project Enfield 8000 1970's Electric Car, Second Car Acquired

[Dick Longbridge]

On 3/2/2021 at 4:37 PM, Will on Syros said:

A lovely little car.  I just bought an Enfield 8000 myself and it's getting a restoration; fortunately it's in a bit better condition that thi syellow/orange one.  How is the restoration going?

I've noticed that a lot of people think these cars were made on the Isle of Wight...but only a very few were..less than 10.   Manufacturing Enfields at the Isle of Wight factory was stopped in 1973after an industrial dispute, and Giannis Goulandris, the owner of Enfield Automtive, shipped production of the car to the town of Ermoupoli on the island of Syros where they were made up until 1976.  They were then sent back to the Isle of Wight just to have the batteries fitted and to be sold as they were not road legal vehicles on Greece.  I've lived on Syros for 4 years now and the Enfield is a BIG deal here. The Prime Minister even had the one from the museum here taken to Athens last year so he could stand by it in a press announcement about electric cars.   It was the first mass produced electric vehicle...so is a bit of automotive history...and of the roughly 120 made, fewer than 15, so far as I can tell, are still working or currently being restored. 

Attached are some photos...the factory where they were made was a supermarket until a couple of years ago and is currently being used as a storage building for the Industrial Museum in the town.  The group photo shows Goulandris in white overalls and the workforce at the factory when the first Enfield was finished in October 1973.  The other 3 photos are the only ones I have of inside the factory.

Really interesting to read that. They certainly are intriguing little things. The fact your PM dragged one out of long-term hibernation speaks volumes too! 

[Will on Syros]

5 hours ago, coalnotdole said:

Hi Will, Interesting to see some photos of work on the car - I was offered it and the spares package when it came up for sale and although it seemed very good value for the money I felt it would have a negative impact on my chances of actually finishing this one or my other various projects!.

The BEI logo is interesting - do you know anything about its history?

I'll try and sort out an update to this thread at some point soon as theres been some small bits of progress with the enfield.

 

Dave

Well, I'm glad you declined to buy

I've no idea about BEI....I'm trying to find out. This car, like yours, is one of the later ones, so likely not one of those that went to the Southern Electricity Council...but the E could well stand for Electric(ity). I'll let you know when and if I do myself.

It would be good to see how your own is progressing 

[Will on Syros]

5 hours ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Really interesting to read that. They certainly are intriguing little things. The fact your PM dragged one out of long-term hibernation speaks volumes too! 

Here he is...Mitsotakis, Greek PM, announcing last March some new initiatives to promote electric cars in Greece.  Charging points in this country are a rarity, so there will need to be a big spend to improve that.

 

[Will on Syros]

On 8/3/2020 at 7:17 PM, barrett said:

Amazing! I was aware of this car from various photos posted online, and even though I've never seen it in person it is one of my favourite bits of street furniture of all time. Seeing shit like that (well, nothing that good) parked up on the actual street is the sort of thing that drew me to this forum 10 years ago or whatever. There is something incredibly reassuring that in this current age of homogeneity and increasing NIMBYism, there are still weird old cars littering the roads, collecting moss and detritus and making boring old cunts tut with disapproval all over the land.

It's equally sad when these things disappear, as the one single thing that makes a boring suburban road in the West Midlands has now been removed, but the best possible outcome is that the car enters preservation with somebody on this forum so I can track its future progress. Lovely, heartwarming stuff. One million likes.

Well said.  My brother often says that the streets are full of people driving "invisible euro-boxes".

[coalnotdole]

Well there's been some small progress on the Enfield,

 

Rear trailing arm and panhard rod removed to allow sourcing of replacement bushes

 

Shotblasted

 

Had a bit of a struggle sourcing bushes for the panhard rod as they're no longer available from metalastik/trelleborg, eventually managed to find they're also used on a lotus europa and one of the lotus specialists has had them remanufactured but only lists them using the lotus part number.

 

Trailing arm bushes were easier to source although seemingly only available with crimped ends now

 

Conical lotus bushes fitted into the newly primed panhard rod

I've bought new bolts and hardware so the plan will be to refit the trailing arm and panhard rod I've already cleaned up, then remove the other trailing arms one or two at a time and shot blast and rebush them. I can't remove them all at once as disconnecting the prop shaft and getting the axle out is a job that's going to have to wait until i have space to get the car in the workshop and can drop the motor out of the chassis.

