North East generator

[trini]

I am trying to repair a chain driven North East generator from a 1928 Dodge Brothers Senior. I have 2 and hoping to  use the good parts to make a good one. But the parts I need are bad in both. What I discovered is the armatures burnt out. It is a 4 pole ,3 brush type and well made except one weak point. The flat piece of brass at the  output end of the field coil is bolted onto the frame by way of an insulated washer. On both generator I found evidence of repair on this particular part. The original washer was missing for whatever reason and replaced with some hotchpotch pieces of fiberboard improperly placed causing the output brush to short out causing the armature to toast. It is a flat fiber washer about 5/16 diameter and a 3/16 hole and a fiber tube to accommodate a #10 screw and another fiber washer below to insulate the output sheet metal soldered at the end of the field coil.

 

I cannot find one to buy and it is too miniscule to have a machinist to make one. I am still thinking how to do this.  

[robert b]

Ok how about some pics of this , the  output end of the field coil goes to ground through the field fuse. From what I can make of your statement  you are talking about the third and its holder. Do you mean that the third brush holder shorted to ground ?, some pics would make things easer Bob

[Machinist_Bill]

For the fiber washer try looking thru some old carb gasket sets or some old car AM radios. Good Luck!

[carbking]

NAPA parts stores used to had an excellent fiber washer assortment. I haven't looked in several years, so don't know if current, but certainly worth a try.

 

Jon.

[Ivan Saxton]

Virtually anything that has been made in the past can be re-made. If you are in trouble, just give me a good, exact dimensioned drawing of each piece that you need, and how many. It is fairly simple work on the lathe. You have to have

the right sort of plastic. You do not use a thermo-plastic plastic, because it will melt or deform with heat. You use the right quality of reinforced thermosetting plastic with a good dielectric strength, ( or insulating property), and you just do what you want to. Take your measurements with a digital caliper in Imperial measurement. No cost, and I'll

post to you air mail. Just do a favour for someone else.

One of my friends here used to work for an auto electrical service in Bendigo on the Victorian goldfields, when people were still using Dodge Fours, and they routinely repaired those NE starter/generators. Of course they had both sizes of new enamelled copper wire on the spools, they had the formers to wind onto, and they knew the number of turns, et

cetera. The work time allowed to clean, strip, re-wind, re-assemble, and test was 45 minutes. Possibly the worst trouble today if you need to wind field or armature is to be sure that your copper wire and its coating is good enough

quality. It virtually all comes from China now. You may not need to re-wind.