Ben's Citicar

[TomEV]

Most of the lighting problems I had were due to bad grounds. The ground wires connect to the marker light frames with 30-year-old rusted #10 screws, and the headlights are connected to the marker light grounds. Everything has a wire in a car with a plastic body!

Just to clear up a point, I have a Citicar with a Terrell differential (motor in parallel with the axle) and room for 8 batteries under the seat. I use six 8v batteries (48v) and the other space is used by the controller, DC/DC and accessory battery. I can go up to 24 miles (or so) but generally limit it to 15 to not discharge the batteries too deeply.

With your 5-battery setup, I would expect you to be able to get 20 miles at most, but on a daily basis you probably shouldn't go more than 10-12 miles before charging. Biggest problem is that when you have more voltage, you tend to drive faster which eats up the amps...

You can take the windows to a boat canvas shop to have the plastic replaced - much easier to see with new plastic as opposed to the sun-faded semi translucent (and cracked) stuff I had with the original ones.

[bennelson]

Wow, look at the size of the pizza rack on this car! I could fit a couple extra larges up there!

Seriously though, I had my 18 year old brother over today to help me move my old washer and dryer.

When we pulled in the driveway, he said "what the hell is that?", referring to the car.

I took him out for a ride. The very first thing he wanted me to do was floor it.
I can only get the car up to about 40 mph before hitting a 25 and then 15 mph zone.

He got into the vibe of the car pretty fast. By the time we made it down to the golf course (no didn't take it on the greens, but was tempted to..) he wanted to drive.

I pulled into a parking space (sidesways! it fits like that!) and we traded seats. He had a blast driving back to my house.

The car is actually pretty comfy in the passenger seat, with my arm resting on the door without the window in. I also found that since the charger is in back, instead of under the passenger side of the dashboard, there is actually room for me to stick my legs straight out like in a recliner. Comfy! (I am 6 feet tall!)

I am now just imagining my brother driving this car over to high school and pick up chicks....

[Tango Charlie]

You are the coolest brother, EVER!
Hey, sounds like free labor...

[bennelson]

He is taking ADVANCED Auto Shop this semester....


MWah ha ha ha ha ha ha!



Come on, a Citicar would make an awesome highschool shop project!


Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I got my temp plates, so I can legally roll now!

[Ryland]

Girls do love these cars, but from talking to people that have given them to highschool auto shop classes they tend to get scraped and are never seen from again...

[dcb]

Ben, that's so not fair, you get a citicar too

So does this displace the metro?

The single LED taillight is an interesting touch

I forgot about that teardrop trailer too, man you got all the cool toys!!!

[MetroMPG]

You have too many EV's! And your Citi has pimp fat tires on it, eh? You've got everything you need now.

Enjoyed the video on the previous page too.

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by dcb

So does this displace the metro?
!

Unfortunately, the Metro and the Citicar both are really in the same niche; street legal, limited range electric car.

I will have to work on the brakes on the Citicar, and I still have to finish the Metro. Been busy latey. No time to finish it off.

Winter is coming way too fast, and not much gets done til spring.

[toyobug]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

And your Citi has pimp fat tires on it, eh?

do you think narrow tires would add range?

[MetroMPG]

Hard to say. All else being equal, depends on the rolling resistance of each tire.

The tires on there look like they may also have a larger circumference than stock too, so his motor speed may be a bit low. Higher is usually more efficient for a given speed according to the Yodas of the EVDL...

[Christopher Jordan]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

All else being equal, depends on the rolling resistance of each tire.

Really chancy going much thinner. Sort of like side-by-side golf carts - very necessary to handle battery/passenger weight. My "EL" is a 1 person micro-car, and it has US compatible tires coming by UPS instead of the German Continentals. I would not want to go thinner- less tread for resistance might be a chance worth taking to lower resistance (but that would mean sliding, fish-tailing acceleration.

Cheaper than my recumbent trike tires too!

[Ryland]

the stock size tires are 125/80R13 most likely, my 1981 comuti-car came with it's original 135/80R13 snow tires that I have replaced with new 145/70R13 tires from Green Autos Home (Tim@greenautos.com sold them to me, they are in Janesville, Ben), but those 145/70R13 tires are a bit wide, they tend to rub while turning sharp, but they grip like mad, I have to be on smooth pavement or gravel to spin the tires, and cornering is not an issue at all, and are much quieter I ever could have dreamed.

[bennelson]

I got to see a Citicar today!

Rich drove his orange 1975 Citicar to the Milwaukee EV build day.

It's pretty nice looking. Love the color.

I was able to see on his why my parking brake doesn't work. I am missing a part! I will have to see if I can find it in one of the two parts buckets I have! They I can get the parking brake working! Whoo Hoo!

