Well, the space van is dead yet again. This time it won't even make it back into my shop on its own power. And in this video you are going to see what can only be described as a roller coaster of emotion I go from Hope and happiness to defeat and destruction and literally destroyed Parts there's some pretty decent Carnage in this one and I get stranded yet again in one of my projects and it all started with simply trying to get this gas engine to run and I want you guys to pay attention throughout this video on how we go from happy Alex to sad Alex in a matter of well, about 40 minutes for you guys enjoy the show and consider maybe not buying a concept vehicle for yourself as they can be a royal pain in the butt. All right before we get involved in trying to get this gas engine to kick on, we need to do something that I should have done a long time ago.

and that's copy the hard drive from this computer because we found out that this guy right here this runs the whole Spaceman show. So originally I thought this computer was just to control the screen in there and uh, it didn't actually control the van at all. but we learned in the last video that that is not the case when I tried to switch over to gas mode in the screen. it just like shut the whole thing down because I think it was trying to switch to gas mode which is something else we have to figure out in this video.

But for now I need to copy the hard drive in this old computer. A lot of you guys had mentioned this in the comment section and basically if we lose that information, it's going to be gone forever. We're not going to find a backup of this program I Can't find anyone that's worked for Bright outside of one engineer and he doesn't have a copy. So the team that wrote all of this code is just not around anymore and so if we lose this, we're done.

The van is like totally dead in the water. So anyway, that's all it takes to remove this. We need to take it apart now. So what we want to get at is this hard drive right here.

and then this doesn't just slide right out. we have to take apart a little bit more. This face plate with the fans can pull back and then we can slide this. There we are, there's our board, few more screws.

Okay so let's go ahead and disconnect this and being extra careful, there we go. So I bought this off Amazon But what we have here is a tool that will read the drive and it hooks up via USB to a laptop and this is going to be our new drive. So this is a 32 gig where this one's only a 16 like I said many of you guys had mentioned to do this. but I think there was a little confusion I Think that people thought this was a very very old hard drive.

I Mean it is, but a lot of people thought that it had a spinning disc inside. Uh, their concern was vibration and that it could be physically damaged and then all the memory will be lost. That is not the case. This does not have any moving Parts but it is a very old flash drive.

It's very very slow, so we're definitely making a massive upgrade here. and then we'll have two copies just in case and it should be faster. First Step Image this disc. it's going in the space van hard drive.

Contents: Okay and I'll hit Finish: All right. Current progress: 0% This might take a while. Well, this is surprising. We're only about a minute in and it says we have about a minute left and it's really fast.

This guy's flashing away doing some work and we are almost done. It probably just went so fast because there's not a whole lot on it. Woohoo! Yay! Image completed successfully in 2 minutes and 35 seconds. Thank you! It tells you that because it's proud.

I Plugged a new Drive in so we're only copying 2.7 gigs. We'll go finish. This is just going to tell us it's going to right over the drive which is empty. Anyway, there we go.

She's cruising all right 4 minutes, 31 seconds is what it took. We are done 100% all Right We're going out with the old Afd 3 in with the Yanson I Don't know what that means anyone out there? What is that? I'm going to be super super careful with these pins. There we go. More power.

I Wonder if the van be faster? now? This will be faster. does that count? I'll reinstall our screws to the bottom with the screws installed. We can slide this whole thing back inside and then reinstall our two fans. and then what you want to do is use your 38 impact that can deliver Proba a couple hundred foot pounds of torque.

That way you know you're holding your little face plane on, right? Just kidding. Just kidding. Be gentle. that's that this will keep in the space fan.

it's still good and we weren't running like a huge risk. With this in the space fan like this, this would have been fine, but this is better. All right then we're going back into the van. I'm so excited to see if the screen is any faster.

Oh it's solid. I've plugged everything back in. Now let's connect power there we go. Now When I plug the car into charge it, it turns that computer on and the screen so let's give it some charge.

oo There She Goes Working away All right. It's doing its thing in here. Disc Boot Failure insert system disc press Enter there we go. I'm hoping we just have to do that for the first time that it's booting up, but then again, it wouldn't be that weird for the space Band to have a keyboard with it at all times.

Looks like there's some settings that need to be changed, like which devices to boot up first. So we just changed that over to hard disk and we'll go ahead and save this. Let's see what happens now. Oh I Heard a beep There we go.

Yay! We're back. We're back! Eco Drive All right, let's see what we're looking at for energy: I haven't plugged this in for a while. 76% state of charge. All right, that's pretty good.

