Oh MY!!!

In the deep voice of Mr. Sulu! OH MY!!!

Look what I found on my doorstep...

22 lbs of aluminum and steel .

I got my adapter plate!

It's everything the I wanted; milled to perfection. The hub adapter fit 'like a glove'.

It may have been a heck of a wait. But Electro-Auto continues the earn their reputation of quality. There is a chance that the stand off ring might be too long, but that I can get shortened locally.

Of interest: the instruction now ask the the clutch plate and clutch be balanced (and lightened) by a local machine shop. I guess the number of vibrating 914's has been noticed.

In my case I think it might be the rear bearing in the transmission that might be bad. But regardless; it's great that they are including the new steps.

Ironically now that I have the part I been missing for a year; I don't have any free-time till me and my Uncle get some paperwork done.

Motor facelift

I got the new part from Azure Dynamics; and a friend came by so I gave the AC 55 a face lift.

As always when dealing with a +200lbs motor, the first thing you want to do is put in on wheels. Next we removed the four long bolts; then applied a hammer to break the poly seal. Once that gave, the front pulled straight off. I was worried the bearing might have found a permanent home in the old face plate. But everything was in great shape.

Motor Porn.

After pulling the old face plate off, I transfered the spring and applied new grease. As always since this motor will be out in the environments (such as it is in CA) I used my preferred marine grease.

Old is green, new is red.

I'll skip the 1/2 hour we took getting the motor cleaned and prepped. However Beth at Azure had checked with one of the motor techs; and let me know a couple of the fins would have to ground down. The power grind took care of the four aluminium fins faster than is took me to correctly spell aluminium (only had to remove a 8th of an inch).

I then applied some poly caulk around the seam of the new face plate and bolted it home.

Looking fierce.

I'm happy to report the motor spins like a dream. Had I known it was going to go so smoothly I would have spray painted the motor black; I figured I'd be opening and closing the motor 4 or 5 times before everything lined up. Maybe I'll give it a little touch up.

Anyone need an old face plate from an AC55 motor? It's only 25lbs...

AC55 Solution!

Woot-Woot! Turns out what I need is NEMA C-Face kit for a AC55!Who knew? Turns out Beth at Azure Dynamics does, and will sell me one. So though I'm not a big fan of cracking the motor open (they're sealed), I am a huge fan of this solution!

So the only remaining mounting question is the forward mounting bracket. I was measuring this weekend; and it's very close to being spot on.