Hi Yes! I'm sitting in a classic 1980s vintage Sinclair C5 and I've done a video on the Sinclair before. If you haven't seen it, it'll be linked in down below where I um teamed up with my mate Malcolm Fade who's got two of these puppies and uh, we drove him around the streets of Sydney and he talked about the Uh design and everything else of these things and we did a tear down. But now I'm the proud owner of one of these things. Scor it on eBay Got it for a couple of hundred bucks.

um and it was a bit of a gamble. uh unfortunately there was only one like fuzzy photo of it and it looked like it had been left out in a paddock in the middle of freaking whoop whoop and well yeah, I pretty much uh got as bad as I expected. I Was a little bit hopeful that maybe it would in be uh, you know, pretty good Nick but it might look okay from this sort of distance. but trust me, I'll show you some uh close-ups of this and it's in pretty horrible condition.

so it's in need of a really good makeover. but uh, that's a project that I'm hopefully going to embark on now actually restoring this Sinclair C5 and upgrading it as well because I Live in the Hills district here in Sydney which as the name implies, it has Hills and this thing was never designed to go up any sort of gradient. The Uh motor in it just wasn't powerful enough. It's not geared or anything like that.

Now there are gearing, uh uh, mods you can do for this. There is a gearing mod, but it's uh, quite involved and uh, so yeah. I think I will upgrade it with modern electric motors and stuff like that assuming that, uh, it's in good enough condition to actually do that like the shazzy isn't completely, uh, you know, broken and rusted and all that sort of stuff. So I've got to strip it down and I've got to, you know, pretty much restore the entire thing.

but hey, at least the body is in reasonable condition which is the main thing on a SLE C5 But if that shazzy is busted, then we could be in for a bit of trouble cuz they're not easy to get. it's a single piece shazzy all the way along the bottom. But anyway, let me show you a uh two out of this thing and what awful Condition it's actually in. Sometimes you win on eBay sometimes you lose I I actually passed up a much better one that went for 500 bucks on eBay I wasn't uh, you know sure if I wanted one if I had room for it uh to, you know, to store it and things like that and I was so disappointed I missed this one that I grabbed the very next one that came along and it happened to be this one.

They're very rare in this country I don't think another one has popped up since I've had this for a couple of months now. It's been sitting down in my basement. uh, car park Gathering dust. but I finally bought it up here to the lab and I'm going to, um, sit it here and restore it and hopefully I'll be able to drive it out of here into the lift Boop downstairs and out we go.

Awesome! Now the guy who sold it to me said that it does actually go I.E Um, he did hook a battery up to it and and well the motor went. but I I haven't actually powered it up myself to uh, try it I Have no idea, but check this out. Let's just have a look at the wire in, for example, down in here. Look, we've got what we've got here.

They've got looks like some sort of transistor or something. Looks like a a transistor mounted on this custom aluminium heat sink bracket. Here, there's a TR, well, probably two transistors there. Not sure what they're doing I don't think they're part of the original uh sinair C5 build and all of the wiring is, well, you know, a bit crusty.

There is uh, one, one of one of the switches wh I don't know where that came from or if that's original I don't think it is anyway, but the um, micro switch under here is gone. We've still got one over here, but there's wires flapping all over the place here. You can still see down in here. I have actually I attempted to clean this out by the way, but it's still got a whole bunch of the crap in there left over from when it was just sitting in the padic.

Oh, it's just H it's awful. now. the shazzy itself is not in too bad a condition. it's all one piece.

uh, fiberglass by the way. and you can check out these marks on here I Have no idea what they are, but I'm presuming that I'll be able to, you know, polish and clean that sort of stuff up. The seat is in, uh, quite reasonable. Condition It's had something drilled into here like this and big stains on there.

Maybe was that the maybe this switch was mounted there or something? I don't know really. Ah, bodge Central it really is. It's got another custom uh switch here I don't know what that does because all the wires have been chopped to it and that's a center off switch. It feels like a big beefy one.