It won't take us that much longer to charge it back up to 100% state of charge before we go out on the road and test it. So right now, we got to figure out why this gas engine won't kick on now. Normally you'd need to wait for the state of charge to go low in order for it to kick on, but we can force the engine on this way. or at least we're supposed to be able to.

And yeah, nothing happens. I Did this on our last test drive while it was driving in EV mode and it totally shut the whole van down. So it does seem like it's switching over, but it's not actually starting so we have to get into Super super diagnosis mode on this 1.8 L caliber engine. But first, even though the space van looks really, really good, we are going to make it look even better by ceramic coating it with the DIY Armor Shield 9 Ceramic Coating Kit from Avalon King I've been using this for years on all of my cars and right now they are doing a crazy Black Friday sale.

So normally a complete kit is $75 and for a very limited time and quantity, you're going to get three kits for $99 This is the best deal of the Year by far and you can coat an entire car with just one kit. If you have a larger SUV or truck, you'll need two and these make excellent gifts as well. So get three for .99 and give one away for Christmas. Ceramic coating does many things like protect your car from the element, so you can think of this as an invisible shield over your entire car.

It also makes any surface hydrophobic so water and dirt roll right off, keeping your car cleaner in between washes and it'll give your paint a deep glossy shine. Now the Armor Shield 9 kit makes everything easy. It all comes in the kit so they give you one of these applicators and a pad that it wraps around. You're just going to Prime this and then wipe it on I Like to go in different directions like so and then wait 60 seconds and wipe it off.

So 60 seconds later and now we are simply going to buff off any excess. That is it. If you guys have ever waxed a car and wax gets everywhere, all those little dots on all of your trim and everything like that, it is really annoying. It only lasts for a couple of months, but if you guys could do that, you can easily ceramic coat your car.

I Can do a normal size vehicle in about I don't know. Hour and a half 2 hours. It's so easy once you get going and you can bounce around all over the car. so while that's drying for 60 seconds, we can start restoring trim.

and this is one of the best trim restoration products on the market. Don't waste any money buying a separate product. I've restored the trim on all my cars and it makes them look so much younger. so much newer.

Look at this. The space. Fand's brand new now so definitely take advantage of this insane deal. It's the best one of the year.

And last year when I mentioned their Black Friday special, everything sold out within a few days. So this is very limited time and quantity. but this time around you guys my viewers have Early Access This is going to get released to the general public in a few days from now. You guys can share the link with your friends and family and you don't have to enter a coupon C C or anything, just use the special link down below and with that, I'm going to continue to ceramic coat my Space F so that that is drying while we're trying to diagnose why my four-cylinder Dodge Caliber engine won't run.

Okay, now that we're done and the space fan is looking pretty, we need to figure this out. So this engine did start in the very first Space Van video. here is proof and then we're putting it in. we're putting it in Drive H It started but I was never able to get it started ever again.

I Didn't really care much because I was mostly focused on the high voltage battery system, but now that that is working and this does, Drive In EV mode, we need that gas engine to kick in, drive the front wheels of the van to keep us going further. So this setup is kind of similar to a Chevy Volt in that it'll run in pure EV mode for around 20 to 30 mil. These batteries are a little bit degraded so we we'll see how far we can go, but when it runs out of juice, the gas engine kicks in, drives the front wheels, and you can just drive all day long until you can charge it again. So the idea was that this could get 100 mp gallon in the city and so that rating wasn't calculated based on driving this thing through an entire tank of fuel, it was based on the average city mileage of delivery Vans which I think was about like 40 or 50 Mi something like that.

So if you combine the EV range and the gas range for the day, it would get about 100 MPG All right. So what I want to do is figure out if the starter is getting a signal to start when it's supposed to. Now the starter on the engine is underneath the intake, but we should have an engine wiring harness section that we can get to somewhere behind this really nice customade made cold air intake. All right! So I found what I was looking for this yellow wire right? Here is our s terminal at the back of the starter.

I Can't get a camera in all the way but I can I can see where it's going. that's the S terminal so that should get a signal to start when we hit the engine icon there in our little command screen. All right. So I'm going to hook up the voltmeter to the back here of the starter where that yellow wire goes to.

So I have made a little incision on that wire because it is very difficult to get to the actual back of the starter and I'm hooking up. My power lead to that. Now we're going to click on the engine with the screen. Go ahead all right.

and yeah, we're getting no voltage whatsoever. Okay, so we definitely have a signal issue I wouldn't imagine the starter would be bad yet. I Think this is a very low mileage engine, but before we go any further, let's just give power to that s terminal. see if this thing cranks curious.

All right. Power Probe has power all right before? I Do this. I'm going to make sure this car is in park. I I Really don't trust this cuzz if I bump that starter and it is in gear.

