Ben's Citicar

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

Also your 2nd gear becomes much more usefull ....

No second gear... - PWM controller!

Converting it to have batteries like a CommutaCar might not be bad.

This car has a really weird battery space under the seat. I can only fit 4 of my gel batteries down there or maybe 5 if I mix and match with a group 24 flooded.

[bennelson]

I have been doing some work trying to repair the roof of the Citicar.

Citicars have ABS plastic bodies. When they get old, they get bittle and prone to cracking.

After tearing off the old yucky vinyl, I found two decent-sized cracks in the roof. It looks like they were made from somebody adding "rain gutter" over the doors, but using the wrong style of rivits.



I had an old soldering iron kicking around, so I decided to see if I could use it to melt t he cracks back together again. This area will be covered with new vinyl, so even if it doesn't look good, it's not a big deal.



The soldering iron worked well on the smaller crack, but the large one had too much springyness to the material to hold without just popping again.

I went to a local craft store to find some vinyl. They had some really nice heavy stuff available in white, black, red, green, or brown. It's $11 a yard, but I only need just one yard. The roof of a Citicar measures somewhere about 32"x40".

With the ucky old vinyl removed, I used some Laquer Thinner to get as much of the gross glue and paint off as I could.

I then flopped on the new vinyl and roughly positioned it.


Then I folded it back and used a spray adhesive. I pressed out the material as best I could and let it dry for a few minutes.

Then I trimmed off the extra material.

I ran a bead of caulk on the trim and put that back on, although I don't have quite the right fasteners for it, and the main piece is a little too short! I will have to visit a boat place to find some replacement trim sometime.

[my first gmc]

awesome, found one on ebay. Almost had my step mom sold on it until she found out it didn't have a/c.

[TomEV]

The new top looks good! I took the old sun-baked shredded vinyl off my Citicar about a year ago, but haven't gotten around to replacing it yet. Same cracks - I think the rain gutter is factory. I repaired the cracks with Plastifix, and so far it keeps the water out...