 

Cheers for reading!

Dave

[coalnotdole]

As the enfield seemed to do quite a poor job of keeping the rain out even before I removed the rear glass in order to take the wing off it seemed like getting it somewhere reasonably dry to live while it awaits its turn in the workshop would be sensible. 

One metal shed off facebay later....

Its somewhat a snug fit!

 

 

There was just about enough space for me to drill out the spot welds and remove the rotted channel section from under the side window

 

This is would be my first attempt at making curved flanges, I've bought a vintage edwards jenny roller off eBay to try and form the curved section

 

However my first test piece wasn't much of a success!

 

Rollers as supplied with the swager/jenny roller - the stepped lower roller only seems to work if flanging really thin metal of less than half a mm. I made up a new lower roller without the step out of a bit of delrin pressed onto a steel shaft.

 

Channel section folded up and marked out with measurements from the original section to try and replicate the curve - as the bottom roller of the swager is too big to fit inside the channel i had to only fold the sides to 45 degrees, then swage the flanges before folding the sides to 90 degrees on the flypress.

 

Rolling the swage.

 

And the end result after folding the sides to 90 degrees on the flypress - the whole thing is as wonky as a donkeys hind leg

 

As you can just about see bothe faces of the channel have ended up curved whereas the face on the right should be straight and just the flanged edges curved. 

I chalked this one up as a fail and vowed to try again with a different approach!

 

 

[Sham]

This is how you win at, well, things.

Many, many things.

[coalnotdole]

After the resounding failure of my first attempt at enfield body support sections I decided to try and remove as many of the possible causes as possible - I think the fact I could only fold the channel section to 45 degrees in order to be able to get it through the swager meant it wasn't as rigid as it would be if it was folded to 90 degrees to begin with which then meant as I swaged the curved flange onto the edges it tended to introduce a bow into the whole channel section.

Also I only had a 4" long v block tool for the flypress so taking multiple bites at sharpening up the fold lines probably introduced more curve where it wasn't wanted.

 

Step one was to machine up a decent length V former.

 

fitted to the flypress with a matching lower former.

 

I then dogged down the original section on a flat surface so i would be able to measure it as accurately as possible.

 

Hopefully this shows the curvature which needs to be replicated.

 

I made up two accurate templates of the curves to aid marking out the new sections.

 

And I made another new lower roller for the swager that's just small enough to fit inside the channel section meaning it can be folded to 90 degrees before its put through the swager.

 

I also thinned down the top roller slightly to allow a tighter fold angle.

 

Took my time with this one and it came out pretty well.

 

Curved where it should be!

 

And straight where it should be!

 

End profile - the distortion on the folds is only at the ends where the swager starts and stops, it gets trimmed off before fitting to the car.

 

Folded up some small corner gussets.

 

Replacement alongside the original.

 

And test-fitted on the car.

 

Forward end.

 

Rear end.

 

It'll want a bit of fine tuning/adjustment but overall I'm pretty happy with the fit and it sort of proves the theory which is good as i think there will be quite a few sections which will need replacing!

 

Cheers for reading and commenting!

Dave

 

 

[Fabergé Greggs]

Love your updates man, always top quality 👍

Also, CALENDAR 

[coalnotdole]

This post will be a bit out of sync with the rest of the thread but If I don't post it now it will be even more out of time whenever I end up posting it.

 

Back in October Austat tagged me in the eBay Tat thread - This brought my attention to a listing which due to not mentioning the word "Car" or "8000" anywhere in the listing had somehow evaded all of my Enfield related saved searches on eBay! 

The car in question was a couple of years later than my orange one, Appeared to have been off the road since 1990, Had a cracked windscreen, no interior, was missing its aluminium bonnet and had already been raped for its mini cooper spec steel wheels which the seller had listed and sold separately.

Naturally I had to throw a bid at it on the off chance it would turn out to have a mint chassis saving me much time and work on the rather crispy orange one.

