Saturday and Sunday at:

Saturday, August 28th, 2001, 6:00 AM. Yes, that's right I got to "sleep in" this morning. The night's rest was pretty good, considering that the last time I slept in a tent was probably when I was in Boy Scouts. As usual when away from home, I was wearing ear plugs while I slept, so it was the morning light which awakened me.

Ate some breakfast granola and made a cup of coffee on the portable stove, as I don't know when the espresso trailer opens this morning, and I need to turn on the lights inside my head. The thing about running on sleep deprivation and caffeine is that I have a lot of energy, but also a zoned-out feeling which will eventually catch up with me.

SolWest is hosted at the Grant County Fairgrounds, just a couple of blocks away from Main Street in John Day. The Orchard, which is where the tent camping is located, is to the north of the grounds, and is also the area under the KJDY-AM transmission tower. To the south are the stock barns and classrooms where many of the presentations and lectures are held, then the Pavillion building, which houses some of the displays and the fair office. Outside to the east is the general vendor's area, with displays of wind machines, solar panels, water pumping equipment, and my EV and pusher combo.

Arrived at the car to find that the circuit breaker on the service panel had tripped with 18 ampere-hours still to charge, so I reset the breaker to finish the charge. Darren arrived with a 10 by 10 foot pop-up canopy, which we set up over the rear of the car and front of the trailer. I scored a folding table from behind the Home Power booth and taped some printed sheets of descriptive material about the car and trailer to the top and put out a stack of my "business" cards with the web address on them. Open for Business!

(Neither of these guys is me!)

Borrowed a Seimens SP-70 photovoltaic panel from Bob at Energy Outfitters, and using some wire donated by another booth, I hooked it up to recharge the battery under the hood of the pusher.

I had expected that there would be some interest in my homemade hybrid, but the response was pretty astounding. From the time I arrived at the car about 7 AM until I finally broke away about 7 PM, there was a constant stream of visitors, both public and fellow exhibitors, coming by to ask about the trailer and car. I put the trailer first, as the EV seemed to inspire less interest than the pusher.

About halfway through the day, I realized that the non-stop talking was going to deep-six my throat, so I tried to conserve my voice, and talk from the diaphragm. This helped some, and I made it a point to drink a lot of the bottled water that I had purposely brought along to beat the high country heat.

Of course, the questions about the pusher were quite predictable, "What does it do?" and "What is that drill for?" and "Doesn't it get out of control with that single-point hitch?", and all of the rest. After a while, I decided to have some fun with it and would make some of the viewers draw their own conclusions, then follow up with the correct information. This also helped conserve my voice, as there would be perhaps ten or fifteen people drawing conclusions and figuring out the system, and passing the knowledge along to others who had just walked up.

Somewhere during the afternoon, I got away for a few minutes to have a baked potato and visit with other friends who had exhibits. The solar panel that I had borrowed had recharged the pusher battery, so I disconnected it and returned it to be stowed away with the other merchandise at the end of the day.

Dropped over to the Home Power booth to see what Richard Perez had in mind for dinner, but was disappointed to find that he and the HP crew were heading for a heavy-duty steak house, which didn't appeal to my vegetarian tastes at all. Instead, I ordered a garden burger at one of the food concessions on site, then took it over to Darren's motel room to nosh along with some good beer before doing the shower thing.

Afterwards, we had planned on going over to Canyon City to take part in the "Music in the Park" event, which is when the entire town turns out for a festival in the town square. Unfortunately, when I unhooked the trailer and started the EV to drive the two miles from John Day to Canyon City, I found that the controller had blown a transistor, and the motor would only idle, I had no accelerator action. This is the second time this has happened, but never so far from home and repair parts.

About the time that I arrived back at the Motel to tell Darren that we would need to take his car to Canyon City, we saw the HP crew returning from dinner. Stopped by their swank motel suite (they get the multi-bedroom apartment at the Dreamers Inn) to inquire about the possibility that they would know where I could pick up a replacement component to repair the car in the morning. They didn't, and we ended up staying for a chat, drinking a little bit more beer, smoking cigarettes, and swapping stories.

