Berlingo Electrique E500 Experience

August 2007 Purchase Berlingo Electrique

I decided to drive the car from Swindon to Henley on Thames. My wife followed me (at a constant 55mph) and the journey went well until I got to Reading where the battery was down to 10% charge.

I decided not to risk the last 10 % because the car was by this time limiting current to prevent the battery voltage dropping below 140V.

We towed it to Henley and recharged to 100%.

Not knowing the battery water level I refilled all 5 battery packs.

Two weeks later I drove home to Rickmansworth.

I used the Berlingo to commute to work for 3 months then decided to refill the water again.

To my horror the IG filler pipe was blocked!
I immediately suspected the worst - a melted cell.

The Berlingo centre pack has 11 x 6 V SAFT STM5-100 batteries. The pack is a bastard to remove I can tell you! All the traction cables and cooling pipes and hand brake cables run under the centre pack and must be disconnected before the pack can be lowered and pulled out.

The cover was removed and to my great relief all the batteries were OK.

The blockage was caused by a stupid rubber vent pipe connection, which had been squeezed between the battery case and a battery.

All Berlingos must have this fault.

OK the pack was refitted with a re-routed neoprene vent pipe.

Everything went well until Christmas 2007 when the motor just cut out.

I called the AA and got a tow home.

Removing the motor inspection cover I saw the brushes were all worn completely down.

I went to Citroen after checking on eBay. Citroen sell a set for £105.

I fitted the new brushes and everything went smoothly for another 2500 miles when the motor cut out again. To my horror the brushes had worn out again in only 2500 miles.

I decided to leave the Berlingo and buy a broken Peugeot Electric which is basically the same.

I went for a faulty one because I knew by now there was no point in paying a premium for a good one bacause it would soon break down.

And sure enough 9 batteries had failled cells randomly spread between the rear and centre battery packs both had to come out. But the motor and ECU were good.

I used the Peugeot electrique with duff batteries for commuting until I figured out what to do with the Berlingo motor.

I eventually managed to get the Berlingo motor apart in August 2008.

The motor was by now full of black carbon, which had to be blown out.

I took the armature (which weighs about 50kg!) to work to skim the commutator on a lathe.

This job went really well and the commutator cleaned up nicely.

I measured the inductance between pairs of commutator segments and found they were all the same which was a relief.

The armature insulation was tested at 500V >20M Ohms = good.I phoned Leroy Somer about the motor but could'nt get any sense out of them.

I got a replacement set of brushes from SHUNK.

The motor was then carefully reassembled and put back into the Berlingo.

After 2500 miles I removed the motor inspection cover, there was no evidance of any brush wear at all!

The car also did noticamly more miles to the charge - less power wasted arcing across the commutator.

However at about 4000miles I decided to have another look and to my horror there was some carbon dust on the inside of the cover and the motor innards did'nt look so shiny now.

At home I jacked up the front end and videoed the commutator while operating the accelerator peddle.

There was bad arcing on acceleration and regen.

I read up on brush arcing and found evidance that insuficient brush spring force can cause arcing. The recommended spring force is about 2kg force on each brush.

I measured the spring force and found it was 1kg.

I thought what to do to double the force and fit stronger springs but then I thought eureka just add a turn to each spring! Sure enough the arcing stopped, but was it too late for the commutator?

Yes the van broke down in Uxbridge. The ECU failed I had to get another TOW from the AA.

I swapped the ECU from the Peugeot and carried on. Everything seemed normal for about 500 miles.

Then another failure rhis time on the M25/M4 smoke comming out for the motor probably the armature.

AA towed me home again.

1 Jan 09 The armature is basically ruined now and I decided to swap the motor from the Peugeot van.

This went much faster even in the dark due to my recent experiance.

To remove the motor:-

1) Remove the LS front drive shaft nut with a large spanner.

2) Loosen all front wheel nuts

3) Jack up vehicle - remove front wheels

4) insert two 13.5" high axle stands under front sub frame

5) Remove jack

6) disconnect traction battery fuses

7) Disconnect Motor electrical and mechanical linkages (including F/R cable on top of motor)

8) Undo front wishbone bolts

9) Remove LS half shaft bearing retaining allen bolts

10) Pull out LS wheel hub and remove splined stub axle

11) Pull out LS half shaft - it is very long and runs right through the motor to the diff.

12) Pull out the RS wheel hub and remove the short splined shaft from the diff

13) Under the car push the battery cooling pipes and wires etc right up out of the gap between the motor frame and the front battery pack. They are really too close and make the motor removal very hard.

14) Remove the lower motor tension rod at both ends

15) Support the motor with the jack

16) Remove the brake servo vacuum pump (the rubber pipes seem to be perished already)

17) Start removing the remaining 13mm bolts holding the motor at the top

18) Begin lowering the motor!! Be very careful it weighs >75kg

19) Stop at intervals to free the motor cables and remove the forward / reverse stop cable from the top of the gearbox

20) Remove the thermistor connector from the motor near the wired end

21) Lower the motor slowly down

Actually with the cooling pipes pushed up out of the way the motor will come straight down on the jack.

Slowly pull the motor out on the trolley jack