So maybe it was a motor reversing switch. although generally as a standard thing, you're not able to reverse the S clear. C5 You can't just um, apparently gear inside, but you can modify the motor to actually do that. but um, yeah, you know the wheels are.

the wheels. have seen better days, but uh, they do have the original covers on them. A couple of stickers missing the the uh deal. The racing stripes on the side.

they they will need replacing and stuff like that and well the rest of it. Here we go, we've got ourselves. um, the uh, the boot in this thing is. it's okay.

it needs a good clean. I've got the original in clear charger in this sucker so that's pretty good I Was pretty happy to get that with it, but uh, that's still operational. It should clean up reasonably well. that's the other wheel there.

Yeah, the decal on that side is completely gone. The pedals are all original. what? sinair pedals look rusted de buggery on the sides there so you can just see the see the rust and how this thing has just been left out for I don't know. could have been de ades.

it could have been left out in the weather. who knows. It looks like it definitely has. you know, been weathered by UV and everything else.

but hey, the pedals are still in reasonable condition. the uh front of it actually looks quite good. these C5 original C5 deal are still in place. The headlight have no idea if it works, but that's an easy uh fix if it's not just a little bit of a uh chunk taken out there.

I'm not exactly sure what that is, but you know, polish that out so from the outside if you could actually restore this thing, it would still look like I think it would polish up and still look like quite a reasonable syn. C5 But uh, let's check out underneath and here's the underside and it is certainly seen better days. but it all seems to be fully functional. the chain is all uh, still in place, the steering bar still works and everything like that.

and I have been told that the motor does work, but it looks very crusty and trust me, I've actually done a bit of cleaning up on this so it was actually worse than this underneath, but you can still see all the original, still see all that cobwebs and crap and dust under here. It's absolutely shocking and looks like we got some Rust and maybe our shazzy isn't in the best condition. and check that out, we've got some serious looking rust happening there. although I'm no rust shazzy restoration expert, that's definitely for sure.

So I'm not sure how well that would, uh that will come up. but look at the look at the main point of the shazzy here and that's just eaten away. It looks like it's broken away there and has been eaten away. So um I don't know any experts out there.

I'm going to have to. please let me know if this shazzy is, uh, salvageable or not. But uh, hopefully it is because if the shazzy is ruined, then well, if the shazzy is not salvageable. I.E It's not physically, you know, robust enough to take, uh, any weight and actually use the thing, then well, there's no point restoring the thing apart unless you want it.

for a A showpiece or something like that. you couldn't actually, uh, use it in anger and well, everything is an absolute mess. It looks like we're missing the cover off uh, that Electronics module there, the motor. we could get in and uh, take a look at perhaps, but I'd have to take off the back uh, the boot of this thing.

but yeah, it's not not in great condition at all. Have no idea what all that is, what all that is designed to connect to I don't know I haven't read my Uh SLE manual yet and here's the front wheel. Not sure if that's original I do have a spare wheel in the back there. uh with the the plastic one, but I think there wasn't a a issue with the original design of the plastic one where it would, uh, you know it would melt against the uh caliper brakes here, so you know I don't know if these are original Sinkler tires or not.

but uh, you can actually get this thing to pedal and work if I pumped up the tires I could actually pedal the thing around so it is usable in that respect and presumably if I hook up a battery to it I can uh, get the thing to actually drive and do something? But of course the idea would be to actually, uh, restore this thing and upgrade the motor. Now whether or not I go for uh, a motor that's somehow attached in here or I go for Hub uh Motors it might be better I could get like a single Hub motor on the back or maybe dual Hub Motors although I'm not sure how uh, balanced that would be maybe the best bet I think what Mal is doing to his SLE C5 he's looking at putting a front hub motor on the Uh on on the front wheel. there a modern Hub motor on there and that's probably the go I think and uh, keep keep the steering intact of course, the steering column. um, you know I if I take that apart and uh, uh, polish it up, put some rust protection on there, and clean it up.

it. uh, it should still work fine, so hopefully if the Shazzy is in good enough condition, then use a hub motor and uh, well, you know, keep the chain in place of course, just for, uh, manually PED in the back wheels, but generally, um, it should be doable. fingers cross. So here's the other rear wheel there, and well, yeah, it has seen better days, that's for sure.

