I wish I had brought my camera, some members did take some pictures.
The van had some rusting out around the windshield, holes big enough to put your finger in, the paint was all "chalky", a white van with some faded USF EV letters. The body needs a lot of rust hole & dent repair and a new paint job definitely. The battery box is in the center between the wheels and is held up by four 5/8" x 6" bolts, the front are 90 degrees to the rear which won't allow a "hinging" down of the pack on the sides. We let the air out of the tires to lower the van down and set the pack on two pair or stacked 2x6's. We were not sure if we had anything that would lower it safely. We pulled the bolts and re-inflated the tires raising the van off the pack, almost. With the weight off the body we then used a floor jack to raise it up to clear the pack. The pack was made up of 36 six volt 225Ah flooded batteries I think, they were 200 something anyhow. They had rubber hoses connected to all the caps going back up to a watering system, the one battery we checked was bone dry. We took my 320VDC Prius PHEV charger and connected it to one 9 battery string and it started to take a charge but I'm guessing the plates are all sulfated and when we check the water and found it was dry we stopped. The rear end had been flipped over, the yoke was facing the rear bumper and the HUGH motor was behind the rear axle with about a 24" driveshaft connected to a gearbox of some sorts. I think it was an AC motor, about 24" around, looked big & heavy. The battery charger was in the back of the van, about the size of two, 2-drawer file cabinets. The whole rectifier section was missing, only a ferro-resonate transformer and a few circuit boards were left along with the control panel and a red LED digit array. I didn't see it but I was told there was a small diesel engine for cabin heat and the fuel tank was connected where the old tank was but only about a 5 gallon unit. The drive electronics were mounted under the "engine hump cover" in a non-metallic box about 30" wide and 18" deep about 14" high. There were what looked like DC to 3 phase inverter boards in it and a lot of other dusty boards. There was a DC motor in front that looked like it was driving the A/C and power steering pumps. The lower headlights were half full of rain water. The inside was musty smelling and very dirty. My opinion is, the owners won't take less than $5000 each and I get the impression closer to $10,000 each. I "heard" they paid just $100 each for them but this has not been confirmed. I would like to have one for our new club to restore as a PR device. IMHO to try and restore these and put them to use would not be economical. Jim From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of mondo roldan Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 8:25 PM To: FLEAA Mailing List Subject: Re: [FLEAA] USF Van anyone has a picture of these vans... can't make an offer if some of us don't know what they look like... or just give us their info and we can talk to them privately with not middle man involve ... --- On Tue, 7/29/08, William Young <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: William Young <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [FLEAA] USF Van To: "FLEAA Mailing List" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, July 29, 2008, 7:50 PM HI Is this the Gruman utility vans like postoffice trucks? Bill _____ Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:43:05 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [email protected] Subject: [FLEAA] USF Van Have you reserved a url for the new club name? Something like suncoasteva.com <http://suncoasteva.com/> or even suncoasteva.org <http://suncoasteva.org/> (probably both would be good.) When I make websites I usually go through http://hostfor2bucks.com/ , there is a $5 setup fee so the first year is $29, but every year after that it is only $24. I'm not affiliated with them, just trying to help save the club money. You can buy extra bandwidth for a one time fee. As for the vans. Who owns them? Is it possible to purchase them? I mean, it sounds like the batteries, controller, and charger needs replacing, but that would be easier then a full from scratch conversion for someone. I would be interested in getting one and purchasing the components needed to get it running again. REPLY FROM MICHAEL CLARK The people that have the van are very disappointed that they are in the shape they are in. they didnt know anything about them. They want to sell them but not sure how much to sell them for. They have 2. We just said the motors may be worth a few hundred dollars but basically as an EV they are dead and worthless to anyone other than a person who can rebuild them. I can let them know you are interested if you can give an offer. _____ Stay in touch when you're away with Windows Live Messenger. IM anytime you're online. <http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_me ssenger2_072008> _______________________________________________ Florida EAA mailing list [email protected] http://www.floridaeaa.org
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