The little party broke up about 10:30 or so, and I went back to The Orchard and my tent to go to bed at an actually reasonable hour for a change.

Sunday, July 29th. The day dawned partly cloudy, with the smell of rain in the air. Did the usual morning routine, breakfast, coffee, etc., and wandered over to the car and trailer. Today I resolved to spend a bit more time checking out the other exhibitor's wares and take in Dave's Biodiesel lecture.

At 11:00 AM, the Electrathon race began in the fairgrounds parking lot. About 20 cars started the circuit, which ran out of the main gates and looped around one square block of the adjoining residential neighborhood. Last year, the track was fully contained within the parking lot, and the tightness of the turns was really hard on tires and wheels, producing many blowouts.

Also during the 2000 SolWest fair, the Home Power crew was bitten by the Electrathon racing bug, and vowed to have their own racing team and cars this year. The two high-tech cars that Richard Perez commissioned weren't quite race-ready, so one was displayed at the Home Power booth, but not entered in the competition.

Before the race ended, I had to leave to join the Biodiesel lecture. David had brought a small trailer which had been reconstructed into a complete Biodiesel lab, capable of producing 12 gallons of fuel per batch. The first half of the lecture was some background on vegetable oil fuels, and very basic concepts of diesel engine operation. I had a pretty good handle on these, having read up on the fuel and torn my engine to a bare block and back to running condition. What I didn't know is that Rudolph Diesel got the idea for the diesel engine combustion by watching African natives kindle fires by igniting combustible materials by heating them inside telescoping wooden logs, the compression of the air causing the temperature to rise to a very high degree.

The second half of Dave's talk was a demonstration of the actual making of Biodiesel fuel as a "blender batch", literally made in a kitchen blender using virgin oil, isopropyl alcohol and store-bought drain opener. Although the reaction and settling of the fuel takes about eight hours, after only five minutes there was a noticeable separation of fuel from the rest of the mixture in the blender top.

There had been an intense interest in Biodiesel fuel all during the fair, and Saturday, I had been offered a fill up with fuel by two people, Jacques, who had come from Corvallis, Oregon in a Biodiesel-fueled VW Rabbit with a 15 gallon barrel of fuel in his back seat, and Nick, who was hauling a 55 gallon drum of commercially-made Biodiesel in the back of his diesel pickup. Now I had to decide who to accept a refill from. Nick was leaving, and had driven his truck onto the fairgrounds to get close enough to reach the filler on the pusher, scattering fair attendees in the process. I apologized to Jacques, as I didn't want him to be disappointed that I didn't take him up on his offer of fuel. As it turned out, Jacques was later to play a much more important role in this trip.

(Left-to-right) Unknown fair attendee. Jacques, manning the filler hose. Mike and
Shorty, who travel in a Biodiesel-powered school bus conversion. Nick, pumping
the fuel in the truck bed. Bob Maynard of Energy Outfitters' elbow.

About 3:30 PM, the clouds let go with a few showers, and all of the exhibitors made haste to pack up their wares and get under cover. I collapsed the canopy before it got wet and we stuffed it into Darren's car. Since I had no interest in sleeping in a soggy tent, I drove the car and trailer back to the Orchard and threw all of my gear into the car, took down the tent, and drove into one of the stock barns to set up camp under a secure roof. Jacques thought this was a pretty good idea, so he joined me with his car and tent. The rain held off for several more hours, so we were able to spend a bit of time socializing with the remaining members of the fair, as most everyone else had packed up and hit the road. Jennifer Barker, the SolWest organizer, had six or eight pizzas delivered, and there was a couple of kegs of beer left from some party earlier, so we sat around in the campground "bar" and ate and drank a bit.

