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1951 LD10 KKV 222

Descriptive and in-depth articles on how to do repairs or restoration. (Wilf's articles visible by forum members only).
Brian-H
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Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Brian-H »

Vulgalour wrote: Sun Jun 27, 2021 3:00 am When you operate the starter, you pull the knob which pulls the lever and allows a disc to contact two plates, completing the circuit. Release the knob and the spring on the lever pulls it back and breaks the contact. So I suppose it's more of a contact breaker switch than a solenoid? I can see how it works, I just don't know the accurate terminology. I don't use WD40 lubricant on electrical components because it doesn't really work, so no fears there, all it seems to achieve is collecting and holding onto dirt that then fouls the contacts. I have actually been using WD40 electrical contact cleaner, which is different to the lubricant, and have found it does a pretty good job. One of those things where it was picked up in an emergency situation and discovered it was a reasonable product in its own right.

Would the contacts in the solenoid/switch benefit from some dielectric grease, or is it best to leave them dry once the corrosion is cleaned off?
In English I suppose it's a cable-operated "manual contactor" to distinguish it from "electrical contactor" or just "contactor", both of which are electrically controlled in either their closing or opening operation. "Solenoid" is usually a pseudonym for "electrical contactor", as "solenoid" is an electro-magnet.

I've looked up a bit more about Servisol, they were the go-to brand in electronics in the UK, looks like they've been taken over by CRC who still offer the Servisol brand.

I didn't know that WD40 offer a switch cleaner, which presumably doesn't leave the greasy film which ordinary WD40 leaves. In fact most people find WD40 to be pretty useless long term as there are better spray-on penetrating oils, and better spray-on lubricating oils - I still use it in the short term as a general spray-on oil when undoing a nut that doesn't require serious attention, and it's really good for removing sticky labels from glass.

Anyway, regarding the contacts in the "manual contactor", as an afterthought, ACF-50 might be the best to use and you might end up using it elsewhere.

Vulgalour
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Location: Kent

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

I shall be acquiring some ACF-50 since it sounds a useful thing to have in the cupboard and seems fairly easy to get hold of online. There will be a video soon covering the process in full for what was achieved today. It seems that the thing the starter needed was just a really thorough clean. Once the build up of whatever dust was in the casing was cleaned out, the brushes moved freely again. All of the copper surfaces cleaned up very nicely, though the commutator needed rather more work than expected having to use a soft toothbrush to shift the worst deposits before the cottonbuds could be deployed. The contactor points cleaned up very well, and the disc portion that appeared to be fixed, now actually spins on the spindle. The spring in the contactor also seems a bit more free and the contact disc and pick ups in the contactor sit together much better than they did.

Now I'm just undertaking the slower process of repainting the steel parts of the casing that had very little paint left on them. I'm using the same brush-on enamel that I did for the water pump since that seems to be what was used before, and I know it's a fairly resilient paint so should be a little more robust than aerosols. The drying time just means that's going to be a few days before its complete and the paint hard enough to allow the starter to be reinstalled.

It ended up being a very pleasant, if messy, job. Everything was easy to work with and well within my comfort zone. We already know the starter actually works and while we will test it before installing it, I'm fairly confident we're not going to get any issues now all the connections are clean and free moving. I will do a more full and proper update with photos and video in a few days when I've finished the whole process. For now, I just wanted to keep you all abreast of the progress made.

Vulgalour
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Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

A video on the attempt to sort out the starter motor. There will be words and pictures later, as usual, for now here's a video:


Brian-H
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Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Brian-H »

You can test the starter motor in situ now, because you only need to reconnect the "live" heavy duty electrical cable back onto the terminal on the starter, and the other end should go to the "live" terminal of the battery. Other than connecting the ground to the battery, you don't need anything else, not the key, not anything. Just move the arm on the "manual contactor" and the motor will engage and turn the engine over, or alternatively, connect the Bowden cable and pull the knob on the dash, same thing will happen.

