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Oily hands again

I've not been in the workshop for a week or so, but decided I'd brave the cold & have a potter about without any firm plan in mind.

Firstly, I rescued some rather neat cast iron wheels with rubber tyres. They are only about six inches in diameter & might find their way under the L'Aster. They had been bodged onto two bits of pine which gave in easily enough. The brass bristle brush found its way into the corners & the rust dust flew. I like post office red wheels, so they got a coat apiece.

A fairly modern - well, only fifty years old - Lucas magneto I'd rescued from the incomplete Coventry-Victor MA2 before putting it on eBay was next & I was surprised to find it cleaned up quite well. The armature revolved without play, so I left well alone & cleaned the slip ring through the pick up holes. The brushes cleaned up well and the points came out easily enough. They were held apart by a BIG lump of corrosion, but this was shifted & the points cleaned. Good fat blue spark!

Finally, the circa 1914 EIC magneto I'd set aside for the L'Aster. It was apparently seized solid, corroded & rusty, so I was pleased to find that corrosion was external. It had crept under the brass cap that acts as a bearing diameter for the moving cam ring. This had distorted the end of the magneto & cracked off part of the ali casting. A bit of careful tapping removed the cam ring holder allowing the thin brass sleeve to be taken off. Behind this is a long coil spring which is responsible for keeping the cam ring at full advance against the pull of the advance / retard cable. The coil spring lives in a semi-circular groove that runs around the lower half of the points side bearing. The section is very thin there & the lower half of the end was broken off, revealing the bearing outer, paper washer etc.

The corrosion was pushing the brass cup against the points base & when removed, the armature moved smoothly, so I didn't go further, not wanting to loose the magnetism of aging magnets.

A small brass bristle brush in a Dremel cleaned it all up & so up to the house for a cup of tea - well deserved after a couple of hours in the unheated workshop! I took the magneto with me & Araldited the broken off piece of the casing back into place. It isn't structural & is quietly going off in the kitchen keeping the old dog company overnight.

I'd already got a thready shock off it whilst cleaning the slip ring, so I have hopes that it will actually work tomorrow.

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

Reply to
Kim Siddorn
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It has being far too cold form recently. All I have managed to do other than picking up the Ruston 2PS yesterday, is to occasionally venture out to give the wood for my 2hp Witte's trolley and the wood for my 15yr old brothers Bamford SV3 trolley a varnish. Once it warms up and i get all my uni work finished i am going to finally finish of my 3H.P Ruston PB. (all it needs are new keys and a replacement float making, then the 2 new transfers putting on) unfortunatley its managed to get itself buried at the back of the shed.

Reply to
miley_bob

I know I'm singing with the choir here, but there is such satisfaction in careful hand fitting & bringing something back from the scrap bin, isn't there?

EIC magneto. With its broken casting re-attached, some careful work with the spherical burr in the Dremmel was needed to enable the advance and retard spring sits nicely in its groove again. A top-hat shaped brass shim (the Lord alone knows how they made them in the first place!) fits over it, a long slot enabling the cam ring grub screw to contact the end of it. It was a right fiddly job getting the spring into place, but patience will out ;o))

The cam ring would not fit over the brass shim's OD & considerable easing with a fine file was required in order to make it both fit & rotate. It is still stiff, but I want to see how it settles down before removing more metal.

The points base plate was rubbing on the face of the shim all around its diameter to the extent that it locked the whole thing up solid. Not that I'm complaining, as it was the principal reason I got the magneto for peanuts! It needed easing before it would rotate, but is now just fine. I cannot see how this situation could have arisen, unless the points base plate has sunk into the armature - and it hasn't, of course.

The magneto back together, a run up with the electric drill gives an excellent spark, although like all old mags, it could do with a good belt of magnetism. Enough, I think, to run the L'Aster.

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

Reply to
Kim Siddorn

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