Richard Perez came by and I gave him the tour of the pusher in the stock barn. He requested a 2,500 word article for an upcoming issue of Home Power.

Bedded down to the sound of light sprinkles on the tin roof, secure in the knowledge that I would awake to a fairly dry tent and bedding.

2 tents, 2½ Rabbits, and a bicycle

See what happens tomorrow (Monday)

The Trip Home

Monday, August 30, 2001. Overnight, moderate rain had fallen intermittently, the rain on the metal roof overhead fairly noisy. I was quite happy to awake in a perfectly dry tent and bedding. The fairgrounds were deserted this early in the morning, so I used the quiet time to shower and shave in the restrooms within the classroom building.

About 8:20, while I was making some coffee, using the back of the pusher as a picnic table, Jennifer hurried in and recruited Jacques and I to help move a large TV/VCR that she had borrowed from the Forrest Service office. It needed to be back right away, so we loaded it and the metal stand into her VW transporter and headed off for the federal offices. Jacques and I followed in his car, as the TV took up all of the passenger seat in the old VW truck's front.

After unloading the equipment and setting it up inside the offices, Jacques and I went to the John Day Radio Shack store to find a replacement transistor for the controller in the EV. This part would be essential for the trip home. I managed to grab the last 2N3055 transistor on the shelf, and installed it back in the stock barn, while also packing up the tent and bedding and organizing the car for the trip home. The new semiconductor corrected the controller problem, so I put a finishing charge on the batteries, loaded the bicycle onto the rack, and we drove out of the barn into the rain. Once on the pavement, I found that I had no throttle once again, the new (and only available) part had failed after only a couple of hundred feet. I considered my options, which were to leave the car in John Day and ride home with Jacques, returning at some point to try and fix the controller in a more permanent manner, or to try and make it to Prineville and find another electronics store, and repair the problem with hopes of better luck. It would be tough going over the pass without electric assist, but I decided to try it, and we set off for the west after a series of stops to get propane for the fumigation system, put the pusher in gear (forgot), and find out why the clutch wasn't working (again).

Finally, we got to the end of town, I engaged the pusher and shut down the EV to coast. We made pretty good time in spite of being held up behind a slow motor home, which turned off at Dayville, leaving us to barrel down the road at 65 MPH, making a little dent in the trip ahead.

Considering that I had to shut off the ignition, powering down the electric drive after about 40 MPH, things were going pretty well. I did find that I had forgotten to turn the ignition key back on after the shut down a time or two, and only managed to catch the problem because the wipers wouldn't work with the key off. This could be a disastrous problem if forgotten too long, as the steering wheel lock could catch the first time I went around a corner, sending the car off the road or worse.

There seemed to be a lot of construction on the highway, and we were stopped by flagmen several times. The last time, it had been raining quite a bit and the trucks entering the highway to transport soil had left a thick layer of mud, which I had to drive the car and pusher through, coating both with thick muck.

After going through Picture Gorge, I turned off towards Kimberly on highway 19, partly to let the semi truck that had been following at a respectful distance pass, but mostly to pull over and shift the pusher into third gear for the trip up the Table Mountain pass, the first pass that I would be attempting to climb without the assistance of the electric drive.

Downshifted the pusher and got back onto highway 26, and found that I could still assist the pusher even with the EV able only to idle. Whenever my speed went below 40 MPH, I engaged the electric drive in fourth gear on the EV, and was able to hold a decent speed going up the fairly steep and twisty road. At one point, as I was entering a sharp curve, I slacked off on the pusher's throttle, but the servo didn't respond. This resulted in the trailer kacking around a little bit, swerving from side to side in a fairly alarming manner. This was the first and only time that the dire expectations of those who wonder if a single-point hitch is safe nearly came true.

At the top of the Table Mountain pass, I pulled over to put the pusher back into fourth gear for the decent, and found (yet again) that the clutch wasn't operating, and I shuddered to a stop, with Jacques behind. Even with the trailer stationary, I couldn't get the drill motor to do anything but buzz, so there was nothing else to do but pull it along, back into traffic, chugging and bucking until the speed was sufficient to make the diesel motor run.