 

Listing image showing mismatched trailer wheels fitted and its recently removed original Mini Cooper spec rims in the background

 

Collecting it from the bubble car museum in norfolk was an interesting experience...

 

I've seen photos of this same badging on a couple of other enfields so assume it must be an ex electricity board car that was still in use into the 80s

 

Seatbelt anchorage approval plate which the earlier cars don't have.

 

The factory seems to have acquired a bead roller in the intervening two years between the orange car being built and this one - Literally every flat panel on this car has about 5 beads rolled into it!

 

  

This car retains its solenoid based speed control system, albeit a later revised 1980s version that was retrofitted after the original systems had issues with contactor wear.

 

Dashboard wiring is a lot more original than that on the orange car

 

And being a later car, instead of the smiths electric fan heater for windscreen and footwell heating fitted to earlier builds this one has a 12v hairdryer mounted poking through a hole in the dashboard!

 

Transformer and rectifier boards for onboard battery charger

 

Timer control unit for battery charger

 

Safely tucked away at the back of a friends industrial unit for the timebeing....

 

 

As a bonus here's a photo showing the stash of tax discs I found while working on the orange one covering 1987 until 2015:

 

As usual cheers for reading and/or commenting

Dave

[LightBulbFun]

2 hours ago, coalnotdole said:

This post will be a bit out of sync with the rest of the thread but If I don't post it now it will be even more out of time whenever I end up posting it.

 

Back in October Austat tagged me in the eBay Tat thread - This brought my attention to a listing which due to not mentioning the word "Car" or "8000" anywhere in the listing had somehow evaded all of my Enfield related saved searches on eBay! 

The car in question was a couple of years later than my orange one, Appeared to have been off the road since 1990, Had a cracked windscreen, no interior, was missing its aluminium bonnet and had already been raped for its mini cooper spec steel wheels which the seller had listed and sold separately.

Naturally I had to throw a bid at it on the off chance it would turn out to have a mint chassis saving me much time and work on the rather crispy orange one.

 

Listing image showing mismatched trailer wheels fitted and its recently removed original Mini Cooper spec rims in the background

 

Collecting it from the bubble car museum in norfolk was an interesting experience...

 

I've seen photos of this same badging on a couple of other enfields so assume it must be an ex electricity board car that was still in use into the 80s

 

Seatbelt anchorage approval plate which the earlier cars don't have.

 

The factory seems to have acquired a bead roller in the intervening two years between the orange car being built and this one - Literally every flat panel on this car has about 5 beads rolled into it!

 

  

This car retains its solenoid based speed control system, albeit a later revised 1980s version that was retrofitted after the original systems had issues with contactor wear.

 

Dashboard wiring is a lot more original than that on the orange car

 

And being a later car, instead of the smiths electric fan heater for windscreen and footwell heating fitted to earlier builds this one has a 12v hairdryer mounted poking through a hole in the dashboard!

 

Transformer and rectifier boards for onboard battery charger

 

Timer control unit for battery charger

 

Safely tucked away at the back of a friends industrial unit for the timebeing....

 

 

As a bonus here's a photo showing the stash of tax discs I found while working on the orange one covering 1987 until 2015:

 

As usual cheers for reading and/or commenting

Dave

very Nicely done  shame its been robbed of its wheels, they just look like regular 1970's Mini wheels to me, never realised they where cooper spec ones! do you recall what their part number was? 

 

very cool to see it still has the original speed controller setup, I hope someday to hear/see it in operation  

so whats the plan for it then? do you think both are salvageable?  

(pretty sure I have seen this one before somewhere as I remember its registration number being somewhat close to NPN924P! edit: ah yeah I see I gave the original ebay tat post a like when it was posted that explains the familiar feeling!)

[coalnotdole]

8 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

very Nicely done  shame its been robbed of its wheels, they just look like regular 1970's Mini wheels to me, never realised they where cooper spec ones! do you recall what their part number was? 

 

very cool to see it still has the original speed controller setup, I hope someday to hear/see it in operation  

so whats the plan for it then? do you think both are salvable?  

The wheels are Dunlop LP918 according to the (incomplete) parts list I have.