I'm going to get run over so hang on. I'm going to be like 1,000% sure here and do this while. I sit on the engine. then at least if it takes off towards that brick wall right there, I'll just be able to stop it right there.

We go. Here we go. Hey, it didn't move me all right. Starter's good.

Engine spins fine. I Mean it ran beautifully when I got it running. you know, a few months ago at this point. But yeah, it's not going to see any signal from the engine computer or anything like that because the van is not commanding it to start.

But at least at this point we've ruled out the starter or the engine and we can keep on going with diagnosis. We will figure you out. Space Fan. Who do you think? you are? A concept vehicle with like no schematics or information at all? all? Right now, the Space Fan has a lot of unknowns.

You know, like this gigantic harness that's not plugged in. It's got quite a few circuit breakers. I'm just going to go around and reset these. These connections look good and in the last episode I did clean up this ground because it was in pretty poor shape, but that should be fine now.

and then. we have another one right here. What is this? Oh this. Oh, this is a big power wire right here.

I Believe going to the starter. this looks like an airbag impact sensor. Just kind of chilling right here. that's not doing anything.

There's no real airbags on this car and what is this? is this? An Ambient Air Temperature Sensor Yeah, this looks like an Ambient Air Temperature Sensor It's plugged in. It's just kind of chilling right here. so that's good. This fuse right here is good and here we go.

Wow. W This thing is like triple fuse. There's one here as well. Really freaked out that fuses would blow I Guess we have two 15 ampers.

They are good and let's check this one out here. it's 25. That is also good. What is this one? Look at how chewed up this one is.

Look at the cap. Look like an animal went at this guy. but that's good too. Another fuse behind the battery.

15 amp is that blown? Hold on a second. PR Have a blown fuse. That'd be great. Come on now.

any kind of. Smoking Gun that will reveal itself and the van is always good because there really isn't any documentation for anything at all. Ooh, this is exciting guys. That fuse is blown I Don't know what it does, but it's blown.

Let's replace it all right. New 15 amp fuse is going in. It didn't immediately blow and I'm just tracing this back. It goes directly to the battery and then inside of the car.

All right. So it goes in here somewhere and this Tag's got some writing on it. What does this say? Main Connection: Cool. Okay, here's a installation that they used.

Very nice. Oh look at this. You can see where the floor was w to the firewall. There we go.

Um, found some more ground connections. What is this? This just says ground. Okay, more weld. Excellent.

Oh, look at this is this the VIN I Don't know what this is I Mean that's not like a real Vin but they put something here. What is this? Does anyone know what that is? Is that some kind of method of keeping track of equipment or something? I mean it looks looks like a VIN Anyway, uh, what does this one say? Main Connector: Okay, again, all right there it is. Yep, it's this guy right here. It seems to eventually lead up to this relay right here.

Fortunately I Have no idea where this goes. Nothing's labeled at this point. I'm just going to turn the key on and see if the gas engine kicks on. We'll see if that had anything at all to do with our issue.

Why do I feel like we're never going to know what that fuse does? Only one way to find out. Okay, let's see. All right, let's try kicking engine on and nothing great. and I can hear something clicking when I do this inside the car.

Listen, you hear that the space man wants to click on that gas engine. Why isn't it? I'm going to put this carpet back, but you know I like to put legit street car stickers in weird places. There we go. made my mark, reinstall our Warat whatever we call this can I like make this look better by just going like that.

Look at that cover up all the wiring. There we go. it looks so much better. Stay now.

In this slew of wiring disaster is an OBD2 connector. That's how I figured out where the engine came from. We checked it for codes long long ago. So let's look for codes now, see if anything new has popped up and hopefully that can point us in the right direction of what is going on here.

Let's scan everything and we don't have that many modules. Come on now. Dtc's 30. Really? All right.

Um, let's see, we have an implausible data received from the TCM transmission control unit stored active fuel level sensor I'm sure none of that stuff is hooked up to the engine's computer. We had a lot of this stuff back when I had this thing running. Let's see: TCM Calibration not learned. It wasn't communicating with the transmission control unit before so I'm not too concerned about that.

I Mean if this was a normal car, I' would be very concerned about that, but it's it's not normal all right. I Want to check out some body control units here. So what I'm looking for right now is to see if there's an issue with how the car is communicating with the ignition system. So right now we're checking out live data for the ignition system and you can see here we have 13.6 volts ECU normal mode and what? I'm looking forward to see if this thing recognizes that the key is in there.

