to mount the C5 on the wall! This would save the floorspace, and if we mounted it high enough, would not interfere with the car fitting in the garage. A little while later, and Paul had produced two rather nice iron brackets, which would be up to the job. Before long the C5 was hanging on the wall on the two brackets - and although looking a little precarious, was quite safe and solid.
C5 Hanging on the wall:
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While we were working on mounting the C5 on the garage wall, I started chatting to Paul about the various problems that I'd had with the C5 drive, and the loud clicking sound. Paul very kindly offered to have a look and see if he could find out what the problem was. I explained that I had looked at the drive belt, and couldn't cure the problem like that, and so I thought the problem may be the gearbox.
A few weeks later, Paul came round one Saturday afternoon, armed with his toolkit! Within the hour, he had removed the motor from the C5, and we had it stripped down on the kitchen table (on newspaper of course) to try and find out what the problem was. After close inspection of the gearbox, we decided that it was fine. At least I wasn't faced with trying to obtain a new one. Paul replaced the motor in the C5 and we tried some power, and yes, all we got was click click click!
After closely studying the drive mechanism, Paul and I decided that it still must be the drive belt slipping. Paul put various marks on the different moving parts of the drive system, and by applying quick bursts of power, and noting which bits moved and which bits stayed still, we decided that yes, it definitely was still the drive belt slipping. At this stage, the motor mounting was adjusted so that the drive belt was at its tightest. We decided however, that this probably was not tight enough, and we discussed various means of trying to adjust the motor mounting to make the belt a little tighter.
The plastic cards:
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Although it sounds a little bit Heath Robinson, the final solution was two old plastic credit cards, placed between the motor and the mounting bracket to move the motor a little further away from the main drive wheel. After tightening everything up, and applying a quick burst of power, we were both pleased and relieved that everything moved, and there was no clicking sound! Problem solved. (UPDATE: I've since found out that this was a known problem with the C5, and Sinclair Vehicles produced an official modification to prevent the drive belt slipping. This consisted of a metal bracket which reinforced the motor mounting. The same result can be achieved (if not quite so elegantly!) using a simple Nylon cable-tie. Full details on the Drive Modification page.)
After giving the battery a top up charge, we decided that a test run was in order. As I've said before, I'm officially a little too heavy for the C5, and not wanting to put excessive strain on the new tightened belt, we decided that the best option was to let Paul do the driving. The results can be seen in the photos section of this website, and I must say that Paul seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself!
One other problem we had was with the C5 battery. So far, because the C5 had been in mothballs for several years, I had never thought about replacing the battery. Now that we had the C5 working again, it became obvious that the capacity of the original Oldham battery, now 15 years old, was not really up to the job. When Paul went out on his maiden voyage, I suspect he only did a couple of miles before the battery was showing flat on the instrument pod.
I thought it would be easy enough to find a car battery that would fit into the C5 foot well. The only problem with that was that I had read that car batteries were not really designed for deep discharge use, and that over discharging a car battery would quickly damage the plates inside, and stop it from holding a charge. A little bit of research on the Internet confirmed this, and pointed me towards either a leisure battery (meant for caravans) or a traction battery (meant for electric vehicles!). Money was a bit tight again, so the new battery project was put on temporary hold.
Paul rang me one afternoon, and explained that a colleague at work had just bought a new leisure battery for his caravan. This was an 85Ah battery, and had cost just £30 on special offer at a local caravan centre. I was immediately interested, and asked Paul if he could find out the dimensions of the battery, so that I could check to see if it would fit into the C5 foot well. Paul rang back a little later with the measurements, and after checking I decided that it would just fit. Unfortunately the new battery had got standard car-type pillars meant for battery clamps, not the unconventional threaded posts needed by the C5. Even so, I asked Paul to go ahead and buy the battery on my behalf.
Paul very kindly adapted the C5 battery cover (without actually damaging it) so that we could connect the new battery. I made some changes to the battery retaining strap, so that it could be adjusted to fit either the new, larger battery, or the original Oldham battery. After securing the battery in place, and connecting it up, off Paul went on a test run. With the new battery, he must have travelled at least five miles, and not a single light went out on the battery meter! Our next run is going to be a battery endurance test, to see just how far the new battery will take the C5.
The new battery:
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Paul came round straight from work one evening. After some tea, we started work on modifying the C5 battery contacts. After removing the boot, Paul traced the wires from the key switch connector back to the control box.
This photo shows the new connectors: 
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They are designed to connect forklift truck batteries for charging, and are rated at 100 amps, well in excess of what the C5 needs.
After tracing the wires back the control box, we decided that the best bet would be to remove the complete section of the wiring loom which led back to the key switch. This was easily accomplished as these three wires connected into the control box using threaded studs and nuts.
This photo:
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shows the wiring loom, with the keyswitch attached.
This photo shows the interior of the
control box:
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Paul replaced the wires, coming from the left foot well, and fed them back to the control box, and carefully made the new connections.
This photo:
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shows the completed rewiring, with the control box cover replaced,
and this one:
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the new connector in the foot well. The small IEC connector you can see is for the low current positive connection.
The next job was to connect the new type of connector to the new battery. After doing some careful measuring, and working out where both the battery would finally sit, and where the connectors would hide, Paul wired up the batteries to the new connector.
Mechanical/Electrical Genius At Work!
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This photo shows the result:
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The final photo:
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shows the new battery sitting in the foot well, all connected up and ready to go. Even though the battery is larger than the original, it fits quite easily into the foot well, and the original battery retaining strap adjusts enough to accommodate it.
As you may remember, the idea of this session, as well as fitting the new connectors, was to give the new battery an endurance run. By the time the new connectors were fitted however, it was dark! Never mind, the roads would be quieter, and night-time visibility is pretty good, as the lights are fairly effective. Paul finally ended up driving around the estate for about 90 minutes, and still the battery showed no signs are failing!