Battery Vehicle Society

Hey Sparky, I had exactly the same problem with my 53 Reg. the lexia reported an isolation fault I actuality stripped the motor to referb the diff as is whined quite a bit I changed the bearings and seals no problem only to find the field coils corroded. I ended up replacing the stator. I put the failure down to the brush cover not sealing from an early age now fixed

Pictures to follow

Personally I would look on eBay for a "used" Lexia as this permits FULL diagnostics and HEATER diagnostics and you can often get then cheaper than the £300 for the other option

Also Chris B did an ace report on brush changing here
http://www.batteryvehiclesociety.org.uk ... 00&start=0

oh yeah and lexia's
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trks ... Categories

I'm not responsible for external links and what is for sale on ebay just FYI

hope this helps

Each battery pack has both a fuse and a link. (They're about the size of the palm of your hand. They're black and plastic, and are connected to the battery packs.)There's 1 accessible in the engine compartment. There's another one accessible at the back of the van, look under the rear bumper.

You only need remove the one in the engine compartment though.

Look under your van at the bottom of the motor, there's a plastic hatch held in place with 2 bolt. This is the motor inspection hatch.

If you open this you will be able to see 1 of the brushes. Each brush is held in place by a bolt and a retaining clip.

1st you loosen the bolt and remove the brush wire. It ends in a Y shaped attachment.

You then hold back the retaining spring that holds the brush against the commutator and you remove the brush for inspection.



Each brush has a wear line. You can see it in that picture.

If anyone is in need of some brushes, I have some sets, that I had made and an currently running a set in mine. They seem very good.

Grumpy-b

Thanks for that Tesla's fag packet, Ill make sure its sealed when its all back together.

Sparky.

My only comment is never trust a main dealer, its very rare they actually know what they are doing with the berlingo, this is verified with the fact they couldnt understand why the fault light kept coming on

As others have said either get a EVlite or more expensive Lexia unit, DAIG 2000's also will do the job along with Planet systems

Regardless of what the dealer has said they have done I'd personally check it out, brush checking is really easy, also it would be interesting to see what the current over charge Ah meter is reading (can be seen with an EVlite etc) as I wouldnt put it past the dealer to randomly reset paramiters in a vain hope that it will clear the fault
The risk with this is if they have reset the overcharge Ah meter without doing a watering maint charge you could end up running the batteries over the recomended Ah overcharge rating without watering which can/will damage the batteries.

If you suspect they might have done this then I'd carry out a maint charge and watering on them, but this of course MUST be done with the EVlite or other diagnoise unit


ChrisB

panicing now !!!

just want me van to run smooth,

goona post a thread on locating someone to come service my van asap

thanks guys

Don't Panic!

ChrisB's opinion of main dealers is valid, but they aren't all bad. They just shouldn't be trusted to know what they are doing with the Electrique.

From the details on the receipt which you have posted, it doesn't sound like they have done anything to the car which could actually damage it. The only question is whether the inspection they did was thorough enough.

There are 4 brushes arranged in a ring around the commutator. If you are lazy, you will take off the cover, look at the bottom brush and assume equal wear on the other 3. THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. One of our members up here in Manchester discovered that it is always the harder-to-access brushes which wear quicker (Murphy's law in action).

As Cianof said to you earlier, if the van is driving you should not worry yourself unduly. It is commendable of you to seek a service as soon as you can, but don't go panicking about it.

What skill level do you have yourself? Are you prepared to get your hands dirty at all, or do you need to Get A Man In? I hope this forum or the BVS will be able to help you one way or another, and all your worries will evaporate very soon.

Thanks for all your input guys,

well Tim im quite hands on and have done lots of stuff on petrol engines ,but i feel totally noobed to the set up of the electrique and something that i need to learn , so its gonna take time to get used to it all and at the moment the diagnostic light is on although it runs very smooth i dont want to keep driving it and cause a major problem,locating brushes for diy seems like its gonna take weeks i havnt got an evlite so cant do mantainance charge and water so im abit up s**t creek as they say,

thanks alot for all your help

sticks wrote:locating brushes for diy seems like its gonna take weeks i havnt got an evlite so cant do mantainance charge and water so im abit up s**t creek as they say,

I have brushes in stock if you need them (and an illustrated guide to changing them).
Try not to worry about the fault light. In all likelyhood it does mean an isolation problem, but that's to be expected in this weather. Give it a wash down to get all the salt off once the weather improves, and blow the dust out of the motor. There's a good chance it will go away by itself anyway.

thanks Evan could you pm me with price and postage etc,

got an update just now,i rang my localish citreon garage and once they took my reg they said it had been in to them in feb of 2009 and had battery watering servicing and batt swap which is great news!!!!!

he then just recomended me to come in for a diagnostic £75+vat

im starting to feel happier now

but still dont know about brushes and if there knackered?

thanks guys