Went through the gears on the EV, and at this point, things get a little hazy in my memory. I must have turned the EV off at some stage of the decent. As my speed increased, I decided to rub off a little of the velocity by using regenerative braking, and put the EV into fourth gear and let out the clutch. No current returned to the batteries, that's weird. Then I realized that I hadn't "started" the EV motor using the ignition key. I twisted the key over to "start" and waited for the contactor under the hood to pull in with a clunk. It didn't happen. I tried it again, letting the clutch out to see if I had just missed the familiar clunking noise of the contactor engaging. Nope, no regen. I watched the E-meter for signs of the motor starting or running, and saw only a 60 amp discharge when turning the key to "start".

By now, the car and trailer were kind of hauling ass down the steep hill, and I had to ride the brakes hard to keep from getting out of control.

At the turn off for the town of Mitchell, very close to the bottom of the pass, I pulled of the road and tried the motor again. The usual clicking of the smaller contactors was normal, but instead of the motor quickly gaining speed, I heard the big armature spin up very slowly.

I opened the controller to find that the soft-start contactor had suffered a catastrophic fire, and the inside of the controller box had been singed with flame and smoke. With Jacques watching, I tried starting the motor again. His commentary from the front of the car wasn't encouraging. "It's beginning to smoke, now the parts are glowing, it's turning orange!"

With no way to pull the pusher up to speed, and the pusher clutch not operating, I closed the hood and said: "This trip is over".

Walking the couple of hundred yards from the highway into town, I passed the city park, a card-lock fuel station, a restaurant, and then decided to inquire at the Wheeler County General Store if there was a secure place to store the car and trailer so that I could arrange to have them hauled back home in a few days' time. I explained, briefly, my situation to Michelle, the proprietor of the store, after which she led me over to the feed barn across the street. "You boys get all these get all of these motorcycles out of the way, this fellow is going to park his car here", were her orders to the guys working on about a dozen bikes in various states of disassembly. While the cycles were pushed out of the way and stored closer together in another part of the barn, I walked back up to the car and coasted it down the hill, and right through the barn door. Disconnected the trailer and pushed it out of the way on one side, as maneuvered the car into the back of the structure, so that the small forklift could still be used to access feed and salt blocks for customers purchases. I disconnected the EV's battery pack to preclude any possibility of repeat fires under the hood, then transferred the most important of my belongings to Jacques' already fairly well-packed Rabbit.

Back at the General Store, I left my name and number, and the key to the car, in case it needed to be moved. I learned that the store had a rich history, having been built in the 1880's and it once housed the assayer's office when there were numerous gold claims and mining in the area. Of course, I offered to pay for the storage of the car for however long it was there, but my payment was politely refused.

Back at the car, Jacques was filling a one gallon jug with Biodiesel for the motorcycle mechanics to try as a cleaning solvent. They were also intensely interested in the EV and pusher. I guess they don't get too many electric vehicles in these parts.

Before leaving, we paid a visit to Henry, the town black bear, who lives in a cage next to the filling station. Henry had been adopted by Mitchell when the charitable organization which raised him had gone out of business. Still a yearling, we were told that Hugh, his master, frequently wrestles with him, but many locals think that will end soon, as Henry matures, and Hugh isn't getting any bigger or younger!

I got into Jacques' Rabbit, and we headed west. My disappointment at the abrupt ending of my return trip was tempered by the gratitude that I wasn't having to hitch-hike, and at least I'd be returning home still powered by Biodiesel.

A few miles from Mitchell, we came upon the turnout for the Painted Hills Unit of the John Day National Monument. As we had planned on making the 12 mile detour from the beginning of the return trip, and had missed lunch while fooling with the EV and trailer, we turned north for a recreational side trip.

