Paul and Francois,  wow that was a great discussion.  Paul, you are not
kidding about other systems failing.  Today I got off a little early and
thought I would get in a couple hours of flight time.  On pre-flight I
notice a loose alternator belt which lead me to a crack in the alternator
bracket.  The thing was just hanging on by a thread.  All I had to do was
loosen the tensioning arm and the alternator fell off all together. (BTW, I
had previously taken your advise and replace my alum. tensioning arm with
steel)  It turns out the weld was of very poor quality and the design was
marginal.  I paid top dollar to some guy named Neil Sherm, who is also the
guy who sold me the rusted out 13B.

Anyway sorry I don't have any pictures, but I already dropped it off at a
welder I know and trust.  We will also be improving the design with a couple
of gussets.

Francois input has encouraged me to make sure that I do some fine adjusting
of my timing as soon as possible.

I will be keeping my MAP under 30 except for take off for the duration of my
flight test period.  This will still yield quite a brisk cruise speed at the
higher altitudes after I get a prop that can handle it.

Dave Leonard

I got a picture of your old tensioning arm  and I can probably dig up
the discussion we had on it if you want me to :)

Paul Lamar
 
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