EEVblog #604 - Sinclair C5 Restoration - Part 1

hi yes I'm sitting in a classic 1980s vintage Sinclair c5 and I've done a video on the Sinclair before if you haven't seen it it'll be linked in down below where I teamed up with my mate Malcolm fade who's got two of these puppies ender we drove him around the streets of Sydney and he talked about the design and everything else of these things and we did a teardown but now I'm the proud owner of one of these things scored it on eBay got it for a couple of hundred bucks and it was a bit of a gamble unfortunately there was only one like fuzzy photo of it and it looked like it had been left out in a paddock in the middle of freaking whoop-whoop and well yeah I pretty much got as bad as I expected I was a little bit hopeful that maybe it wouldn't been you know pretty good Nick but it might look okay from this sort of distance but trust me I'll show you some close-ups of this and it's in pretty horrible condition so it's in need of a really good makeover but there that's a project that I'm hopefully going to embark on now actually restoring this Sinclair c5 and upgrading it as well because I live in the hills district here in Sydney which as the name implies it has hills and this thing was never designed to go up any sort of gradient the motor in it just wasn't powerful enough it's not geared or anything like that now there are gearing mods you can do for this there is a gearing mod but it's quite involved and so yeah I think I will upgrade it with modern electric motors and stuff like that assuming that it's in good enough condition to actually do that like the chassis isn't completely in a broken and rusted and all that sort of stuff so I've got to strip it down and I've got a you know pretty much restore the entire thing but hey at least the body is in reasonable condition which is the main thing on a Sinclair c5 but if that chassis is busted then we could be in for a bit of trouble because they're not easy to get to single piece chassis all the way along the bottom but anyway let me show you a tour of this thing and what awful condition it's actually in sometimes you win on eBay sometimes you lose I actually passed up a much better one that went for 500 bucks on eBay I wasn't you know sure if I wanted one if I had room for it to you know to store it and things like that and I was so disappointed I missed this one that I grabbed the very next one that came along and it happened to be this one they're very rare in this country I don't think another one has popped up since I've had this for a couple of months now it's been sitting down in my basement car park gathering dust but I finally bought it up here to the lab and I'm going to one sit it here and restore it and hopefully I'll be able to drive it out of here into the lift whoop downstairs and out we go awesome now the guy who sold it to me said that it does actually go eyyy he did hook a battery up to it and and well the motor went but I I haven't actually powered it up myself to try it I have no idea but check this out let's just have a look at the wiring for example down in here look we've got what we've got here they've got looks like some sort of transistor or something looks like a transistor mounted on this custom aluminium heatsink bracket here there's a treatment what probably two transistors they're not sure what they're doing I don't think they're part of the original Sinclair c5 build and all of the wiring is well you know a bit crusty there is one of one of the switches what I don't know where that came from or if that's original I don't think it is anyway but the micro switch under here is gone we've still got one over here but there's wires flapping all over the place here you can still see down in here I have actually I attempted to clean this out by the way but it still got a whole bunch of the crap in there left over from when it was just sitting in the paddock oh it's just awful now the Chevy itself is not in too bad a condition it's all one piece fiberglass by the way and you can check out these marks on here I have no idea what they are but I'm presuming that I'll be able to you know polish and clean that sort of stuff up the seat is in quite reasonable condition it's had something drilled into here like this and big stains on there maybe was that the but maybe this switch was mounted there or something I don't know really our budge central it really is it's got another custom switch here I don't know what that does because all the wires have been that chopped to it and that's a centre off switch it feels like a big beefy one so maybe it was a motor reversing switch although generally as a standard thing you're not able to reverse the Sinclair c5 you can't just apparently get inside but you can modify the motor to actually do that but yeah you know the wheels are the wheels of a seen better days but they do have the original what covers on them a couple of stickers myth in the the decals the racing stripes on the side there they will need replacing and stuff like that and well the rest of it here we go we've got ourselves the the booting this thing is it's okay it needs a good clean I've got the original Sinclair charger in this sucker so that's pretty good I was pretty happy to get that with it but that's still operational you should clean up reasonably well that's the other wheel there yeah the deckle on that side is completely gone the pedals are all original what Sinclair pedals look rusted the buggery on the sides there so you can just see the see the rust and how this thing has just been left out for I don't know it could have been decades it could have been left out in the weather who knows it looks like it definitely has you know being weather by UV and everything else but hey the pedals are still in reasonable condition the yeah front of it actually looks quite good these Seif I original see five decals are still in place the headline have no idea for it works but that's an easy fix if it's not just a little bit of a chunk taken out there I'm not exactly sure that is but you know polish that out so from the outside if you could actually restore this thing it would still look like I think would polish up and still look like quite a reasonable Sinclair c5 but let's check out on underneath and here's the underside and it is certainly seen better days but it all seems to be fully functional the chain is all are still in place the steering bar still works and everything like that and I have been told that the motor does work but it looks very crusty and trust me I've actually done a bit of cleaning up on this so it was actually worse than this underneath but you can still see all the original still see all that cobwebs and crap and dust under here ah it's absolutely shocking in looks like we've got some rust and maybe our chassis isn't in the best condition and check that out we've got some serious looking rust happening there although I'm no rust chazzy restoration expert that's definitely for sure so I'm not sure how well that wood that will come up but look at the look at the main point of the chassis here and that's just eaten away it looks like it's broken away there and has been eaten away so I don't know any experts