The rain had let up and the clouds parted partially to light the hills with spectacular contrasts of direct sun, soft overcast and dark shadows. The air was clean and still, and the temperature warmed appreciably when the sun came out in patches. We ate sandwiches and fruit, and got into a friendly competition to see who could reload their camera with media faster, Jacques with film, and I scrabbling in a pocket of my pack for the spare memory stick for my digital camera. I won, but not by very much.

A few other visitors made the climb up to the observation area, driving up, getting out to look and take a few photos, then jumping back into their cars to continue their vacation trips. None spent more than 5 minutes there, and we began to feel like old-timers after a half an hour. Of course, we had about 200 miles to cover ourselves, and soon made for the highway to complete the trip.

Jacques and I conversed freely for the rest of the trip, and get to know one another better. A rest stop at Belknap Hot Springs, then the final leg of the journey, arriving home after 5:00PM. Delivery right to my door, what more could I ask of anyone, much less an acquaintance of only two days? My profound thanks to Jacques for his help and support, without which I would have been facing a greater trial as a result of this breakdown.

Next...I finish this never-ending travelogue up and get back to pusher construction!

SolWest Salvage Operation

Tuesday, July 31st. The better part of the morning was spent trying to figure out what I was going to do to recover the EV and Pusher. After looking in the phone book, a few calls to automobile transport companies revealed that it would be very expensive to have a car-hauler pick up my vehicles. One independent operator quoted me $600 to show up in Mitchell, plus a $50 "winch fee" for each vehicle on and then off the trailer, plus any overtime that the trip entailed. Obviously, I was going to have to find a less costly method of bringing back the hardware.

Several more calls to associates who might have access to a large truck that I might borrow were also fruitless. My own internal combustion pickup is way too underpowered to haul much of a load up any hill, much less two mountain passes. Added to this was the necessity of making two trips over and back, no matter whose truck I used, one to bring back the EV and another to get the Pusher.

Next were calls to local rental yards. Eventually, I found a one-ton flatbed truck for $65/day plus 50¢/mile. They only had heavy-duty equipment trailers, so I located a 20 foot car trailer at another yard for $40/day. The equipment trailer would have worked, but I was pretty sure that I would have to use a "come along" to winch the car and Pusher onto the trailer, and I wanted a low a deck as possible for this reason.

After making the appropriate arrangements with my insurance carrier, I went late in the day to pick up the truck, then the trailer. The truck turned out to have two fuel tanks (this would be important later) and a high performance engine (which also proved useful, but expensive to feed).

At the second rental yard, the crew had a lot of trouble making the trailer lights work, until I found that the cable had been severed under the trailer's tongue. After they patched up the damage, I was on the road to home, and early to bed so I could begin the day early tomorrow to return to Mitchell.

August 1st, 4:00 AM. Another damned alarmed awakening. Coffee. I need coffee, but no time. Tossed the digital camera onto the pack, checked to see that I was taking enough tools, chains, etc. Out to the truck and start the engine before dawn, on the road and out of town. A stop at Fast Lane Coffee for something strong to get me over the hills. The first light of the new day appeared as I drove up McKenzie highway.

As with any other trip out of town, I have the feeling I've forgotten something. Checking the pack shows that although the digital camera is inside, the memory stick required to store photos is not inside the camera. Great.

7:00 AM. A rest stop in Sisters, parked the truck and trailer in the exact spot in front of the bicycle shop where I worked on the pusher's servo the previous Friday. More coffee, strong and bitter, but necessary. The coffee store is about the only thing stirring in Sisters at this hour. Back to the road.

Coming up McKenzie Highway, I had the distinct feeling that the truck had adequate power, but every time I looked down at the instrument panel, the fuel gauge was noticeably lower than previously. Leaving the outskirts of Sisters, I switched to the rear tank, and upon pulling into Prineville, decided to fill both tanks. Once the EV and pusher were on the car trailer, I knew that fuel consumption would increase.