That WD40 switch cleaner looks a bit brutal, I wouldn't want to use that anywhere near a printed circuit board. Servisol Super 10 has a smaller diameter nozzle and less pressure so that it can be directed more precisely. Note also that in the Consort owners book there's a picture showing a cloth being used to clean the commutator with petrol, these days IPA would be just as good - I buy 5 litre bottles of IPA and 5 litre bottles of paraffin. I dispense either into a small container and dip a cloth and a kids toothbrush into the small container (in this example I'd be using IPA, not paraffin) - I'd only have used the switch cleaner on the electrical brushes, not the commutator. But I doubt if it matters much, just that in some applications (particularly PCBs and small electronic switches) you have to be careful not to let the switch cleaner form a "conducting bridge", which will carry signal currents where you don't want them to go (I learned that lesson decades ago when liberally spraying switch cleaner onto the switches in a Quad 22 valve preamplifier and ended up with crosstalk). This won't make any difference on the commutator in a heavy-duty electric motor but I'm always hesitant about liberal use of switch cleaner.

Vulgalour
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Location: Kent

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

You know when you've been plugging away at a job and you just can't see the obvious thing that's right in front of you? That's why I ended up not testing the starter. I just couldn't seem to see how to do it and, the next day when the car was all put away again, it was really obvious how to go about it. One of those situations where if the garage were larger I could have gone out with a fresh mind, tested it, and put the results of that in the video. If I were cleaning circuit boards and using the switch cleaner I'd spray it on a cloth first, or into a small container, so I could control it better. There's no way I would have used it like I did on the commutator if faced with more fragile traces, that's the reason I also kept away from the wires as much as possible. I didn't think it would be too troublesome with the starter since everything is so chunky and heavy, I wasn't really afraid of accidentally breaking something off in the cleaning process.

Hopefully it has allowed us to tick off one of the more frustrating jobs on the car since getting the starter motor on and off is awkward. It's a little tricky to decide which job to do next, it will either be the radiator or the wiring loom we think. If it's the radiator then we'll probably do the other coolant related jobs like flushing the block and refitting the refurbished water pump. If it's the wiring we need to find time in both our schedules when we can book a few days off together and hope the weather is kind. We're dreading doing the wiring run in the cabin because of how fragile the headlining is likely to be. On the plus side, we did learn that the cedar blocks have been doing a great job of keeping moths and spiders out of the inside of the car, since while there's webs underneath the car from periods of idleness, there's none inside at all and we haven't seen a single moth in the car.

We're a little hamstrung on the engine mount situation too. I know about Norfolk Lad being the one to contact - the only lead we've found, in fact - and have done so, but am yet to get a response, I hope all is well with them and haven't wanted to pester, folks have things going on in their lives after all and it's been a funny old year and a bit. We've been holding off refitting the water pump until we know whether or not we can replace the front engine mount since it's easier to get to with the water pump removed. However, once the radiator is refurbished (another job that's been held off because of the pandemic) we'll be wanting to get the water pump back on the car. We may end up investigating how to actually remanufacture the mount ourselves, it would just be nicer if there's an option already available so we can go that route and help support someone else's endeavours as a result of our purchase.

It's all about project management at the moment. Starting projects is definitely the easy bit, completing them is an entirely different matter.

Brian-H
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Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Brian-H »

if the Lanchester LD10 is anything like the Daimler DB18 Consort, then the whole front end should come away easily. By front end, I mean the wings and radiator and grill and apron, it all comes away in one "unit" - on the Consort there's only 3 bolts holding each wing to the body, 2 long studs holding the radiator onto the chassis, and the whole lot lifts off (you also remove the top and bottom hose, fan blades, electrical connections). When that "unit" is lifted off, access to everything becomes a pleasant experience.

If this is also possible on the LD10 then carry the assembly round the back of the house, park it on some wood blocks, and cover with a tarp. The you can work at leisure on everything.

Vulgalour
Posts: 236
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Location: Kent

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

We shall have to look and see. I'm not entirely certain we could actually get the front assembly down the side of the house and unfortunately it wouldn't be safe left out the front, even covered up, since it's the convention locally that any metal of any sort left on a driveway (not even at the road end) has been left out for scrap collectors. As it is, the wiring doesn't look that difficult to get to ahead of the bulkhead, it's only when you get inside the car that it seems tricky since it's hidden behind the headlining.

