Kaimusailing

I cleaned the carburettor on the Chinese 2 stroke outboard. The carb was clean inside. After I put it back together I ran it on the Sumnercraft dinghy again and it actually ran worse than before. I brought it back to the breezeway for further troubleshooting. We put it in a tank of water. I cleaned the sparkplug again and ran it for a while, it was misfiring. I cut the cable ties holding the wiring together and checked that connections were secure. I found the primary spade connector on the ignition coil to be a little loose, crimped it tighter, the engine ran the same.
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The full wave bridge rectifiers came in, although the USPS tracking never updated, for 5 days, after they had arrived in Orlando, of all places, and then suddenly they appear in St. Marys. I began sorting parts and tools to begin rebuilding the wind turbine. I couldn’t find the little springs for the brushes that connect the turbine to the vertical mast. There were other parts missing, they all should be together somewhere, where I would have put them so they wouldn’t get lost. There were two little bolts that hold the old rectifier in place, I would need those because the old rectifier has the brushes that connect the turbine output to its mast wiring, the brush springs of course, the three allen headed bolts that hold the front of the turbine to the body, the nacelle, also a tiny little allen headed bolt that bolts a stator lead to the rectifier, the other 3 stator leads have the little bolts still on them.
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After searching high and low for these parts I went to Lowe’s and found springs that would probably work for the brushes. I reached in my pocket for the old rectifier/brush assembly that I had brought along in a zip lock bag, but it was missing. I wanted to check that the springs would fit. Oh well, I bought them anyway. I also purchased a bunch of #10 crimp wire terminal eyes. I would use two of them to connect the new rectifier output to the old rectifier brush cables, and four of them to terminate the four AC leads from the new rectifier to the four stator leads.
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I planned to mount the new rectifiers, there are two of them, inside the nacelle with small bolts that pass through the nacelle’s skin. When I returned to the boatyard I was putting things away and also gathering all the tools and parts needed to work on the turbine. I finished putting things away in the breezeway and then went to Kaimu to go on board for the night. Where was my cell phone? Back in the breezeway. When I got on my bike to go get the phone Radio Bill was passing by and I explained I had just gone shopping for parts that I had put away somewhere and couldn’t find and now I had forgot my cell phone over in the breezeway, and by the way I think I left the rectifier assembly in your car. No, he said, it was over by the washstand so I put it over on Kaimu’s swimming ladder. Oh dear.
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The next day I began again. I needed to find the right size drill to make the holes to mount the new rectifiers, and when I opened the drill bit case there were the missing parts, all of them. I was glad to find them and concerned that I had forgot that I put them there.
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The work to rebuild the turbine was tedious, lots of wires to go from the stator to the rectifiers and from the rectifiers to the old rectifier/brush assembly. Lots of little fiddly parts. One little allen headed bolt rolled overboard into the gravel of the boatyard. A thorough search turned up other debris, but this bolt was tiny. Fortunately it was not stainless steel and fortunately the boatyard has a large magnet on wheels to pick up stray metal. It picked up the tiny bolt as well as numerous rusty paper clips.
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I was using stiff #10 wire and the whole assembly of parts and wiring had to be formed exactly to fit inside the nacelle and also not short out against each other or abrade any of the moving parts. The solder joints on the new rectifiers weren’t up to the task of holding while the stiff wires were being bent into position. Then it was back to the work bench to resolder the connection. It took about 2 1/2 hours to get it all back together. Did it work? The wind refused to blow, but it looks like we will get more wind later.
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The photo is of the wind turbine. It is an Air 403, an old model. The regulator card has been removed, it was not doing anything, and the rectifier assembly was damaged but still had a working brush assembly, so it was kept, and a new pair of full wave bridges were installed to rectify the AC from the stator. I hope we are done with this one. Finit.