No problem going over the Ochoco Pass, arrived in Mitchell about a half-hour earlier than I had projected. Good, being ahead of schedule would relieve some of the pressure of loading the car and Pusher. Peeked into the feed barn to make sure that everything was OK with the car and trailer, then walked across the street to the General Store to get the key and offer payment for the storage.

Apparently, the employees that I had talked to on Monday hadn't bothered to mention the car to the owner, who found it and the Pusher in the barn this morning, and wondered what was going on. Fortunately, I had seen where Michelle had put the key behind the counter, as the owner didn't know where to find that either. I offered to pay for the storage, and as before, was refused. Folks in these parts just don't take money for helping travelers in distress.

Having all day Tuesday to think about the failure in the controller of the EV, I wanted to try a couple of things to see if I could get it running, which would make loading it and the Pusher onto the trailer much easier. First, I bypassed the PWM board in the field circuit, and checked the field fuse, which was OK. After reconnecting the batteries, I tried the key in the ignition, and the motor ran up to speed normally. Not only did this mean that I had a less serious failure than I had feared at first, but meant that I could simply drive the EV and Pusher onto the car trailer, saving much labor, time and swearing. Of course, I still had no accelerator, but the electric motor has more than enough torque to drive up the trailer ramp. The only remaining question was whether I would have enough traction on the steel cleats of the trailer ramp to actually drive up.

In order to make this as simple as possible, I used nearly all of the blocking and small timbers that I had loaded on the truck to boost the rear end of the truck in the air, placing the wood under the truck's dual rear wheels. This would lower the rear of the trailer and make the ramps much less steep.

About the time I got ready to drive onto the car trailer, Hugh, Henry the Bear's owner arrived, and critiqued the operation. I asked him if he would be performing bear wrasslin' today, but he decided not.

The EV fairly glided up the ramps pulling the Pusher onto the car trailer with ease, and not an inch of length to spare. While I secured the car and trailer with chains and binders, Cynde, who had decided to ditch work and come along for the day, went over to the diner, and ordered us some lunch. Fortunately, the Mitchell Diner had veggie burgers on the menu, so by the time I was done and ready to rest, the food was just being served. Cynde snapped a few photos with a cheap, disposable camera, purchased at the General Store.

Just as I was finishing up, a truck halted in the street next to where I was working, leaving the engine running to spew dirty petroleum-diesel exhaust stink all over the area. This seemed particularly ironic, given the name of the company that owned the truck, and my Biodiesel-powered mission to SolWest. The name of the company? Here's a close-up of the door of the truck...

I guess I'd have been more surprised, but Fossil, Oregon is a nearby town. Still, the opportunity to capture an image of my Biodiesel-electric hybrid vehicle next to a lumbering petroleum fuel delivery truck with this name and logo was too much to pass up. Pity I was just getting ready to burn a whole lot of expensive gasoline to take the car home...

After finishing lunch at the cafe, as I was walking back across the street to the truck and trailer, a fellow pushing a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle straggled into town and stopped in front of the door to the feed barn where the EV had been stored. He explained that it had just quit running and seemed to have no electrical power at all. I gave him the newcomer's orientation and directed him to the General Store, and even was able to lend the encouraging advice that the town had some motorcycle mechanics in residence. Another traveler broke down and in need of assistance.

A few miles west of Mitchell, I came upon the cross road for the Painted Hills, and decided to burn a few gallons of that expensive gas to stop by for a brief visit. It wasn't until I had gotten to the end of the pavement that I realized the near danger of the action. Once upon the gravel road leading up to the viewpoint, the truck, which was carrying no load in the bed other than my bicycle, began to lose traction. I had to be very easy on the throttle, and keep moving. To stop would have be to become stuck, and I'd have had to back the truck and trailer, loaded with the EV and pusher down the fairly steep and twisty road back to the flat ground. Fortunately, we kept moving and I realized my intent to visit the Painted Hills in the EV. Sort of.