I bought it in the hope that the chassis and body shell might be in better condition than the orange one but they're much of a muchness really - white one is slightly better underneath but not good enough that I would be happy without stripping it down. 

It's got both bumpers which I'm missing from the orange one so it might donate those. Obviously it also has a full set of original style control and charging gear but as its a later car it would require some modification to fit it to the earlier orange one (the charger transformers are larger and require a bigger compartment and stuff like that)

I've already doubled what I spent on buying the white car by purchasing a replacement bonnet, seats, and various interior/dash panels for it - Hopefully that should at least make it a more complete and ready candidate for restoration should I decide to sell it on.

Or the friend who is currently storing it (who also negotiated the purchase of the orange one on my behalf) is still interested in converting one to a modern electronic drivetrain so maybe it will donate its electrical gear and bumpers to my orange one then be rebuilt into a more modern version of an Enfield 8000...

For the moment the plan is to get the orange one structurally restored and rig it up running on the MOS90 controller it came with so I can make a decision on weather I want to revert it back to solenoid control or stick with the more modern arrangement.  That will probably influence what happens with the white one.

 

Cheers,

Dave

 

[R1152]

That Clairol hairdryer is just perfect!! 🤣

[Mrs6C]

Now there are three Enfield 8000s on the Beige Forum! Most excellent!

[High Jetter]

Sounds a good'n, keep it safe.

[spartacus]

11 hours ago, R1152 said:

That Clairol hairdryer is just perfect!! 🤣

I had to zoom in and check what I was looking at there.

@coalnotdoleIs that original, if so, I guess it's not a bad bit of 'out of the box thinking'.

[coalnotdole]

 

On 3/31/2021 at 10:37 PM, R1152 said:

That Clairol hairdryer is just perfect!! 🤣

 

On 4/1/2021 at 9:54 AM, spartacus said:

I had to zoom in and check what I was looking at there.

@coalnotdoleIs that original, if so, I guess it's not a bad bit of 'out of the box thinking'.

 

Yes its original factory fitment! I think I was mistaken when I described it as 12v and its actually 240v AC and only runs while the cars plugged in charging so in theory you come out in the morning to a nice warm car. I'm not sure if Clairol designed the "Travel Turbo" with a 9 hour continuous duty cycle in mind though!

 

The earlier orange car has a smiths blower unit with a 600w 48v DC heating element - the manual describes it as an optional extra and makes a point of stating that running the heater whilst driving will dramatically reduce driving range! It suggests you leave the ignition switch in the "accessory" position with the heater turned on whilst charging off the mains supply.

Windscreen de-misting is achieved using a modern type laminated heated screen which I think was fairly cutting edge at the time - again the manual points out not to use it unnecessarily though!

Thats the smiths blower/heater in the orange car. (computer fan at top right is unrelated and appears to have been part of a modification to battery compartment venting which Lucas must have been experimenting with during their ownership)

Cheers,

Dave

[Will on Syros]

Hi Dave,  Any news on the restoration?

[UltraWomble]

Hello, Dave

How's it going?

[coalnotdole]

On 23/06/2021 at 14:41, Will on Syros said:

Hi Dave,  Any news on the restoration?

 

On 19/07/2023 at 12:14, UltraWomble said:

Hello, Dave

How's it going?

Orange Enfield is still tucked away in the facebay tin shed awaiting its turn to come into the workshop and be operated on, Ive bought a few bits and pieces for it as and when I've seen them crop up on eBay but that's about it, Indicator light units and stuff like that.

The White Enfield is still sat at the back of my mates unit although I think is about to be moved into a lockup garage he has in order to make some space for machinery reorganisation in the unit. I've not yet removed the bumpers and bits I want off of it but at the moment it looks like he'll be keeping it as a long term project so there's not an imminent rush to strip the bits off (he's got various metros, ldv's and other assorted tat to complete first before thinking about enfield)

Thats about it really for the moment!

Dave

[loserone]

Lovely to see you online Dave! 

[UltraWomble]

8 hours ago, coalnotdole said:

Thats about it really for the moment!

Dave

Holy flipping thread resurrection Dave. Nice to see you again.

I really want to know about the boat though. Hows that going?
O
I mean seriously, it keeps me awake at night not knowing how its progressing.