out there I'm going to have to please let me know if this chassis is are salvageable or not but hopefully it is because if the chassis is ruined then and while the chassis is not salvageable ie it's not physically you know robust enough to take any weight and actually use the thing then well there's no point restoring the thing apart yeah unless you want it for a showpiece or something like that you couldn't actually use it in anger and well everything is an absolute mess it looks like we're missing the cover off that electronics module there the motor we could get in and take a look at perhaps but I'd have to take off the back the boot of this thing but yeah it's not not in great condition at all have no idea what all that is what all that is designed to connect to I don't know I haven't read my ear Sinclair manual yet and here's the front wheel not sure if that's original I do have a spare wheel in the back there with the the plastic one but I think there wasn't a a issue with the original design of the plastic one where it would you know it would melt against the caliper brakes here so you know I don't know if these are original Sinclair tires or not but you can actually get this thing to pedal and work if I pumped up the tires I could actually pedal the thing around so it is usable in that respect and presumably if I hook up a battery to it I can get the thing to actually drive and do something but of course the idea would be to actually yet restore this thing and upgrade the motor now whether or not I go for a motor that's somehow attached in here or I go for hub motors it might be better I could get like a single hub motor on the back or maybe dual hub motors although I'm not sure how balanced that would be maybe the best bet I think what Mel is doing to his Sinclair fitzy 5 he's looking at putting a front hub motor on the on the front wheel there a modern hub motor on there and that's probably the go I think and keep keep the steering intact of course the steering column you know I if I take that apart and polish it up put some rust protection on there and clean it up it it should still work fine so hopefully if the chassis is in good enough condition then use a hub motor and well you know keep the chain in place of course just for manually peddling the back wheels but generally um it should be doable hmm fingers crossed so here's the other rear wheel there and well yeah it has seen better days that's for sure they built the drive belt here and the toothed wheel in there toothed cog in there actually looks like it would be okay so you know it's probably salvageable as it is and operational as as an original Sinclair c5 but as I said I would I do want to upgrade to it it's just not practical around here in the hills district I want to give it at least some grunt and I did say that there is a geared option available on the Sinclair forums have upgraded to a geared option and you can buy on eBay a bike like like a three-speed geared hub on this thing but you've got to wield it got to take all shaft off you've got to take this off and weld it all in place and everything and you can then replace it with a three-speed bicycle hub but yeah I I don't think that's there probably the best way to do it just stick a big modern powerful hub motor on the front and just be done with it and just keep the original chain mechanism for driving the back wheels probably don't have to gear it it would be nice but hey I don't know how to weld so there you go and so there's a non starter right there I guess I can learn but well yeah I've only got so much time I can devote to this thing so it could be very slow progress yeah I think there's been some creepy crawlies living in there or something nah not that great but anyway here I've taken out the back boot of the thing and we can access the motor up in there there we go is the original Sinclair motor of course and it should still be usable I would have to strip it take it right out strip it down look I mean the the nut on there is the view everything's just rusted on this that's one of the biggest problems I've got us probably rust every single piece has to be stripped down so it needs a absolute complete stripped down every last nut and bolt on the chassis everything else and a complete overhaul so I guess I've got to learn a lot to learn about things like you know Russert getting rid of rust off metal parts and actually restoring and protecting them and learning about seeing if the integrity of this chassis is still intact and whether or not I can maybe weld it back together you know brace it or something like that if I need to and of course one of the big things in a Sinclair c5 is the heads-up display the hard here which shows your battery charge level and and stuff and well yeah it's I believe it works the guy sold to me said well something came up on it whether or not it's you know it's completely operational I don't know would have to wait check that out but it all looks fade all the plastic looks absolutely horrible so you'd have to restore that I I don't know if I'd keep the original one or whether I'd design and you heads-up display for it you know something modern that you know has a trip computer in or something like that perhaps that could be very worthwhile and the sticker unfortunately has seen better days a serial number one triple Oh 502 and the rest of it is peeled off so yeah I'm not sure manufacture by Hoover yeah and there's that big beefy Center off switch that was mounted drilled into the side of the chassis here it's only got two wires coming out of it but it's big and beefy enough to be you know to carry the main battery or a motor current or something like that so who knows what the purpose of that thing was stuck on the bloody side there they just hacked this thing yuck and as for all this other crap I can only presume that maybe they were maybe that's part of some charging circuitry though a China incorporating the thing or something I have no idea but ah man it is just and it's just hopeless what the hell they done wha you can see that those two devices have been pop riveted on to this bhaji aluminium bracket here it's just absolutely ridiculous anyway that's a - SK 1969 a big cut in channel power MOSFET not sure what the other one is can't see a number on that but what the hell have they done so yeah everything looks pretty horrible and crusty on it I wouldn't trust any of the original stuff on here it just looks looks horrible or maybe it just looks worse than it actually is not entirely sure but gee I don't know got my work cut out for me so anyway that's the obligatory our before video of my Sinclair c5 and well mm-hmm I don't know I could have bitten off more than I could chew because I have no idea about restoring cars or bikes or anything like that let alone a Sinclair c5 but I guess I'll learn as I go along so well if anything I can get it maybe to a pushcart woo or a pedal cut oh this thing's a heap of you you

Channel: EEVblog

Views: 62,940

Rating: 4.8828697 out of 5

Keywords: Sinclair C5 (Automobile Generation), electric car, clive sinclair, sinclair c5, restoration

Id: VCUdDe0t7YM

Length: 17min 20sec (1040 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 17 2014