----

Words and pictures time. This was one of those jobs that you expect to be quick and easy and isn't. Certainly trying to edit the video and photos down for updates demonstrated how much time actually had to go into it. The job in question is the starter motor. Since getting the car, the starter motor works some of the time on first start up and fairly reliably after a few tries, in between those two states it has usually needed a few taps with a stick to get it to engage properly. Mechanically the starter operates very well, it's just getting an electrical connection that's been the issue. Given the state of other electrical connections and wiring in the car, we had expected it to be something along the variety of cleaning contacts and so it was. First job, push the car out of the garage and get it up on a stand.
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Then get yourself under the car and try and figure out how you're going to undo the three bolts holding the starter on without removing the exhaust. I'd been advised removal of the exhaust was necessary and while it would certainly have made life easier, it turned out not to be needed. The big problem underneath the car is that when I had the socket and ratchet on the through bolt and nut, I couldn't swing either far enough before I hit the chassis or the exhaust. I didn't have the time to do this on the day I attempted it so packed up, put the car away, and waited until Pat was free of work when I was free of work to have another go.
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The next free time we had the car was wheeled out again, put on a stand again, and Pat had a good look to see if inspiration would strike a fresh pair of eyes. It did! He found he could get in with the ratchet from above and get a bit more swing if I held the spanner from below. After longer than either of us wanted, we had this one bolt out. The other two were much easier. As it happens, I managed to put this bolt back in from underneath the car on my own with a socket and spanner, using the spanner to turn the nut a tiny amount in the space available, while holding the bolt with the ratchet. It took a while, but it was also less grief than pulling off the exhaust. Our next obstacle was the bolt holding the main lead which we couldn't get any tools on. Normally this bolt is really easy to get to by just going under the front bumper and undoing it, there's not even a need to jack the car up because of the impressive ground clearance and access. Here's the view from the front with the starter removed.
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That's right, we had to remove the starter to undo the bolt. The reason for this was that the two wires that bolt on to the starter had been put on in such a way that the thinner wire with the crimped eyelet was acting like a locking washer and there wasn't any access to bend it out of the way. It looks like when it was last done up, it had bent and locked onto the bolt head as it was done up.
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Ah, but I'm a little out of order here. How did we get the starter motor out without taking the exhaust off? Well, it was a lot easier to simply disconnect the brake rod. The brake rod is held to a bracket via a clevis pin and cotter/split pin. Remove the two pins and the brake rod simply swings aside allowing you to finegle the starter motor out of the restrictive gap it lives in between the exhaust and the sump. Here you can see the offending crimp, the wire it was crimped to had gone very brittle and broke off when we first attempted to undo the bolt.
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It had taken us so long just to get this starter out that it was all we did that day on the car because of course we had to allow time to pack up all the tools and push the car back into the garage.
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We have a minor complaint with Imperial measurements too, one which we'll likely make again in the future. Both Pat and I grew up being educated on Imperial and Metric so we're good with feet and inches, centimetres and millimetres, the usual. But when it comes to fractions for sizes it is the most frustrating foreign language to us. I want to go a size up from a 3/8ths? No idea. A size down from a 1/4"? Not a clue. It will come with practice I'm sure, but right now it's just so much nonsense. Anyway, we had the starter off and let it sit in the house for a bit while we waited to have some time free to deal with it.
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As it happens, I was the first person to have any meaningful time spare and it being a mostly one person job, I got the role of starter inspector. We could have removed the inspection covers while the starter was fitted to the car but we wouldn't have got as good a look, nor been as able to clean it, as when it's on a desk. First job, unscrew the bolt that clamps the band around the body of the starter so we can get to see what state the commutator and brushes are in. Normally you don't need to remove the band completely, just slide it out of the way, but since repainting was on the cards we opted to remove it fully.
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Inside we saw that the commutator and brushes were quite dirty. Just moving the starter around to inspect it ended up with a lot of debris falling out of the case. Our theory that the internals were corroded and dirty seemed to be a sound one thus far.
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Next was to remove the end covers. The smaller cover allows access to the main spindle so you can rotate and clean the commutator without removing the starter from the car, it is held in with two small screws. The larger cover also houses half of the contact switch which is engaged by the starter knob inside the car by pulling the cable that's attached to the arm. The larger cover is held on by two additional screws. These both came off very easily.
