Battery Vehicle Society

Disaster has struck earlier today, looks like I've blown the motor on the van responding to a firecall....

100% charged, responding as rapidly as possible at the bottom of a 60+ hill there was a bang followed by loss of traction/STOP light on, freewheeled to a stop and no "clunk", on opening the drivers door to get out and run the last 1/4 mile uphill to the station there was that expensive overpowering acrid smell.

Returned a couple of hours later, there was no evidence of bits/fluid on the road, no heat evident/it wasn't on fire..... Rather recklessly I tried the "ignition" and got the "clunk", an on trying the quiet pedal it initially felt like it started to bite and the eco dial showed progressive power being drawn, but no movement... On rechecking the motor bay, you could smell all was not right from motors the blower inlet....

I managed to get a neighbour to trailer it home, but now I am wondering what horrors a wait me, and how long it will take me to replace the motor.

Any / all reasonable suggestions as to what to also check besides the brushes/commutator for the usual damage much appreciatted.

Thnx, TimS

Look at my ebay sale, I have a van up for sale at the moment. It was in use until the controller went pop. In strangely similar circumstances. My guages went hard clockwise then hard counterclockwise then nothing. At all. Ever again.\ The controller now being totally dead.
As far as I know the motor is still Ok. I do have another van similar, and this drove before I stripped the batteries. It wouldnt charge. So that motor I do know is OK.
Cost of either Van is £250, worth it for the motor alone. I do need to clear one of them, so dont mind which goes.
Unfortunately they are near to Colchester, so quite a trek from you.
I also have stock of new brushes .

Regards

Grumpy-b

Oh no! That was us saying how good Berlingos are on Saturday.

You said you already have a spare motor? The swap was quite simple as I recall. Axle stands under the subframe, disconnect lower wishbone to allow driveshafts out sideways.
Or maybe I popped the swivel out of the wishbone. Can't remember now.

Steady bar at the back, then it just hangs from 2 bolts at the top. If you need a hand give me a shout.

Remove the front battery box first, and its all plain sailing, just very heavy. Either use one good industrial grade Trolley jack or two domestic ones. The difficult bit is the gearbox cable which is a b to get to.
You have to take the whole driveshaft out and the NS one goes through the centre of the whole motor, so it needs to have about 400mm of shaft extracted. So before you take anything apart undo the main driveshaft nuts, its easier with two people and one straining on the brakes.
You wont get the shaft out by just undoing the ball joints.

Grumpy-b

Thank you gents for the advice on the motor removal, I've managed to bribe my two young uns to offer their time this weekend.

Grumpy, I've seen your ebay posting, but as Tim mentioned I picked up a low use motor years ago which I can use. Your yard looks like a considerably less cluttered version of mine, although I've only got one electrique I need to move on with no batts, no controller or working motor - this is not the first I've fried...

Cheers, TimS

Tim, I had similar on my first Blingo. Exact same symptoms after a bit of a downhll. Loud pop etc etc.

It turned out to be the controller that was making the smell. Motor was fine. So before you start pulling bits out, disconnect fuses and lift the top off the controller (just the lid where the connections are) and make some measurements of the field and armature.

Then (in-situ) you can take the lid off the controller and I think you will find the acrid smell coming from there.

John

Just the same with mine. Controller went pop big time. Horrid smell but nothing at all visually obvious in the controller. But dead as it could possibly be.

Grumpy-b