How To: C15a Wire-3 restoration

[Jordan Baker]

Tear down of the generator continued today. Everything has been disassembled and the major parts parts sandblasted. The commutator was cleaned up on a lathe. The field coils will be re wrapped as well. All of the small screws are being soaked in parts cleaner then in evaporust to clean them up. I'll be ordering a new fully sealed bearing for the drive end. I just need to find a couple of smaller bits and I should be good to go again.

[Bob Carriere]

Hi Jordan

There are a number of NOS field coils available as new kits or old stock on Ebay around $30.00.

Might not be a bad idea to look for a spare one if you are determined to stay with 6 volts. A lot of the fiddly parts are common to Delco for tractor so a local farm tractor dealer....particularly the ones dealing with antique tractors will have loose parts that you can compare without using the darn computer.

I got brushes and springs for a few dollars from a Massey dealer which is familiar with Delco/Massey usage..... same for starters and distributors, bushings, points, caps and rotors.

Keep it sparking.

[Jordan Baker]

The past day or so has been spent working on the starter. Broke it all down to its components. New rebuild parts are ordered. The casing, front section and end plate have all been sandblasted and painted with semi-gloss black as per the originals. Once back together this should crank the engine nicely. One unfortunate discovery was that the one main connection on the field coil was broken. I'm checking with the company I've ordered the rebuild kits from to see if they have matching field coils. If not I'll go the eBay route and try and find a matching one.

[Jordan Baker]

I'm always amazed at just how many individual parts go into making the vehicles we all love. An example being the copper stud in the starter. It's simple in what it does but takes 8 pieces to do it.

Also you can see where the copper band snapped/corroded away on the field coil. They should be easy to make match last part I noticed was the starter lever. The little contact points were rather heavily worn. I'll be checking the other starters I have to see what condition they are in. If all are similar I figure I'll just rotate them a bit to an unworn section.

[Frank v R]

I may have some NOS field coils , I'll let you know,

[Bob Carriere]

...can be expected after 75 years of being stomped on....

The starter lever, the two little round pill contact points are rpobably still quite usable..... mine were really worn by a 1/3 and I welded them then cleaned up with a dremel grinder. Some times later I found one on EBay NOS that I now have as a spare. The contact box that fits on top of your starter, the one with the copper contacts are also readily available and work replacing at this stage.

If you get new field coils they usually come as a pair fully assembled as a unit.

Good Luck.

[Jordan Baker]

Awesome Frank. I'm waiting to hear back from the rebuild place. I did find an NOS wartimeone one on eBay in Australia. This version came with two separate left and right side field coils. They are only "joined" together when soldered to the copper stud. I've also found others with different part numbers that are apparently the same.

I'll also be replacing the starting motor switch that sits on top of the starter.

[Shaun Mastin]

hey mate

whats the go with re wrapping the fields , I'm in Australia, haven't heard about this do you do it yourself? , I need to do mine
thanks shaun

[Jordan Baker]

Shaun, this was the link I used for rebuilding my jeeps generator when it had a total bearing failure. I still refer to it today as it is a great step by step.

http://willys.be/info/WOA5992US/WOA5992US.html

[Jordan Baker]

Finally started in on rebuilding the starter today. Brand new field coils were used along with NOS field coils screws. Its amazing just how hard these screws are to get out and then back in again. For removal I made up a tool to use in my impact air gun. Worked great for getting them out. However it wrecked the tops by chewing them up. For getting the field coil shoes back in just as tight I use the long nut and the two bolts as a kind of screw in wedge. I screw the screws in as tight as I can, then place the wedge in and turn it so it presses against both shoes. I can then normally get another 1-1/2 to 2 turns in the screw.

The copper leads were then pushed and pulled into shape and soldered into the copper stud.

[David Dunlop]

Nice work, Jordan.

David

[Jordan Baker]

Came home from work this morning and decided to finish the rebuild on the starter. All in all it went together without any issues.

Next up will be the generator.....but first some lunch.

[chris vickery]

Nice work Jordan. Did you do anything to the armature? eg undercutting the mica?