There we go. Uh, valid key in ignition? No, there is a key in the ignition number of Key Fubs Program two I only have one? Well, we're getting some there. All right. Well, that's really the important part.

Oh, this is funny. it's reading tire pressure I Don't believe that at all. Uh, what's important here is this word? No, we need that to say yes, because right now the space fan doesn't know that this key is in the ignition. I Mean when we turn it, things light up and stuff like that.

but it's not sending a signal that will eventually go to the engine's computer to allow us to start. But why was it doing it when I first got it? I Don't know this did work at one point. All right. My next step is to put a mask on.

Why would you need a mask to work on the space van? Especially in the interior? Well let me show you. yeah, if you guys remember, the space van has a lot of just normal insulation like stuff you'd get at the hardware store to insulate your home. See this stuff right here. and what I want to try and find is called a Win module.

So Chryslers use a Win module. It's a wireless ignition node and that basically completes the communication between the key and the engine computer. At the end of the day, it all has to go through this module. so it's got to have one.

I Am thinking it's somewhere around the ignition. Maybe I mean it's a module. It could be anywhere. let's discover.

All right. So welcome to Behind the dashboard of the Space Fan. It's very intimidating. No one has any idea what's going on in here, but we're looking for a control unit.

Where are you control unit where? without a bunch of disassembly, it's very difficult to show you guys where this module is. but it's above that brace. And more importantly I Found some wiring that comes from the wind module through the firewall and into our engine compartment. So we got to figure out which ones these are.

So it seems like most of the wiring action on the space van is in this area. here. this is our big fuse and relay box and then we have this mess right here and actually hold on. We had green and we had blue down there.

So this is our little remote start door lock module. This is comes on like older cars from the 9s and 2000s. So this can control a key fob see look at that keyless entry and this also has a little button here and an LED light. You guys have probably seen this before so this just kind of lives right over here and that actually has these I Wonder if these are the same? So it looks like for this module it only has four wires that are actually being used.

You can see most of this harness goes nowhere. Um, it has power and ground right here. that's really easy to trace back. It just goes to the battery and then it just has these two wires which seem to be coming off of the wind module which has to do with ignition.

So I'm going to check continuity and see if those are the same wires. These are the wires that we're going to check for continuity. These go to the wind module, make a small incision into the insulation here. so just a little guy like that.

Now we can connect our meter all right. So with it connected under the hood, I'm going to touch it right now. Oh, hold on there we go. We have continuity.

Cool, All right. That's really good news. We have a wire going from our ignition module to that random remote start box. That module that that could be intercepting the signal and that thing could just simply be bad.

Those are really cheap too. You can get those off like Amazon and stuff like that for like 50 bucks. All right. So I've already unplugged this here and then this I think is the remote wire and does any of this go to anything else? No, nothing.

This whole thing is not being utilized. That's that's not that weird. Um, let's see though. what we can see on the inside inside.

Okay, oh E Well, it passed quality Control but I'm assuming that was before it had this. Yeah, Oh wow. look at that. Oh no.

this got corroded. That is cool. I Like that. Yeah, there's some corrosion on this side of the circuit board as well and that could be interrupting our contact.

We've definitely had our fair share of corroded control units on this channel. If you guys remember the Alpena B7 with its trunk full of water and I was able to fix most of those. I Think think out of the 15 modules, I needed to only replace two of them after cleaning and they were. Some of them were worse than this.

So okay, that's nice. let's remove this from the car. so there's our power wire. Oh okay, just pulling out the connectors here.

It's a little scary. Okay, we'll leave those two in. Let's do. we did in the Alpina Let's clean this.

What we're going to be using here is electronic contact cleaner. So don't just go get some Brak cleaner carbon CH cleaner and go to town. This is specific so it won't destroy the circuit board and we're just going to start off with a nice cleaning now. I Want to be really gentle here, remove the corrosion but not remove any of the solder joints or anything like that you can see.

this board is already kind of flaky. Yeah, we're going to remove some of this. It's inevitable. I am inevitable.

Now on the Alpena I Was being very, very careful because some of those modules are really expensive. This I'm going to be careful with too, but only because I'm dying to know if this actually works, but if if we ruin it or if it's just too far gone already, it's not the end of the world. I'm sure we can find the same module on the internet. This side has already cleaned up.

Well, it wasn't that bad. These Pens have seen better days going around with a tiny picked areas like this to get this corrosion off. All right. We final cleaning here and then we'll let it dry.

That's about as good as this is coming. This side looks really nice. We'll let this fully air dry and then we'll plug it in and see what happens. She's all dried up.

Let's plug it in, plug it in, plug it in. All right. We're getting clicks Okay with our cleaned up module. Let's put our caps back on and we're going to plug this in.

