I purchased my first electric car - a 1981 Jet Industries Electra Van 600 in an eBay auction in 2005.
Thus far, I have restored the corroded battery box, fixed the parking brake and adjusted the rear brakes, installed relay control for the DC-DC converter, installed battery heaters, replaced all the batteries and performed some minor cosmetic enhancements (like fixing the skewed rear bumper visible in the photographs.) Most recently, the tires have been replaced, and the wheels cleaned and painted. I have begun toubleshooting the instrumentation (my amps meter doesn't work.)
The battery charger is an interesting story. The stock Lester charger was missing on my Electra Van. At first I hoped to find something appropriate used. When that didn't work out, I placed an order for a new charger. When it didn't show up a few weeks later, I emailed the vendor and was told it's a custom item, and it would be a long wait to get one. So I decided - instead of waiting, and paying big $$ - to build an electric vehicle charger myself.
The unit
pictured was built for about $200. It was constructed around a good-sized motor
driven variac. The case is made from two folded 12" by 24" pieces
of sheet metal and one similar sized and folded sheet of 'pulled metal', all
from my local Home Depot.
The switch directly under the handle operates the variac's motor to turn the voltage up or down. The red switch enables computer control.
Computer control is facilitated by an inexpensive computer-controllable relay
board, and a multimeter with an RS-232 interface. Under software control, the
computer can monitor charging voltage and current, and operate the variac's
motor accordingly. When the software is completed, more details will be posted
here.
I used my time this past winter to seek documentation on the EV. I've noted
that at least five ElectraVans have been up for sale on eBay in the past year.
This implies there is still interest in this vehicle, even 25 years after Jet
Industries stopped selling it. Without a doubt, it was one of the most popular
electric vehicles sold (a few hundred vehicles is a lot in the EV world.)
If you're also looking for information on the Electra Van 600, this is a good place. Below are several useful documents and electronic versions of service manuals for the Jet ElectraVan.
I would urge anyone with information or documents to contribute, to contact
me: dave@use4.com
Right-click the link below and choose to SAVE LINK AS to save a copy of each of these documents to your hard drive. If you don't want to download, or want more, write me at dave@use4.com. I have a CD with all of the below - plus more - on it, available for a small copying and postage fee. Thanks to those who loaned, sold, or gave me documentation for my effort: Kurt Bohan, Jim Donovan, Ken Huck, Michael Radtke, Robb Zuk, and others.
Electra Van Glovebox Owner's Manual
This has the usual car owner's information on maintenance for the vehicle.
I made this from two versions of the service manual. One looked like an early draft, made partially from a Subaru 600 service manual with some words crossed out or new information pasted on top. The second was a later version with the messy stuff cleaned up. The photos were better on the early version (but not really very good in either version.) For each page I tried to use the best of the two versions. In a couple of instances where information conflicted, I included both versions of a page.
A 1979 parts catalog for the Electra Van. The parts numbers, for everything except the drive train, are numbers for the Subaru 600 van, the base vehicle. The service manual and the parts list have both been prepared as indexed and searchable PDF files - click BOOKMARKS to see the indexes. Adobe Acrobat does search by doing optical character recognition on the scanned pages. As these documents are not always sharp and clear, searching will only find some of the words - but it still works remarkably well, and a lot of terms can be found.
NEW! Subaru 600 Service Manual - sample chapters.
Thanks to a lucky eBay find by Ken Huck, we now have a Subaru 600 Truck and Van Service Manual. Below are a few chapters. Sadly, I haven't got enough server space to make the entire 400 page manual available online. Send an email to either myself or Ken Huck for a CD with the whole manual plus all the other documents here, and a few others.
Chapter 01: General Information
Chapter 20: Heater and Ventilator System
All of the above chapters have fully searchable OCR text, accessible from Adobe Acrobat reader. This Subaru manual is similar to the Electra Van 600 service manual (since it was based on an early version of the Subaru 600 manual), but here the layouts are often different, additional information is included, and the pictures are much clearer. The full manual also has full information on the original gasoline engine which is not part of the Electravan. The front of the manual says 'Edition: July, 1977'. The back of the manual says 'Issued: April, 1980'
Test track results from 1977 on the Electra Van 500, conducted at the Aberdeen proving grounds in Maryland. According to the tests: the Electra Van can accelerate from 0-30 in 10 seconds, and can get over 100 miles per charge at a constant 31mph in 4th gear, pulling about 60 amps.
Engineering drawings showing the wiring of 125v and 250v cords for the lester charger.
Original Jet Electra Van 600 Sales Brochure
A 6 page, full color brochure sent to prospective customers by Jet industries.
Letter sent out by Jet industries to people requesting info (yes, that's me - I did send away for info way back in 1970-something.) Is the sales price in this letter correct, or a typo? It doesn't seem right.
Jet Industries Full-Page Magazine Ad
From the back cover of a magazine, around 1980.
Here are some links to ElectraVan or related Subaru info on other websites.
This mailing list is the ideal place to ask questions of other Electra Van owners. Reading through the archives will answer lots of your questions, too.
The EV1 TECH manual available on this page has parts lists, troubleshooting info, and diagrams of the GE EV-1 controller used on the Electra Van.
This site has electrical diagrams of forklift controllers, including our EV-1.
Technical information on the GE, Prestolite, and Baldor motors.
A list of aftermartket parts (compiled by Robb Zuk) that will fit the Electra Van (Subaru 600.)
Scans of a generic Subaru workshop manual, 1979-1994 vehicles. The Subaru 600 is not included, but some of the info is nonetheless useful.
1982 Subaru Sambar parts catalog
Okay, this one's tricky. The Sambar is the Japanese name for the Subaru van. the 1982 parts catalog for the Sambar is available here, on the 'Japan 1' disk. But this is a russian-language website (the link above takes you there through the Babelfish translator.) So you'll have to order and pay for it in Russian. Then when you get the parts catalog disk, it's going to be in Japanese. I haven't had the courage to buy this. If you do, let me know if it's useful!
