Enfield 8000 Restoration

[R1152]

The fate of pilot scheme diesel 10800 was to end up at Brush and be used as a test bed for thyristor control, where it was named "Hawk". That was back in the 60s.

I just have visions of that massive rotating contactor thing that English Electric used at this point...

[spartacus]

17 hours ago, Will on Syros said:

A simple sealed electric engine..no oil, no petrol, no cooling system. The main upkeep is for the set of 12 batteries. They'll need regular topping up with water and rotating now and again to spread the load. Brakes and suspension are like a petrol car.

Sorry, I really meant does your particular car need much doing to it?

[Will on Syros]

39 minutes ago, spartacus said:

Sorry, I really meant does your particular car need much doing to it?

Ah...no, it seems not.  It was pristine until about 10 years ago and was a regular at classic car rallies. The electrics seems fine, so the main work is cosmetic, particularly the interior trim and seats.

[castros_bro]

Will you using free fuel?

[vulgalour]

16 hours ago, Will on Syros said:

I've not even seen my car...its in the UK...and I live on Syros, in Greece.

Some people get cold feet when a car they're buying blind from the internet is 50 miles away.  I have nothing but respect for the utter lunacy of what you're undertaking here.

[Will on Syros]

2 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Some people get cold feet when a car they're buying blind from the internet is 50 miles away.  I have nothing but respect for the utter lunacy of what you're undertaking here.

It's OK...my brother in law lives near the car and is the one restoring it. In any case, I trusted the seller...he was recommended by someone else I trust. I much prefer trusting people and having the occasional knock-back, than not trusting anyone.

[Will on Syros]

4 hours ago, castros_bro said:

Will you using free fuel?

There's a lot of sun here in Greece, so that's an option, for sure.

[Will on Syros]

New badges for boot, hood and steering wheel

[Will on Syros]

Here's an excellent report giving extensive details of the car, focussing on the electrical system , batteries and controller.

I'm still trying to work out what range I'll get from 12 6V golf cart cells each rated at 225Ah over 20h, or 185Ah over 5 hours.    Range values for the original set-up are shown in the attached booklet...does this forum have any electrical geniuses who could hazard an estimate based on the new setup? 

@Mrs6C , @somewhatfoolish and @LightBulbFun ?

enfield_project_booklet.pdf

[Tadhg Tiogar]

On 3/6/2021 at 11:12 AM, vulgalour said:

Some people get cold feet when a car they're buying blind from the internet is 50 miles away....

Others get drunk and bid anyway 🤣

[LightBulbFun]

4 hours ago, Will on Syros said:

Here's an excellent report giving extensive details of the car, focussing on the electrical system , batteries and controller.

I'm still trying to work out what range I'll get from 12 6V golf cart cells each rated at 225Ah over 20h, or 185Ah over 5 hours.    Range values for the original set-up are shown in the attached booklet...does this forum have any electrical geniuses who could hazard an estimate based on the new setup? 

@Mrs6C , @somewhatfoolish and @LightBulbFun ?

enfield_project_booklet.pdf 6.6 MB · 3 downloads

ohh thats been a very interesting read

 

as for range, its a bits complicated, id need to know exactly how you plan to arrange the battery cells and depends on the exact power draw of the motor etc and what speed your doing

and as you say, the capacity of battery can change depending how quickly its being drained etc

 

but just doing some back of the envelope calculations if assume if we assume 225Ah 48V worth of batteries, going by the PDF I think the Enfield has a 48V 6Kw Motor so 125A

so that would last about 1 hour 48 minutes before the batteries went flat, if we assume a 40Mph speed that would get you about 70-80 miles of range then?

[vulgalour]

22 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Others get drunk and bid anyway 🤣

something something fools and money

[Will on Syros]

51 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

ohh thats been a very interesting read

 

as for range, its a bits complicated, id need to know exactly how you plan to arrange the battery cells and depends on the exact power draw of the motor etc and what speed your doing

and as you say, the capacity of battery can change depending how quickly its being drained etc

 

but just doing some back of the envelope calculations if assume if we assume 225Ah 48V worth of batteries, going by the PDF I think the Enfield has a 48V 6Kw Motor so 125A

so that would last about 1 hour 48 minutes before the batteries went flat, if we assume a 40Mph speed that would get you about 70-80 miles of range then?

I'm glad you liked the read...it's a fascinating little booklet.

Thank you for your guesstimate. That's matches what I'd back-of-the-enveloped, though I thought I may have made some hideous error somewhere.   There are a few hills here on Syros...getting from one side of the island means going up and over, or going the long way round along the south coast.  Still, the island is only 6 miles wide, so the car should be OK to get me to town and back, or for a drive to the beach.   One day, I hope there will be an affordable upgrade to enable a range-anxiety-free journey around Greece, or even to drive to the UK. 

The batteries arrived...over 300kg of them.   Any advice on how to wire them?

[Will on Syros]

Primer almost finished

[LightBulbFun]

33 minutes ago, Will on Syros said:

I'm glad you liked the read...it's a fascinating little booklet.

Thank you for your guesstimate. That's matches what I'd back-of-the-enveloped, though I thought I may have made some hideous error somewhere.   There are a few hills here on Syros...getting from one side of the island means going up and over, or going the long way round along the south coast.  Still, the island is only 6 miles wide, so the car should be OK to get me to town and back, or for a drive to the beach.   One day, I hope there will be an affordable upgrade to enable a range-anxiety-free journey around Greece, or even to drive to the UK. 