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Once this was open another problem was apparent. There was a contact being made between the disc and plates of the contactor switch but it looked to just be in one small spot for the most part which didn't seem ideal.
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When you pull the starter knob in the car, it pushes the disc into contact with the plates on the starter motor, thus completing the circuit and allowing the starter to spin up and engage.
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As you can see, while the lever does move freely, all the bits that should be clean really aren't. After some time with contact cleaner, an old toothbrush, and cotton buds, I finally got the brushes moving freely in their sockets and got as much dirt as I possibly could off the surface of the commutator. The commutator surface has got some scores in it but I doubt it will cause significant issues with the operation of the starter. All of the copper components inside the starter are quite substantial and crude compared to modern equipment so I daresay the tolerances aren't particularly fine and will work perfectly well even when in quite poor condition.
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With all of the copper components cleaned as best as I could, I put the loose parts of the starter in the ultrasonic cleaner to remove the grime and some of the rust. It was quite effective.
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I didn't put the main body of the starter motor in the ultrasonic cleaner in part because that seemed like a bad idea and in part because it wouldn't physically fit. Instead, I scrubbed all of the rust I could off the body of the starter with a wire brush. After that, it was time to paint. I opted to hand paint everything with enamel rather than opting for faster aerosols. I felt this would be more in keeping with the car and would save me the hassle of a lot of fiddly masking. To make the painting of the parts easier, I used a cardboard box with holes in for the screws and starter motor, if you make the screw holes a little smaller than the screws, you can then wind the screws into the cardboard to hold them in place.
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A coat of Kurust, two coats of red oxide primer, and a two coats of black enamel later and everything was looking smart if not new. As with the water pump, this will give us both a quick visual reminder of what we've worked on as well as allowing the parts to be less than perfect and mellow out into the general look of the car. Cared for but not restored. Once the paint was hard enough, I reassembled everything and waited for the next opportunity to get on with fitting it to the car.
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Before the starter was refitted, one item that needed to be addressed was the clamping bolt for the bowden cable. Previously it had been this brass... thing. I'm not sure what tool it was made to fit but it certainly wasn't any tool I own, someone had gone to a lot of effort to make sure that no spanner, socket, or screwdriver could work with it. Quite remarkable really. We had a rummage in the odd fixings tub and found a screw with the correct thread pitch and a good flat end to the thread that will work much better. A hex headed bolt would have been better still, but we didn't have anything that matched the thread unfortunately so a cross head bolt will have to suffice.
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My plan was then to refit the starter and use the ACF-50 I'd ordered but hadn't yet arrived once the starter was back on the car. Typically, the ACF-50 then arrived, so I quickly removed the caps and gave the contacts a suitable coating. I didn't use any ACF-50 on the brushes and commutator, I had a memory (hopefully accurate) that commutators should be kept free of any sort of anything.
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Then it was finally ready to go back on the car.
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Which it did, with not too much difficulty happily.
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I did manage to get all three bolts back in without removing the exhaust and from underneath the car on my own. It would have been easier with Pat swinging a ratchet from above, but with patience I got the awkward nut and bolt tightened. To prevent the thinner wire's eyelet from behaving like a locking washer again, I fitted it before the thicker lead which meant everything seemed to line up and stay flat a bit better. The last thing was to reconnect the brake rod, which now moves much better than it did, and put a new split pin through the clevis pin to hold it in place.
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Now, you'll notice the distinct lack of one particular item. We haven't tested the starter. I had one of those moments where I looked at all the parts and couldn't for the life of me remember how to use them, realising only after the car had been put away how easy it would have been to hook up power and test the starter motor. So we're considering the fitting of the refurbished starter motor a calculated risk. There's no reason to believe it won't work now, it was sort of working when it came off the car after all and we've improved it internally so it should now work better, in theory. The next time we have the opportunity to do so we will test the starter motor, for now we'll just pretend it's okay. A surprisingly mentally taxing job in the end, probably because it was the first time doing this job on this particular car. We're looking forward to tackling either the radiator or the wiring next most probably, as time permits.
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grahamemmett
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Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by grahamemmett »

