From: Gary Henderson
Subject: Starter
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 09:38:00 +1200
a Lucas M35G (Much better than the later M35J!)
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 02:48:12 +0100 (WET DST)
From: Ewins, Paul
Subject: Alternator
A fairly tardy reply, but I've been on holidays....
>I have currently got the alternator waggling on just the one bracket at
>the front. I am advised that I can put a piece of thick walled tubing in
>the gap between the two mounts on the alternator and I reckon a long
>piece of studding will hold the alternator in fine, has anyone else done
>this?
This sounds like the solution I used when I swapped from a generator to an alternator. I used a 28A Lucas unit (ex-Mini) that was lying around the garage. A long piece of threaded rod of the appropriate diameter was used along with about eight nuts and washers. The rod was cut to the approximate length and two nuts put on the end and tightened in opposite directions so that they lock together.
Next the rod was passed through the original bracket in the middle of the block and another nut put on to be tightened against the other side of the bracket. Then the alternator was put on with nuts on either side of each mounting hole and finally through the bracket on the end of the block with one nut on the end to hold it all in place. It looks a little agricultural, especially as the only threaded rod I could get was coarse thread stuff intended for building, not mechanical work, but it seems to do the job quite happily.
BTW, my car also has a foreign starter motor, an Isuzu unit that engages the other side of the ring gear, i.e. the bit that wasn't already worn out. Apparently a fairly common conversion with Minis too for exactly the same reason.
Paul Ewins
Melbourne, Australia
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 06:06:52 +0100 (WET DST)
From: Gary Henderson
Subject: Re: Alternator
Hi Paul & others
Does anybody out there know for sure, whether or not alternator-equipped Imps ex-factory used the sliding-bush scheme, as found on Hunters, Avengers etc? It is both simpler than any of the others that I have read about recently, and has the great advantage of supporting the rear-bracket whilst not imposing bending loads on the alternator body.
Cheers
GaryH
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 09:54:25 +0100 (WET DST)
From: Mark Norman
Subject: Re: Alternator & starter
>This sounds like the solution I used when I swapped from a generator to an alternator. I used a 28A Lucas unit
>(ex-Mini) that was lying around the garage. A long piece of threaded rod of the appropriate diameter was used along
>with about eight nuts and washers. The rod was cut to the
approximate length and two nuts put on the end and tightened
>in opposite directions so that they lock together.
Yup - that was exactly what I did too - works fine. The only problem I had with it was when I took the car into a garage on holiday to fix the water pump: they didn't do up one of the 8 nuts - the thing worked loose very quickly, lost a nut, & we had to fix it with parts given to us from a friendly washing machine repairman!
Imps with alternators had a different shape bracket - same mounting as the dynamo type, but brings the fixing point for the alternator forward a lot. I now have one of these & it is a lot easier to work with than the long threaded rod approach - get one if you can find one, or i guess if you have the metalwork skills it would be really easy to make one. BTW if you need a threaded rod, B&Q sell them quite cheap (I think I used an M10 size).
>BTW, my car also has a foreign starter motor
While looking through breakers yards I've noticed that solonoid engaged starter motors from '70's british cars look like they would just bolt straight on to an Imp - I think there was a mention of this in Impressions a few months ago. Haven't tried it yet as I've never had any problems with my existing starter.
Mark.
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 12:55:01 +0100 (WET DST)
From: Gary and Carol Henderson
Subject: Starter
Hi
Our tribal 1974 Avenger Estate 1600, UK built, has its original Mitsubishi pre-engaged starter! So there's a Jap starter that definitely fits Hillmans.
Cheers
GaryH
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 10:37:15 +0100 (WET DST)
From: Dave Edge
Subject: Re: Alternator & starter
These are all things that I have experienced with the exception of the following:
The size of studding you need is M8 not M10.
If you go to a builders merchant, find a coachbolt with a plain non threaded shank, M8 X 130mm. This will be perfect for the job only using the front bracket(water pump hanger)
I don't know where I got them from but I found two pieces of thickwalled tubing around 1½" long that had something to do with the alternator or dynamo fitted to imps and this makes a perfect spacer between the sliding sleeve and water pump bracket. The vertical metal plate behind the water pump hanger ensures that the whole unit is not under stress in one plane only.
What static timing does everyone run with, does anyone else run the Ducellier distributer, if so what settings are used.
does anyone know what needles I should run with my Janspeed, 930, 150 CD3, sport cam, ported head.
Dave Edge
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 12:55:18 +0100 (WET DST)
From: Gary and Carol Henderson
Subject: RE: Alternator & starter
Hi Dave
With the sliding sleeve, the Hunters etc used separate bolts at each end. Because of the rigid cast bracket, they also used a shorter split bush with the d.c. dynamo. With the bendy Imp bracket, the sliding bush is less essential, but is still easy and elegant.
Cheers
GaryH
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 07:50:55 +0100 (WET DST)
From: Gary Harding
Subject: RE: Alternator
Gary,
Yes the last of the Imp range, 1974 on, used a correctly engineering alternator installation. A new rear bracket was used so that the alternator was correctly supported with the sliding bush used. As you can imagine these alternator brackets are quite rear.
Gary
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 09:34:14 +0100 (WET DST)
From: Gary and Carol Henderson
Subject: RE: Alternator
Sound well worth making though...
GaryH