Only a few minutes to snap a photo or two, then back to the road. If I thought that the truck and trailer had been using fuel before, the grind up the east side of the Ococho Pass was a whole new lesson in consumption. The engine had a lot of power, but was wound out in third gear at 35 MPH. I could actually see the gas gauge drop as we climbed.

A stop for coffee in Redmond, then through Sisters and up the Santiam Pass, not quite as steep as the Ochoco. Non-stop down the McKenzie Highway, and arrived home right at 5PM. I made calls to the rental yards, as I wasn't going to get the car and Pusher unloaded and get the truck and trailer back before the 5:30 closing. Both rental yards agreed to let me keep the equipment overnight at no charge.

Bottom Line: Truck rental + mileage charge + trailer rental + gasoline = $250.00. Still a tidy fee, and I consumed the better part of two days arranging for the trip and going back to Mitchell for the recovery, but much less than the $600+ I had been quoted by someone who didn't really want the job.

Epilogue

Or...How I put the EV back together

In the ensuing few days, I began the process of repairing the Rabbit. The damage to the controller was limited to the PWM module and the step-start contactor.

The PWM module had sustained heavy burning on the printed circuit card. The positions which were previously occupied by ½ watt resistors were now blackened, carbonized craters. I disassembled the unit and carefully checked all of the components for failure. Fortunately, I had made a circuit diagram previously, so I had part values for the burned resistors. The PC board had to be scraped clean of the conductive carbon, and I coated the raw fiberglass of the board with epoxy to seal the area. A new pass transistor was also installed, and the operation checked.

The start contactor was a greater challenge. It had been scorched once before, and very little of the original silver contact blocks was left. The precious metal had been vaporized in the fire, and I attempted to file new contact area onto the armatures.

Here the top set of stationary contacts is removed, and what is supposed to be showing is bright, shiny silver contacts. In fact, there are supposed to be no areas on the top of the device that are black in color. About the only good thing about this part of the contactor is that it carries very little current, and for a very short time. These contacts are responsible for causing the electric motor to spin down very quickly when it is shut off. As such, only about 60 amps peak is carried, and this dies away as the motor spins down over about 2 seconds. If these contacts fail, the result is that the motor takes about 15 seconds to spin down when it is shut off, which is noticeable, because the car will lurch forward when the clutch is released in gear after parking. The main contacts which carry the motor start-up current were given a smoke-job, but weren't damaged in the fire.

At any rate, I filed the contacts back into as good a shape as I could make them, cleaned all of the carbon and soot off of the insulators (red areas) and reassembled it. For good measure, I installed a 60 ampere Class T fuse, which will protect the contacts in case I ever forget and release the clutch with the motor off while being pushed.

With these repairs, the EV was drivable again. The Pusher needed some work as well. I removed the mostly melted servo, and inspected it for additional damage, and took some part numbers off of the power transistors so that I could get replacements. Considering how much heat they had taken, it was surprising that they still functioned at all, however poorly the operation had seemed on the trip. The new transistors were mounted on the master controller for the trailer, along with the servo driver board. Now the power handling components would have a proper heat sink and be in a semi-controlled environment where excess heat buildup wouldn't affect their operation.

In the end, I designed (but have not yet built) modifications to the controller on the EV which will prevent the recurrence of the failure I experienced outside of Mitchell. I have plans to have a "kill switch" on the EV, so that I don't have to touch the ignition switch to shut down the electric drive while the Pusher is active, and an "auto-start" circuit that will automatically restart the electric motor as soon as I press the clutch pedal when the car is coasting under Pusher power. This way two problems that I identified on the SolWest trip will be rectified. No more worries about forgetting to turn the ignition key (and steering wheel lock) back to the "on" position after shutting down the electric drive, and a fail-safe auto-start to prevent me from ever trying to go into regen mode with a deactivated (and unenabled) electric drive motor.

So, That's All Folks...
THE END
(of SolWest 2001, but I'll be back in 2002)