All right. that could be it. That could be intercepting our signal and causing the key fob essentially not to read. So if that's the case, we don't even have to try starting this thing yet.

Let's just go back to the laptop. All right. Chrysler key going into Chrysler ignition, hopefully communicating with Chrysler wind module. Oh, look at that.

Yes, Yes, Yes, that's what we wanted to see. Nice. All right. Cool.

Well hey, we already fired it up. Let's uh, let's put it in gas mode and see if the engine starts All right. Ladies and gentlemen. Foot is on the brake.

Still says yes, this should work and of course it doesn't work. How is that possible work? Let's go back to Hybrid. Man, this stinks. Wait a minute.

Oh no, that's no key fob for it being depressed. Yeah, this said no before. Hold on, You know what? Let me try something. So before to get this gas engine to start, we would just put it in a drive and let me try putting it in engine mode.

Okay, hang on, let's try this again. So now it's in engine mode. No, this is the story of my space van life people. You think you find a Smoking Gun and it's still doesn't work? I mean it is possible though, that that module is bad, but no, no, it said no before.

Now it's making a connection and saying yes. Say yes to starting all right. You know what I want to do I am going to unplug everything on this van for a few minutes and see if it resets anything in that first video when we got this thing to run I had to do that a few times because we got stranded in the parking lot there. All right, Power's going back on now.

we're getting our clickies all right. So I hit that red button before and maybe that is a kill switch? Check this out! Something I noticed is that when we command the engine to start this relay, like never stops clicking. That's weird. Let's replace or jump that relay out of the way.

Not a fan of this clicking relay. It's been many months but I think I would have remembered if this was clicking last time with had the gas engine on. Not sure curious what this relay looks like. I it looks okay in here.

let's jump it anyway. All right, we're going to jump 30 and 87. Okay, nothing bad happened yet. All right here we go.

Nothing. Well, that didn't work as far as jumping it. Okay, now that we're getting that ignition signal I Want to see if we command the engine on like so and then we? Power Probe the starter. Will it run now? Monster Run H Come on baby.

So weird. It's kicking off like it's getting a fuel pressure. Prime Oh, there we go. Okay, engine's running.

It's a step in the right direction. so now it's seeing the key and it's starting. but we have to manually feed it power. So what in the world is going on here? I Want to make sure that the alternator is charging 15? All right.

Nice. I Like it so that's good. Ooh, let's see the screen with the engine running. It is showing the fuel is running the engine which is sending power to the wheels.

which it's not actually doing right now. But oh, let's see. All right, we're going to drive. Oh yeah, it moves and it's just running off the front-wheel drive engine and transmission.

right now it's not showing any power flow to the rear. Okay, you can kind of tell it feels that way too like in EV mode. it it feels like an EV this feels like a normal gas car and can I rev it. not really now when I'm standing still.

but it does respond to throttle when it's in gear. Okay, all right. why why isn't it getting a command to the starter on its own? All right, let's try switching over to EV mode only and it shuts the engine off. That's right, and now, technically it should start right there and it doesn't but we have relay clicking right in here.

We got to investigate that it only clicks when I put it into engine mode as if it's trying to command command. All right. First things first. let's just replace the relay, see what happens.

It's clicking all right. So I'll just pop this relay in now and we'll just see what happens. This could be it, people. this could be it.

Come to life. Chrysler Engine come To life. All right guys. I have spent all day trying to figure out why this gas engine doesn't start when I click the the button in the screen to get it to start.

and the frustrating part is I don't even know if this ever worked or or how this system works at all. I've just been obsessed with with getting it to work because it's there for a reason, right? I Don't know I'm just defeated at this point. I mean just look at I have been all up in here with my volt meter just checking discovering trying to figure out the space van with no schematics and I'm just like I'm killing myself and I think for no reason I was able to get the gas engine to start and run by force feeding it power for all I Know the people at Bright had rigged something up at the time just for it to run when they needed to show people the van cuz this was like in front of Congress and stuff like that. So I did some rigging.

You guys know how this thing was put together with stuff like this: 50 million connectors on the battery? I mean heck, some of the stuff. they didn't even use a connector, they just wrapped bolts around wires like so. So I'm getting in on this party. I added my own power wire to the battery just like they did and I've rigged it up into a toggle switch.

a temporary toggle switch because I'm going to get a really cool push button start. but check this out. It runs, it runs guys with my little toggle I am done trying to figure out if there is some module or relay or computer on this car that has been wired in like everything else that's not working. I'm I just I did it myself.

all right now. I'm a Bright Idea engineer so I ordered a really cool push button that I'm going to install nicely in this video. But first I want to go for a ride on EV Power see how far we go and see if when the state of charge gets if we click on engine. Now that we fix the ignition issue, if it kicks on, that that might just be it.