The batteries arrived...over 300kg of them.   Any advice on how to wire them?

well you got 12 6V batteries which in series gives 72V which is a bit more then 48V the Enfield is made for (although apparently in the enfield car project PDF they where able to overvolt to 72V without issue, it would still require a new or modified existing charger)

you could wire 8 of the 6V batteries in series which would give you 48V and leave you with 2 Spare for something

[Will on Syros]

46 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

well you got 12 6V batteries which in series gives 72V which is a bit more then 48V the Enfield is made for (although apparently in the enfield car project PDF they where able to overvolt to 72V without issue, it would still require a new or modified existing charger)

you could wire 8 of the 6V batteries in series which would give you 48V and leave you with 2 Spare for something

I think the intention was for them to be in one series...as you say, over-volted...with the step-ups at 18, 36, 54V as opposed to 12, 24 and 36V.    There was discussion about whether I should settle for 8 batteries, but opted for the extra 4 as they should give the extra range.  The booklet says that all the batteries contribute to even the load, but I've also been told it may be a good idea to rotate the batteries every few months to spread the load...so I've found that a bit confusing....hence me asking if you had any special ideas about wiring.

A new charger has been bought...better than the onboard one, though it has to be lugged about if I take the car anywhere where I'll need to charge it...though that's unlikely here on this wee rock in the sea. 

[LightBulbFun]

12 minutes ago, Will on Syros said:

The booklet says that all the batteries contribute to even the load, but I've also been told it may be a good idea to rotate the batteries every few months to spread the load...so I've found that a bit confusing....hence me asking if you had any special ideas about wiring.

Yeah read that and then think to myself "so do the batteries really need rotating then?"

im curious is there a schematic for one of these anywhere? 

or a diagram showing how the batteries are all connected up for a given throttle/contractor position? 

 

[Will on Syros]

13 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

Yeah read that and then think to myself "so do the batteries really need rotating then?"

im curious is there a schematic for one of these anywhere? 

or a diagram showing how the batteries are all connected up for a given throttle/contractor position? 

 

These documents are from the Enfield owners club on Weebly...I have to say that they are all a bit over my head. 

wiring_diag_1.pdf wiring_diag_2.pdf

[castros_bro]

If you go by Diag 2 then 4 pairs of 2 (6v) batteries connected like that should all discharge at the same rate so no battery swapping - however as the batteries will all be slightly different in charging/discharging efficiency it makes sense to occasionally charge all the batteries separately to bring them all to 100%. (if you go to modern battery packs they usually have internal electronic control which automatically monitors and controls each cell)  I'd initially  ignore basically Diag1 as it's lights etc and pull all the fuses so you can get just the motor and control functioning reliably, in the UK it'd be possible to get an MOT without lights.

[PhilA]

Yeah, you want to be able to switch between equalize and float when charging the string.

The big battery banks we have at work are switchable and can equalize each battery at the same time on a set of big relay contacts in the back, or float the string.

Invest in a hygrometer too.

 

Phil

[coalnotdole]

Here's a copy of the battery connection/sequencing diagram from the owners manual:

 

The original onboard charger which I believe is missing from your car would have charged the main bank at 48v (as the default solenoid position connects all the batterys) and a secondary 12v output to charge the lighting and control system battery.

Dave

 

[Will on Syros]

1 hour ago, coalnotdole said:

Here's a copy of the battery connection/sequencing diagram from the owners manual:

 

The original onboard charger which I believe is missing from your car would have charged the main bank at 48v (as the default solenoid position connects all the batterys) and a secondary 12v output to charge the lighting and control system battery.

Dave

 

The onboard charger is there, but is no good for the new batteries.  The electrical guy working on the restoration has said that he'll wire up the charge port so that it will charge the auxiliary battery for the lights etc. at the same time as it charges the other batteries.  The new charger is, apparently, rather posh and clever...i.e. it's made for an ignoramus like me who is definitiely no electrician.  A PhD in mathematics hasn't equipped me with any useful sense of electricals...nor much sense for anything else, come to think about it.

[Will on Syros]

Another interesting document about the electricals... enfield_archeology.pdf

[somewhatfoolish]

Physics is applied maths, electrickery is a subset of physics; at the very least you are well equipped to do the sums.

[Will on Syros]

6 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Physics is applied maths, electrickery is a subset of physics; at the very least you are well equipped to do the sums.

I remember that what goes in a node, must come out of it...and some parallel/series stuff from Physics o' level....but that was 40 years ago.  My application of mathematics is in Statistics (i.e. i know how to lie with numbers at 100 paces). I left the physics behind in '85, half way through my maths degree.  I keep telling myself to get back into it, but my brain has fossilized a little (ok, a lot)...and anyway, there are so many clever people here on Autoshite who are kind enough to help.  These wiring diagrams look like squares and squiggles to me...but I pass them on to the restorer....so thank you to all of you.  This is a very nice community to have discovered.

[Will on Syros]

First coat of red today.  How very exciting!

[Will on Syros]

This is one of maybe two 4-seaters left...needs a lot of love.  It's for sale if anyone is interested...seller is asking £1000 and has been trying to sell it for quite some time. 

[Will on Syros]

Two sets of 4 hubs ordered.  They're made from polished aluminium in the UK by a craftsman who bought the tools from the factory on the Isle of Wight when it closed.  He tells me that he's sold them to about 10 different buyers in the past year.  Althought the wheels are from a mini, the mini hubs don't fit well, so these bespoke ones were made about 2 inches more dished.

[Mrs6C]

5 minutes ago, Will on Syros said:

This is one of maybe two 4-seaters left...needs a lot of love.  It's for sale if anyone is interested...seller is asking £1000 and has been trying to sell it for quite some time. 

How about this, @EmperorPigeon? Not a Model 70, but bags of character, electric traction and as rare as hens' teeth!

[High Jetter]

Got a link?