Vintage Minor Register

It's coming on nicely, if you're ever near Reading and have a few hours...!

So after a long time but not a lot of miles DF 9053 is back in my garage.

I have sorted a raft of small issues and added rear indicators. The biggest problem was the dynamo though - not charging at all. So I have taken the radiator off, and the dynamo out. I then got struck down by flu and it seems some three weeks have gone by since I looked at it!

I have all the replacement parts, so next time there is a dry day and I'm not booked by parents or children I'll start to put it all back together again.

Hopefully in time for the Ludlow event if not before.

Cheers Jeremy

Congrats on your re-acquisition, Jeremy!

Looking forward to meeting up again after many years!

Ian

I'm just having my dynamo rebuilt by Paul Rogers. The keyway at the top gave out, and after removal I found the bottom one was no better, so both ends have been welded and ground back to size and new keyways cut. I'm ordering new sealed bearings.

I'm also changing the top forks, vertical drive pinion and oil seal and the Torringtons. I also want to check the alignment of the dynamo and pinion, as it might have been a misalignment that caused the damage to the top end of the armature. So I'm going to have a pointy mandrel machined up for the hole in the head and if badly out of line, I'll replace the two stepped cylinder head studs with plain ones so I can move the head around a bit.

Hopefully, like you, it will be all back together for Ludlow.

Thankfully my replacement dynamo fitted perfectly, the alignment is if anything better than the old one.

I just need to check through the wiring as I think there is some stray amps getting into the field windings causing erratic charge rates. I am planning on going back to the "book" wiring and strip out all the additions that have been made over the years in case they have introduced problems etc.

I have time to do this before Ludlow so looking forward to that greatly.