The belt, the drive belt here, and the toothed uh wheel in there and tooth Cog in there actually looks like it would be okay, so you know it's probably salvageable as it is and operational as as an original synclair. C5 But as I said I want I do want to upgrade to it? it's just not practical around here in the Hills uh District I want to give it at least some Grunt and uh I did say that there is a geared option Ava like you can. Some people on the SLE forums have upgraded uh to a gear option and you can buy on eBay a bike. uh, like like a three-speed uh gear Hub on this thing.

but you got to weld it. You got to take all the Sha off, you got to take uh this off and weld it all in place and everything. and you can then replace it with a uh three-speed bicycle hub. But yeah, I I Don't think that's the probably the best way to do it.

Just stick a big, modern, powerful uh Hub motor on the front and just be done with it and just keep the original chain mechanism for driving the back wheels. Probably don't have to gear it. it would be nice, but hey, I don't know how to world so there you go. so there's a nonstarter right there.

I Guess I could learn? Um, but well yeah. I've only got so much time I can devote to this thing so could be very slow progress. Yeah I think there's been some creepy crawlies Living in there or something. Not that great.

But anyway here I've taken out the back boot of the thing and we can access the motor up in there. There we go. It is the original sink lay motor of course and uh, it should still be usable I would have to strip it, take it right out, strip it down. look I mean the the nut on there is just everything's just rusted on this thing.

That's one of the biggest problems I've got us probably rust. Every single piece has to be uh, stripped down so it needs absolute complete strip down every last nut and bolt on the shazzy, everything else, and uh, a complete overhaul. So I guess I've got to learn a lot to learn about uh, things like uh, you know, uh, rust, getting rid of rustoff metal, um, parts and actually restoring and protecting them and learning about seeing if the Integrity of this uh shazzy is still intact and whether or not I can, uh, maybe weld it back together. you know, uh, brace it or something like that if I need to.

and of course one of the big things in a Sinclair C5 is the uh heads up display the HUD here which shows your battery, uh, charge level, and uh and stuff and well, yeah, it's I believe it works. the guy sold it to me said well something came up on it whether or not it's uh, you know it's completely operational I don't know. would have to check that out but it all looks faded all the plastic looks absolutely horrible so you'd have to restore that. I I Don't know if I'd keep the original one or whether I design a new uh, heads up display for it.

You know, something modern that, uh, you know, has a trip computer in or something like that? Perhaps that could be very worthwhile. and the sticker, unfortunately has seen better days. a Seral number 1502 and the rest of it is, uh, peeled off off? So yeah, I'm not sure. manufactured by Hoover Yeah, and there's that big beefy Center off switch that was mounted drilled into the side of the shazzy.

here. it's only got two wires coming out of it, but it's big and beefy enough to be, uh, you know, to carry the main, uh, battery or motor current or something like that. So who knows what the purpose of that thing was stuck on the bloody side there. Ah, they've just hacked this thing.

Yuck. And as for all this other crap, I Can only presume that maybe they were, maybe that's part of some charging circuitry they were trying to incorporate in the thing or something? I I Have no idea. but oh man, it is just it's just hopeless. What the hell have they done? You can see that those two devices have been pop riveted onto this bodgy, uh, aluminium bracket here.

It's just absolutely ridiculous. Anyway, that's a 2sk, uh, 1969, a big uh N Channel power mosfet? Not sure what the other one is. can't see a number on that, but what the hell have they done? So yeah, everything looks pretty horrible and crusty on it I wouldn't trust any of the original stuff on here. It just looks looks horrible.

or maybe it just looks worse than it actually is. Not entirely sure, but gee, I don't know. Got my work cut out for me. So anyway, that's the obligatory uh before video of my Sinclair C5 and well, I don't know I could have bitten off more than I could chew cuz I have no idea about uh, restoring cars or bikes or anything like that, let alone a cair.

C5 but I guess I'll learn as I go along so well. if anything, I can get it maybe to a P cart woohoo or a pedal cart. oh no, these things a heap of.