Petter AD1/Markon B21 4kVA genset rescue

Carrying on the write up on the Petter AD1 that I mentioned in my introduction... I was lucky enough to acquire the engine and alternator by being in the right time and place. Whether or not a piece of our engineering heritage was headed for the scrapyard because somebody just valued it at 50kg of mixed metal (bad) or the empty space was more valuable (worse) is a moot point. The alternator frame was detached, with the 8 UNC bolts missing, and I managed to move it in two pieces to my allotment plot. I located the cobbled together fuel tank, and home made starting handle- an interesting item, somebody had fabricated it up with an adjustable crank radius. It's Serial No. 38 04589 AD1 C 06, which I believe decodes as a clockwise  AD1, 3000 RPM fixed speed, 4589th off the production line in 1988. So..... action points:

Secure it down, so when the time comes for serious cranking, it isn't going anywhere- I cobbled together two scaff pipes hammered into the ground and a horizontal bar to secure it to.

Remove the generator rotor- I didn't like the idea of it spinning with the windings exposed- ideally, just slacken the nut on the end, and give it a good wallop to break the taper, but it wasn't having any of it- I managed to get at the 4 bolts securing the taper adaptor to the flywheel for one of those joy filled jobs undoing 4 bolts 1/24th of a turn at a time.

Add a lift pump so that I can feed it from a fuel can on the ground- £20+ for the pump, except nothing would have happened without another £20+ spent on the push rod to operate the pump. Got the fuel lines plumbed in, and the leaks located and fixed, cranked it over a few times and heard the "squeak". Took the injector pump out to make sure the rack was moving freely, took the injector out, plumbed it in upside down, and got 4 nice fluffy jets. Put everything back together, and with daylight going gave it a few trial cranks, not expecting much. And to my delight it started. A little taste of success and achievement, rare and precious in my life at the moment.

Moving forwards... a few more test runs to check how far the noise pollution is penetrating through the allotment site. Here's the typical dialogue......
"I've got a little diesel engine, could you let me know sooner rather than later if the noise is going to be a problem."
"Oh, don't worry, we're all laid back here , it won't bother me."
"You might want to wait 5 minutes till I start it up."
(5 minutes later)
"Oh, I see what you mean."

A noise enclosure is going to be essential. The cunning plan is to build a compost crate surrounding it, and hopefully, the compost mass should absorb the sound.

Moving forwards... bolted the rotor back on, sourced the 3/8" UNC  bolts to hold the stator on, put it all together, started it up, and put the multimeter across the output connections... and nothing.

So, who's been inside a Markon B21B brushless capacitor alternator? That's the big question for another thread.

To be continued.......

Good job getting it running

I don't know what exhaust it has, but the pipes are usually BSP so an elbow and a length of pipe can have the silencer pointing upwards which cuts down on perceived noise level.

It's the acoustic silencer, not the pepperpot type- it sounds worth a try, but I've a feeling that on an aircooled diesel, a lot of the noise might be coming from the head and the blower housing.

Brian,
Nice to hear you got it running, if you test the injector again please have it in a bucket away from your body/hands, I served my apprenticeship at a Lucas CAV site where we made diesel fuel injectors and it wasnt uncommon for somebody to wipe a nozzle with their bare hands just as it test fired and injected them with a diesel substitute, the reaction was instant the finger/hand would swell almost instantly to twice its size and the person was taken to hospital immediatly, on the old systems at the point of injection there is 6000 psi, modern systems are even higher so please be careful.
Re the noise, Internal Fire in Wales have a V12 aircooled diesel they run on open days and on its first test run it was fired up and somebody from the other side of the valley rang up to find out what the screaming noise was, he couldnt hear the diesel only the fan for the air cooling.

Maryalice

Thanks for the warning- I was aware about the risks to unwary fingers- did the victims normally make a full recovery? The pump is a Bryce FAOAR 055 E 0851 which I believe..... FAOAR defines the outer casing, 055 defines the 5.5mm diameter plunger, the E defines the delivery valve, and the 0851 defines....what? Big question- are the Bryce pumps and injectors vegetable oil friendly?

After a week off they were usually back at work, its 35 years since I worked for Lucas CAV, Bryce were part of the company, all the injectors that the factory made I dont remember any seals apart from copper, the pumps I cant comment as they were made elsewhere.

Maryalice