Engine mount - I’ve just received new engine mounts from Norfolk Lad. Superbly made and redesigned so they won’t fail like the originals. They are on straight away.
I suggest you use the email facility to contact him again.
Graham Emmett ¦ DLOC Chairman ¦ chair@dloc.co.uk ¦ 07967 109160
Northwich, Cheshire
DB18 1949 LCV522 (Yes that one with the P100s)

Vulgalour
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Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

I have done just that, hopefully it goes through okay. It does look like a nice straightforward job when you've a good quality item to go on.

Brian-H
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Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Brian-H »

Vulgalour wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 10:15 pm We shall have to look and see. I'm not entirely certain we could actually get the front assembly down the side of the house and unfortunately it wouldn't be safe left out the front, even covered up, since it's the convention locally that any metal of any sort left on a driveway (not even at the road end) has been left out for scrap collectors. As it is, the wiring doesn't look that difficult to get to ahead of the bulkhead, it's only when you get inside the car that it seems tricky since it's hidden behind the headlining.
Assuming it all comes away as easily on the Consort (and DB 18 too I think) you'd be amazed at how much access you get with the front wings etc all removed. Like a Triumph Herald or Spitfire with the bonnet open, you can easily reach everything on the engine and bulkhead- no crawling under the car, no leaning over the sides, no need for two people to hold spanners etc etc I wouldn't attempt to replace the wiring loom on a Consort without removing the front unit. But if you wouldn't be able to get the unit round the back of the house then that means more crawling and leaning and two person work :(

Vulgalour wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 10:15 pm We have a minor complaint with Imperial measurements too, one which we'll likely make again in the future. Both Pat and I grew up being educated on Imperial and Metric so we're good with feet and inches, centimetres and millimetres, the usual. But when it comes to fractions for sizes it is the most frustrating foreign language to us. I want to go a size up from a 3/8ths? No idea. A size down from a 1/4"? Not a clue. It will come with practice I'm sure, but right now it's just so much nonsense.
Just convert it all to sixteenths.
If it's in eighths multiply top and bottom by two e.g. 3/8ths = (3x2)/(8x2) = 6/16 ths
If it's in quarters multiply top and bottom by four e.g. 1/4 = (1x4)/(4x4) = 4/16 ths
The size up from 3/8ths is size up from 6/16ths = 7/16 ths
The size between 3/8ths and 1/4 is the size between 6/16 ths and 4/16 ths = 5/16 ths.
The size down from 1/4 is the size down from 4/16 ths = 3/16 ths

Beware not to mix the W fractions with the BS fractions on the spanners :!:
Vulgalour wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 10:15 pm My plan was then to refit the starter and use the ACF-50 I'd ordered but hadn't yet arrived once the starter was back on the car. Typically, the ACF-50 then arrived, so I quickly removed the caps and gave the contacts a suitable coating. I didn't use any ACF-50 on the brushes and commutator, I had a memory (hopefully accurate) that commutators should be kept free of any sort of anything.
I'd include switch cleaner in that last sentence, but having said that, I'd wager that even ACF-50 has been used by some people on a commutator without problems :?: . Personally I prefer IPA as a cleaner on anything that's going to carry current as IPA evaporates leaving nothing behind. The last thing you want as the armature rotates, is arcing between the tip of the carbon brush and the copper on the commutator. BLDC motors don't have brushes, hence ACF-50 can be used in these.

Maybe I should have included these images from the Consort owners handbook in the beginning :oops:
They recommend a cloth only (and petrol as it was much more available than IPA is today). A good vacuum cleaner with a small tube up the smallest attachment (using gaffer tape to seal it in place) will suck up loads of debris in small access (Dyson doesn't cope with this as it can't adapt to the increased loading that this places on the suction). Then a cloth or cotton bud and a vary small toothbrush as last resort.
starter_maintenance.jpg
starter_fig51.jpg
starter_fig52.jpg
But yep, switch cleaner is generally to clean switch contacts, ACF-50 to prevent corrosion and can be used on metallic parts where electrical current is carried.

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