I don't know, it's the next day it was raining yesterday and I don't drive my space b in the rain. So new day I'm rejuvenated and check out our new push button starting switch. So we're going to go ahead and install this and I think I Found a good spot so we have a fake cigarette lighter here so we're going to get rid of it. and I think this will be the same size.

roughly. Yes. So we have to screw this nut on and hook up the wiring here. I Think in order to not have to take all of this apart, we can can take this panel off.

You can see it's got a nice little Gap anyway and let's see. Yeah, okay, it just pulls off great. All right. Cool.

So this was all custom built. Whoa! What is this? What in the world we got this and what? dude? Get out of here. I Did not see this when I hit all this apart Dining Car EOP What? What is this and then it's got a connector that's jumped or something. Emergency stop What? I mean how do you not press a big red button and just ah, didn't do anything? All right? Hang on.

What does this actually do? Does this have anything to do with the fact that our gas engine doesn't kick on? I Don't know. There's only one way to find out. All right. I'm going to get this thing all booted up and then we're going to EOP it and why would they even have the EOP here? You have to remove a panel to get to it that makes no sense whatsoever.

Oh, there's also some USB action going on here. Yeah I don't know. Is this maybe cut off power to the motor? I'm not sure, but we're going to find out. All right.

Let's just first go on to engine mode. Oh, that definitely did something. Yeah I definitely heard a drop there in battery power. All right.

I'm going to put this in Drive Well, no, it won't move at all. Okay, that makes sense I guess I just e stopped it. All right, let's give this a key cycle, get us back online, let's see if it'll work there we go. Okay, so Van Works in EV mode like like it always does.

Very reliable. There we go Eep it just shuts off Electric Power I mean cool I guess but like they got it in a a really bad spot I think I'm going to run this out into the floor area. It doesn't look like it was ever mounted, but the original concept vehicle had this ESOP out here somewhere so they probably HIIT it for when they were showing and trying to sell the van. Who wants to see a gigantic Red emergency stop button in their car? We're moving on.

We have our own buttons to install that look much prettier. All right, let's disconnect one of my old nitrous switches. cut these ends off wire strip times two, then we have our crimper. There we go.

Perfect. We're good all right now. We'll attach our terminals like so let just give it a quick test. We're good.

We're good. All right. Let's get this thing installed is put together very well. All right feed our wires through All Right Switch going into its new home.

All right. Start switches in. it's the worst. A sequence of karate chops is what it takes to reinstall this panel.

This looks sweet, All right. We are ready to go on our maiden voyage to see how far we can go in the space van with the gas engine now. so it'll be in EV mode until it runs out, then gas engine mode and I got to get the EOP button out front and center. This was designed by Bright to have a function to shut off all of the high voltage power and it should be on in the open.

This is how they would have been driving around when they were testing it. We have a mouse and a keyboard and if they were going on solo trips, they probably had a setup like this. So cool. This is a great idea.

I mean a bright idea. Oh, and we can't forget about this switch panel that we found in one of the First videos. Leaving that out as well. It just kind of dangles here.

That's where they wanted It and if we run into any issues, we can log it into their trouble log which doesn't have any logs in it because this thing is just so reliable and yeah, trouble-free Nothing in here I should start logging this. Oh, and we have our Indiana license plate that is way expired and there wasn't anything in here except for this stuff. It basically tells you how to do stuff like remove the passenger office seat I don't know what that is. Oh, and then here's their One log engine fault road test no fault found .5 hours by whoever that is in 2009 and then how to remove the driver's seat and then some more instructions.

So yeah, that's all we got. That's all the paperwork. We're going to keep track of the mileage on this drive in the fancy van I Call it the space van though and we're just going to treat this like a daily driver. I'm going to go pick up parts I Got a C4 Corvette Target top we got to get.

We might go pick up some AMS oil. who knows what else. We're at 100% state of charge and we'll leave it in hybrid mode. Here we go.

The amazing backup camera Look at that Here we go here. we go just driving my space SP daily. I'm so nervous it's going to leave me stranded. probably maybe I don't know.

We fix everything right? right? All right here we go people. we're cruising. Uh, we're going to swing by the bank, pick up 500 bucks cash, that's what I'm buying this C4 Target top for uh and then we're meeting in the parking lot of a Hobby Lobby So funny. The guy's like I'm going to be in a black 335xi with dark tinted windows and he's like what are you going to be in and uh I Didn't know what to say so I just said a silver delivery van with chrome wheels and then I said you'll know when you see it, he'll know he'll know.

