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

Like I said, I took your advise and I'm glad I did.  It was not the arm that
broke but the bracket.  In fact, the arm was the only thing holding the
alternator in place.  Here is a picture of the repaired piece.  It was the
lower weld that came apart.  The Gussets on the front and back are new.
Besides not having the gussets (which should have been obvious to me or the
guy making it), the welds were of very poor quality and had almost no
penetration.

Otherwise this is a simple design that I hope will work well for years.  But
there is nothing like finding something on pre-flight that would have killed
the engine to make you appreciate pre-flight forever more.

Dave Leonard

 
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