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Monday 7 July 2014

Home Moorings Sunday 29 June 2014

OK, first some boring updates which I need for my own records.

You will recall on our last trip we were suffering from a screaming 24 volt domestic alternator. I had a spare onboard but the fixings were slightly different so a few modifications were required, so to this end I took the old one home with me and had some bushes made up. We returned to the boat just for the day on the following Thursday to do a dummy fitting, all was OK even the same belt fitted even though the new alternator has a smaller pulley. What didn’t fit, even though I changed its orientation was the adjusting arm, so the first job was to swap the front end plate to its original position. I then made a template of an additional adjustment arm and we headed  back off home to get the necessary bits fabricated.

With a selection of bolts, nuts and washers plus the new bracket we headed back to the boat on Friday 27 June, thankfully the new bits fitted, so mechanically the new alternator was working. One of the advantages of the old one was that it was self exciting so did not require a switched feed to the alternator to make it work, this is often referred to as the ignition lamp which is switch via the “ignition” switch. The new one requires this supply to start it generating. Another slight problem was the old alternator pulley sat slightly further aft than the new one, but this was achieved by a couple of washers on the main front mounting bolt.

So apart from requiring me to hold one lead on the Ind. terminal and the other on the B+ terminal for a few seconds to start it charging once the engine is turning, we are up and running.

On the Saturday we visited the Braunston Historic Boat rally by car. I didn’t take any photos as the weather was atrocious with torrential rain, we returned in the evening to sleep on Harnser before heading home again on the Sunday.

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