Brush installation in a TC starter

[Mark Strang]

Well, in my infinite wisdom I decided to clean the starter on my '49 TC while doing a total rebuild of the car. No problem with the disassembly or cleaning of all the parts. The brushes were good as well as the bearings so I put it all back together. I applied power to the unit and all I got were sparks. The field coils are not grounded and the armature is sound. I had a spare starter laying around and did the same test and it ran perfectly even though it was an old beater starter and had not been overhauled. I started to check things out on the old unit and removed the brushes to check continuity etc. and put it back together. I applied power and got sparks from it also. So now I have two starters that are probably just fine electrically except they don't work. The problem is that I apparently installed the brushes in the wrong boxes. Seems hard to do since two of the pigtails are of a length that will only allow them to fit in close by boxes. Does anyone know or have a drawing as to the proper position of the various brushes relative to the field coils? This is really embarrassing because I spent my whole career working on high voltage AC motors and never had much experience with dc motors. I guess I could take the units to a local shop and they would figure it out but I'd rather use this forum. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Mark

[Steve Simmons]

Do these photos answer your question? If there's something else I can post a photo of, let me know. Hopefully you can see the field coil locations and which type of brush goes where.

[Duncan M]

Pretty sure the pigtails on TC brushes should all be the same length.

[Mark Strang]

Thanks for the photo. It verified the fact that I had in fact removed and installed the brushes correctly. It's pretty hard to not get the brushes in the proper boxes due to the pigtail length. It turns out, with the starter on the bench and not having good connections, that the arcing was simply due to the significant current draw required to spin the starter. I made some more solid connections and the unit ran fine. Now to see what happens when I install the starter on the engine and try to turn the engine over. I was just too cautious. Having worked with motors up to 13,000 volts, lots of sparks are not good! Thanks.

[Steve Simmons]

Glad it was simple! I guess a little 12V motor is a bit different than what you're used to.

If you know someone who can rewind a 110v vintage motor at a reasonable cost, please let me know! I have a 70 year old industrial shop fan that finally quit.

[Mark Strang]

Steve, I used to own an industrial motor repair plant. We rebuilt electric motors, generators, turbines, pumps etc. up to about 10,000 Hp. Occasionally someone would come in with a motor/need like yours. There was no way we could economically help that person out. Our best recommendation was to find the smallest one or two man shop that did small motors on a regular basis as their core business. They do exist and while low cost, the price will probably still be unattractive. Usually they are located in small rural towns that have farm and irrigation equipment that need repairs. Sometimes you can find these motors at flea markets etc. but the problem often is the mounting of the motor to the device although there was a lot of uniformity among the equipment manufacturers as far as that was concerned. With the throw away environment that we have today most people replace rather than repair which causes a problem with equipment like yours.

[Steve Simmons]

You nailed it. I have a couple local motor rebuilders, but the last quote I got was $400 minimum charge, likely more. While I want to keep the vintage, high quality motor, it's still just a fan. And also right about the mounting. It's a saddle mount so finding the exact same type is challenging. And if used, I'm taking the risk it will have the same problem. Add to this the outer windings are welded in place and there's no way it's an easy job.

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll just have to get a new fan. Bummer, it's a really cool 30" pedestal fan that weighs about 150 pounds.