@nottinghack Now came time for the actual tear down and maintenance part, retroworkshop.uk has a fantastic guide in written and video format on how to inspect, take apart, service and put back together again every part of the C5 https://www.retroworkshop.uk/sinclair-c5-restoration/sinclair-c5-restoration-part-1-vehicle-check-over/ this was really an amazing resource and Im sad they're not on Fedi (or at least I can't find them)

After reading up on the electronics involved, I figured it was mostly safe to throw some electrons at it with the wheels off the ground and see where this takes me

Sadly the car battery I had ordered is taking it sweet time in arriving, so I figured why not use my 30 amp PSU I use for my radios...

**WILD GOOSE CHASE BEGIN**
Applying power, the POD light for battery status and motor power draw all came up as expected, indicating the ULA was functional, front and rear lights worked; giving the motor on switch a press did something a little weird, the wheel slowly jumped forward in stages, drawing a massive amount of current each time and causing the power supply to cutout

Oh well, something must be amiss with the motor, thankfully retroworkshop.uk has a very good guide on how to strip and service the motor, mine is an older one, so the front end gearbox cannot be removed without it breaking, but that shouldn't be a problem here, taking apart the motor, and removing the brushed, rotor, and stator, I got them all cleaned up

Luckily the wheel I had removed was the one which needed a new inner-tube, easy fix and in the process I noticed the tyres were actually the original Sinclair branded ones!

The original inner tube wasn't actually punctured, rather it has just degraded and appeared to, well, expand like a balloon when inflated, which was the reason why it didn't appear to be taking any pressure.

With the new inner tube installed and all tyres inflated to the correct pressure (thankfully given on the all to the boot box when opened), I was able to cycle this the 1km to my house to @nottinghack - it was quite a nice ride, albeit the chain was slipping quite a lot (suspected and later confirmed to be the tensioner wasn't engaged) and the awfully large number of police and traffic wardens about, but I got there no problem and had it up on the workbench no problem

Bringing it back to Nottingham Hackspace so I can have a once over at it, 2 out of the 3 tyres were fine, the rear left one needed a new inner tube, thankfully it is just a 16 x 2 inch inner tube that is needed and I was able to get a decent one the next day for £5, but since the wheels are made of plastic, I didn't wanna try and ride it back home from the Hackspace (~1km away) so I can to push it;

That was surprisingly easy, what wasn't however, was when I finally got it home; I had planned on keeping this in a smallish landing area in the entrance to my flat, in a warm dry climate and safe, however it simply was too wide to fit through the door with both the back wheels on/with the door still on it's hinge.

Faced with the prospect of the fact I might have made the most impractical eBay purchase ever, I reluctantly took off one of the wheels and carried it in, before then assaulting my bank account even further with the purchase of a £400 decent bike shed for my back garden, with a plan to purchase an £800 Asgard next pay period to really keep this thing safe, oh well, I was probably going to have to buy something of the sort anyway since my dad keeps pestering me to take my 1960 Excelsior Consort out of his garage

The C5 was safe for now at least

@Chrishallbeck Lived and still live in the future.

Started in ‘78 with the school Commodore PET, then my Uncles TRS80 and by 1980 my own hand forged “Sir Clive”, steam powered #Sinclair #ZX80 with #Z80 processor @ 3.XX MHz with 4K ROM (later a #ZX81 upgrade) and 1Kb RAM.

<https://flickr.com/photos/bootload/albums/72157607718005837/>

@notwhatwethink
RE
who watch #FoxNews #Sinclair other right-wing "news" aren't aware... shielded...kept in an imaginary disinfo bubble

Crazy #Trump
“no other president would be willing to do what I’m doing... I see a beautiful picture at the end"

Crazy Advisor made overly simplistic formula for #reciprocaltariffs #PeterNavarro dismissed conciliatory gestures by Vietnam as insufficient to reach a deal

Gift https://wapo.st/3FZThUs