All right guys. we're approaching two and a half miles in this Bas van. We're good. We just hit four miles.

and guys, you don't know how nervous I am right now. The last time when we drove it around I just kind of kept on going around my shop like right in the neighborhood. We are just straight up 4 miles away. like if this breaks down, it's not going to be good at all.

almost at the bank and uh, that's about how far the a pillar will go before it pops out. This one has no Clips There we go Hey Look, it's a Rivan. hello fellow electric utility vehicle. This is crazy.

Okay I wonder if the Rivian's got one of these There we go. What are we at? All right? we're past five miles people. Woo cash money. Got my 500 bucks.

Let's go meet this dude at? Hobby Lobby for a Target top Just continuing on the day just like a normal vehicle in the space. Man the bright idea. Let's see. will it make it through here? I hope so Am I going to make it kind of.

that makes it through the drive-thru I Went in and got cash and I just had to go around okay normal vehicle. Oh no guys, we just had a horrible like axle noise. Oh no and then it wouldn't it wouldn't it doesn't move. Oh man that's not good.

Oh the axle must have let loose. Oh no oh this is the worst spot ever. Shoot I got to investigate. All right we are in such a bad spot.

We need the gas engine because that'll run the front wheels. This is a rear motor issue right now. it s it sounds like the axle is just free spinning or not spinning at all. The motor's free spinning is what I mean Man everything was going great too.

We went like almost 7 miles. Come on screen Boot Up! Why is this taking the longest it's ever taken? Now click on engine. Here we go. Please work it moves again.

Thank goodness for the front-wheel drive gas engine right now people. Oh my gosh, that is awesome and this is the first time we've driven it in gas mode. Okay and it doesn't want to go very fast at all. Oh man I wonder if it needs that electric motor too? I don't know what's going on.

we're going like 10. It's better than nothing. I'll take 10 right now so at least we can get over. no one's going to let me in.

Okay, there we go. I don't know why I'm putting my turn signals on. they don't do anything. Oh this stinks.

This stinks. but I'm so happy we have that gas back up. we can. we can limp.

at 10 we can get it somewhere. the target top guy is going to be mad I'm going to be late. sorry Target Top Guy. All right.

we're pulling into a spot. Oh shoot, let's investigate. Well, the brakes are much different right now with the gas engine running. Okay, all right.

luckily we have our engine right here. Here's our: X Okay, oh my gosh, you got to be kidding me. Look, look at what happened to the axle. It totally sheared off.

What? dude? we're putting like no power to this thing at all. like it goes 45 mph and takes off like a turtle off the line. Why would that? Shear off? That makes no sense. All right I don't know I don't know what to say? All right C4 Target Top sweet, it's very nice.

thank you very much I appreciate you meeting me here. All right. Thanks a lot! This guy was nice enough to drive like 6 miles down the road to meet me here. so at least I'm stranded.

but I have a C4 Target because it's taking me like a year to find a decent deal on one of these. Everybody wants $1,200 I Got this for five. Looks nice so one win of the day. I Guess my goal was to treat this like a real delivery van and like pick up parts.

and we did that. All right guys. that's wide open throttle. It's basically idle.

you know, maybe like 5% throttle something like that. So I'm 7 miles away and uh, able to go maybe 10 m an hour. And we did find a route that takes us through side streets where the speed limit's like 15ish or whatever, so we should be fine. This is going to take well, roughly about an hourish something like that.

All right guys. this thing is only going about 3 mph. Like if there's any kind of incline, it's over I am going to try and pull the fireman safety loop just in case that will allow us to have throttle response. I Don't know why we don't have any throttle response but I don't know guys.

I Know you guys have mentioned this a lot, but I'm just starting to think this was never really a real car. Nothing works. it's all hacked together. It looks pretty I Don't know.

All right So now maybe if we force gas mode it'll give us throttle. I Don't know I Don't know people, we're back in engine mode. nothing. it's just Idols That's all it does great.

Well we got another van coming in for the rescue. the Chevy Express sometimes you just need a 700 horsepower Chevy Express van to bring you to the promised land. Hey what up? We've done this before. couple two or three times I'm broken.

Yeah, it sounds about right. You got some toe straps I uh. grabbed what I could find. All right, we're going toe strap it up.

Yes I do own a trailer but the Ml55 is on it and it's all strapped down and we're like 5 miles away. I don't feel like going through all that mess for the trailer so we're going to Old School we're in neutral LSC Express is hooked up. Let's do this. and luckily we still have the gas engine running and the electric power steering is working.