I brought my charger for the Citicar with as well.

We hooked it up with a lightbulb as a load and tested it. We were able to get it working enough to get 60 volts out of it.

At home later, after being interrupted by teenage boys wanting to check out my "cool" electric car, I got the charger working. I had to open it up and change an internal resistor to get to the right voltage, but then it worked fine.

Mark, who has a Commuta Car, was also there, so he and Rich and I were talking C-Cars a lot. He has a bunch of spare parts that seem to be from a Citicar instead of a Commuta Car.

I smell a C-Car project day coming up!!!

The car is charging at 10 amps right now. I will check out working on the parking brake sometime soon too.

[bennelson]

I got to work on the Citicar a little bit today.

Rich, a Milwaukee area Citicar owner, came over to my house, we put my car on his trailer and took it over to his house, where he has an aluminum welder and other useful tools.

We got the parking brake working, looked at and adjusted the brakes, and got some ideas for further work.



Since we had both cars together, we had to snap a few photos..





See more photos here

Another odd thing is that my car has a white body and interior with black windows. Rich's car has a black roof and interior with a white window. We switched windows for a couple photos.

There is also some talk on the Yahoo C-Car group about a CitiCar/CommutaCar International Convention next year. Rich has an RV he's working on that may be set up as a flat-bed in back. We could carry 3 cars on back and 3 more on a trailer out to the convention!!!

[toyobug]

I noticed that Rich's car had smaller tires. Would this give him an advantage in range?

[bennelson]

There are a few differences between the two cars.

Tire size is one of the easiest to notice differences. His has trailer tires, which are pretty close in size and shape to what these cars originally came with.

Mine has a funky 13" wheel and tires, but they are actual radials. Supposedly, they ride much better.

I really don't think that the difference in tires is a huge difference.

Besides, a battery charge isn't like a tank of gas. You can't just run it until you stop! That's really hard on the batteries.

Rich's car has more lbs of lead in it. Part of that is the battery tray under his seat is larger, and a nice, rectangular shape. My tray is an odd shape because the motor sticks in, at a right angle to the rear axle. His is parallel to the axle.

Here's what it looks like under my seat.


Notice how the motor intrudes on the battery space. I DO however have a higher system voltage than Rich's car. Mine currently runs at 60V and his is 48. That means mine goes faster! Also, it pulls fewer amps to do the same work, because of the higher voltage.

I am trying to figure out how to fit one more battery under the seat. The motor is off-center, and the batteries are not the size that the vehicle was designed for.

It looks like it may be possible to remove the speedometer cable from the end of the motor and then line up six batteries in there.

I'll put that on my list of future modifications...

[bennelson]

Just got my Citicar Title and Registration in the mail today!

It's going to have "Hobbyist" plates on it, so there is no expiration to them!

The car is old, so it is exempt from odometer status and emissions testing.

On the Title, it is listed as a "CITY CAR"!

I KNOW I put "CITICAR" on the application form! I guess the DMV has people whose only job is to retype things wrong.....

Anyways, it's street legal, registered, and titled.

I am still waiting for my license plate, which has to be manufactured.

Oddly, it will NOT be the same number as the motorcycle. For some strange reason, if you have multiple hobbyist motorcycles OR cars, they all get the same number, with a different letter on the end, but if you have one car AND one motorcycle, they get different numbers!

[TomEV]

For comparison, here's my 76 Citicar (Yellow) next to a neighbor's 80 Comutacar (red).

The Comuta is being upgraded to 72v and 11HP - should be on the road soon!

[bennelson]

Keep me updated on your upgrade to 72V!

What motor is going in yours?

Mine has the original 3.5 hp GE motor, but with a Curtis 48-72V controller.

[bennelson]

I put the Citicar into storage for the winter. I have no basement or workshop, so all that stuff ends up in my garage.



I also want to have my wife's Sunfire and the Electro-Metro in the garage for the winter. (much easier NOT to have to scrape ice every morning!)

I moved the cycle, the Citicar, and some other things in to a storage unit.

I drove the Citicar over there and got a lift back home. Driving over there, I stopped at Arby's. My plan was to go through the drive-thru, but it was a road construction zone there, and I didn't want to do the 6 inch drop off the curb.

Note to self:
Citicars do NOT have a cup holder!



It took more of a charge than I thought to drive over there. I think that might be because the brakes drag a tad since we adjusted them. (At least they work!)

The storage place is next door to, and owned by, a car repair place. In their parking lot, they have 20 amp power outlets on each street light.

I asked the owner about charging up at one of the light posts, and he said "no problem".

I charged up over night and then moved the car back into the storage unit this morning (while my wife was out voting!)

The car will be in the front of the unit, so I can easily pull it out and transport it for working on the car.