Greetings from Shropshire

[ramdrive]

Hello all,

I live in Shropshire and have been an avid fan of the C5 for many years, unfortunately until now I never had the funds to purchase my grail machine.

This site will be very valuable to me when I find my C5.  I have a Photovoltaic charging project lined up to share with you all.

I have been looking hard, but finding a good C5 runner is proving very difficult (Any help from you guys would be appreciated)

If anybody can help me find a C5 mail me at snowyhm@gmail.com

I intend to run my machine regularly, and try and get some recognition to what a forward thinking inventor Clive was.

Colin

[spudit2003]

welcome colin

i bought my C5 off ebay a few months ago in full working condition with decent batteries. however, these are often hard to come by and often cost a bit extra as the person selling it is probably an enthusiast.

i'd recommend just keeping an eye on ebay and hoping something comes up in your area. you might want to consider buying one without a battery, as it might be a bit cheaper, but remember to consider the cost of a new battery when bidding, and check it works before you buy (you can stick a car battery in to check it runs).

and as john said to your other post you might want to consider a non runner as there are lots of common problems with simple and cheap solutions (just check the motor and gearbox work before buying, these are costly and hard to come by)

hope this helps and good luck in your search, hopefully your wait wont be too long

Lewes

[jomac]

And as Spudit says, i feel it wont be that long, keep digging in the site Colin, get to know the guys, message some of them, and you will get some feedback and you will get your dream, from here we will help you the rest of the way, from sorting it out, fixing it and getting the best enjoyment.

Just keep chatting to the guys here and keep nagging them, i'm sure we can find you something..

Jomac

[ramdrive]

Thanks Jomac, Lewes.

In my quest I have had a very bad experience on another forum / sales site...

To be honest they tried to rip me off, on a refurb C5 they had for sale @ 375 yet wanted 430...

A certain arrogance that I do not understand,  this forum however seems to be the real deal with good sound advice.

It does make you think how welcome new enthusiasts are to the ranks, I hope this will change for the good of a great product.

On goes my search!

And as Spudit says, i feel it wont be that long, keep digging in the site Colin, get to know the guys, message some of them, and you will get some feedback and you will get your dream, from here we will help you the rest of the way, from sorting it out, fixing it and getting the best enjoyment.

Just keep chatting to the guys here and keep nagging them, i'm sure we can find you something..

Jomac

[DonkeySpank]

Just keep an eye on ebay, and an ear to the ground locally - it's surprising how many people have a mate of a mate who's mum's mate's daughter's bouyfriend's uncle "had a C5 once, i think it's been in the barn for 20 years"!!

Other than that, and if you're up for the steep learning curve, pick up a non-runner from eBay for £50 or so and build it up with parts sourced from links on this forum.

Welcome to the madhouse, by the way!

[jomac]

Thats the best bit of advice yet Donkeyspank, that tells others about us and this site, i think you put it in a nutshell.

Ramdrive can buy cheap, he knows he can get help.

Gets his baby home, sends pics to his own posting and asks for help.

then the YOURC5 team and its members kick in, and he's on the road, cheap, cheerful, simple and loaded with knowledge..!

So right guys, can we team together, and form a minor comittee and source a C5 for ramdrive???  this is your new challenge guys !!

[ramdrive]

WOW!

Thanks chaps, it so refreshing to find a good friendly forum such as this.

I think you are right doing a dead C5 up and getting it up and running again will be more rewarding then just purchasing a runner.

It will also give me a good knowledge of the machine for further mods.

Thanks again.

[DonkeySpank]

The thing I've found most surprising about the C5 (in hindsight I can't believe this was EVER a surprise) is that the damned things keep breaking down!!

There's no point buying a C5 with no idea of how they work coz it'll stop working soon enough and it'll really help if you know a little about how, where, what etc.

Believe me, I'm no expert, I wouldn't even describe me as "ignorant" (I'm not up to that standard yet!!) but I've learned my way around the most important and "easy-to-fix" parts of the C5 so that when the beast stops working I can either diagnose the failure as a "flesh wound" and fix it or I can diagnonse it as "terminal" and jump on here for adivce!

Believe me, being aware of things like 1) how to fix a brake cable at high speeds in traffic (blabblub I'm looking at you!) or 2) that at speed over-use of the front brake may melt the front wheel - these things come in handy "out on the field" so to speak!!

Anyway the point I was going to make was that building/refurbing a non-runner based on help and parts sourced here will be a sure-fire way to a great sense of achievement and all the know-how you'll need to keep the blasted thing running when you do finally get it on the road!

[spudit2003]

i agree with that
i bought mine as a runner, and havent had any real problems yet, just loose connections and faulty battery chargers. but im slightly worried that when it does break down i wont have a clue what to do (actually, i know i wont) so when it does i will be on here asking advice. but i also wish i knew what it all looked like underneath and in the control box, as ive never looked closely at it and dont really want to fiddle with it just in case i do something that messes it up. if i had the time, space and money i would buy a non-runner to do up and modify, cos that would give me an indepth knowledge (meaning i wouldnt have to come on here each time theres a minor problem).
so if youve got the time then i would definitely recommend buying one to repair, because not only will you get a great knowledge but also the satisfaction of seeing the transformation. (having seen the pictures of peoples projects and seeing how great they look at the end, i do now hope to do one myself in the future)

[jomac]

I agree with Spudit and his comments, theres really only one component that is very hard to find, the ULA chip in the POD, if this fails, you stand very little chance of getting another as a spare, unless you buy another POD or C5, Luckily the POD can be bypassed with a component that costs pennies. The next hard/expensive bit to get is the gearbox. The rest of the bits are either pretty simple to find, or if you know where to look, very cheap and off the shelf.

If Ramdrive wants an enjoyable challenge, find a total basket case, mine cost me £5 from a car booty, but it was trashed (see rebuilding a C5 with a difference) This way you dont have the guilt trip assocoaied with 'hot rodding' a C5, more powerful motors, and even gearboxes can be fitted. We have a really good team here on this site, i'm pretty confident in saying, we are unique in the C5 world, due to the concentration and diversity of knowledge within the members.

So a bit like the bionic man, 'we can rebuild it'..