We have power brakes. We're in good shape. real real good shape all right guys. we're almost back at the shop.

We're uh, about two blocks away and everything went fine. It's all good. Defeated Again by this van. I'm just disappointed we were going so good on the EV range.

We've gone like 7 miles and I think we're at like a I don't know 60 or 70% state of charge. So I think we would have gotten like 15 to 20 mi of range out of it which is normal and then the gas engine would have taken us further but we have no throttle input. Who knows what kind of programming is done or not done with this thing. Who knows.

if it ever really worked, no one knows I don't know. Maybe this is the world telling me that there's only room for one van in my life. It might just be the procharged LSC Express It's a great van, All right, we're here. Sweet Home legit Street quarters I don't even know if I can make it back in the shop.

Yep, didn't even make it in the shop. This is where the space van will sit until I figure out what in the world I'm doing with it. Well everybody I got to let you know how I'm feeling right now and it is a mix of defeat, disappointment, and I'm just I'm tired. I have put so much time into fixing this van, so much mental effort and probably hundreds of labor hours and trying to figure out how to make a concept van with no instructions, blueprints or wiring diagrams, function.

and I am starting to question what function even means for this van because there's no proof that it ever really did anything on the internet. All the videos that are out on this van are on my YouTube channel outside of a couple from Bright from like 12 years ago where you see it driving but it's just briefly and you don't know how fast it's going. You don't know what mode it's in, you don't even know if it's real, and it seems like this thing is governed at 45 mph. We get no throttle response when we get the gas engine to run.

So I I'm not exactly sure how this van is supposed to work and my goal has always been to Simply restore it back to how the bright Engineers had designed it to kind of pay homage to their efforts in building a van that achieved 100 m per gallon, but without much information on the van, we just don't know what it did. this could have been it. This could have been the proof of concept and the point that they got before the lights turned off and the company went under. but either way it's just been so defeating every time.

I think I've taken one step forward and I get excited that we fixed somewhere and gotten somewhere. Something breaks and it's like we're taking two gigantic leaps backwards now. I Do think I've accomplished a lot. We've rebuilt the high voltage battery we've gotten this van to drive on.

EV Power We've gotten it to charge, We've gotten the gas engine to work, we've gotten the screen to work and it just seems like I'm right there and then the axle breaks and who knows why. I Think it's rubbing a little bit, but it could be at some weird angle. We don't know if this thing was ever meant to do much more than lot. Drive I I Just don't know.

So I Know some of you guys have mentioned why don't you LS swap it or Tesla swap it guys I want nothing to do with that. This vehicle has no Vin it can never be legally titled. it's someone else's project. It's not anything that I would have done so to dump that kind of time and effort into it, especially with all the other cool projects that I'm super into.

doesn't make any sense and it was never part of the original goal. I just want it to work like Bright. Got it to work 12 years ago and then my ultimate goal has always been to do something charitable with the van. Whether that is donating it to a school, selling it, and donating the money to a school, or donating the entire van to a museum because it is a small part of EV history to the EV world.

This is kind of a cool van and I know I mostly work on gas stuff with big engines and boost and all that. but I've always kind of been into e these as well. just like the history behind them. I think they make great daily drivers.

Yeah, so to some people this van is kind of important. But anyway, at this point I was going to get the original CEO on a zoom call and I was going to ask him for $1 million for the van. but I also said I would do that when the van is is functional and now it's definitely not functional. It won't even make it into the shop so I will have to fix the axle, hopefully figure out why it is that that broke and who knows what else I'll run into, but hopefully in the next video.

I'm going to try and sell this to the old CEO or maybe donate it to a cool car museum. just not really sure right now. But let me know in the comments section how much money do you think this van is actually worth I know it's one of one. There aren't really any comps, but have you guys ever seen concept vehicles that have actually sold? and I know something is only worth what someone will pay for it I Get that people say that a lot and it makes a lot of sense in this case.

But let me know what you think. If you've ever seen a concept vehicle that's sold, what do you think I could get for this thing? So with that I Hope you guys enjoyed this craziness of the space van as it continues on. And if you did, give it a big thumbs up, share the video with your friends, subscribe if you haven't already, and most importantly, have a fantastic day. I'll see all of you in the next video.

Okay, so I had an idea that they're coming in some, so considering most so, here are the wires. we're going to be checking continuity. This is what we're checking continuity. Theis all right now I Want to be gentle? All right.

So we're going to be using here is electric Con In the space van with the gas engine kicking on so we have our start stop Beat Kind word is that beer I don't even know what that means Oh.