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SA electric vehicle enłhusiast builds

An Electric Morris Min©r Ute!

You’ve heard about those dedicated people who buy old Morris Minor cars and do them up? Here’s a story with a difference — not a normal rebuild, but a complete conversion to electric drive.

by E.C. HURFORD

ELECTRONICS Australia, September 1987

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In the mid 70’s-1 bought a Morris Minor ute (pictured) but without the IC engine. Following this I bought an electric “Tow Motor” of the 1930’s vintage. I removed the electric motor, the nickel-iron cells and the controller. The controller being hand operated, I had to convert it to foot operated via an accel-erator pedał. The rest of the Tow Motor I dumped

Next I removed the ute’s radiator, pe-trol tank, and any pieces not required. Then I proceeded to fit the electric motor where the IC engine had been and direct coupled it to the existing gearbox. The Edison nickel-iron cells

were already in a frame, so it was just a matter of bolting the frame into the util-ity*s tray. This conversion proved only partly successful because the gross vehi-cle weight was 1.2 tonnes — too heavy for any respectable turn of speed.

Also the nickel-iron cells, being 35-40 years old, did not haVe the capacity to hołd a decent amount of charge and their total weight was over 9(K)lbs.

Come 1984, I decided to have an-other go, removing the nickel-iron cells and replacing these with six CX5 Chlo-ride lead-acid batteries arranged in series/parallel to give 36V.

Next the motor, which was a 48V

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series motor I removed the series field coils and replaced them with shunt wound coils. Now I had regeneration, and by field weakening through adding resistance via the controller, an increase in speed.

The new batteries, being total weight 5(X)lbs, reduced vehicle weight by at least 400lbs, which helped speed. A fur-ther reduction could be achieved by a lighter, morę modern motor, but I am reluctant to remove the old robust motor.

I have a KWH meter on the battery charger, to check the charging cost.

Ori the vehicle I have an amp/hr meter, which reads the amount of charge removed or put in the batteries. In other words, whether the batteries are fuli, empty or in between.

On the dashboard there is a voltme-ter, an ampmeter and also speed and distancc jneter.

* I have now added 2 morę CX5 Chlo-ridc 12-volt batteries. This now giv'e me two banks of 48 volts used in parallel. This gives greater capacity. There is a separate I2-volt battery for auxillary equipment.

I use the gear box for gradients where necessary, but usually start in 3rd or 4th on fiat terrain.

•Start and acceleration is as follows:

First Stage: Fuli volts on field and fuli resistance in series with armaturę.

Second Stage: Fuli volts on field, reduced resistance in series with armaturę.

Third Stage: Fuli volts on field and no resistance in series with armaturę.

Fourth Stage: Weakened field with resistance in series. Fuli volts on armaturę.

No electronic control, just old fashion control — perhaps wasteful of power in resistance, but only momentarily, at most times.

(Reprinted from “Electric Vehicle News”, by courtesy of the Australian Electric Yehicle Association Inc.) <D

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