Inca Combi Restoration

[frugal]

As I have just acquireda lovely old Inca Combi from Ike, I thought I should start a new tread to cover the restoration (it is going to take some time with the speed I work), rather than keep the old thread going.

The rest of the pictures are here.

The first thing to do was to take the motor off and see what is wrong with it. The motor has been rewired in the past couple of years as the NVR switch is new and the wiring is blue/brown rather than red/black. However Ike said when he sold it that it tripped his RCD when he ran it.

So I bought anew RCD from Maplin, and tried it out. Then I went back inside and apologised to SWMBO as it had tripped the main 100amp breaker into the house (despite the RCP, plug fuse, 32A breaker in the garage and the 32amp breaker in the house fusebox).

My better half then offered to take a look at it. The capacitor is still in good condition, so we took the motor case apart and the inside was full of gunky dust which seems to mean that the centrifugal switch that turns off the starting winding does not cut in. So the starter winding and the main winding are going at the same time, which seems to cause a spike. It also apparently can damage the main winding if both sets of windings have current at the same time.

So the next task is to strip the motor down and clean it. Then put it back together and see if that helps. If not, then the main winding may be buggered, so it is new motor time ;( But that is a task for tomorrow as this evening is fireworks and fair with the kids.

 

[frugal]

Jim wanted a few more pictures of how the extension table attached, so here goes:

The fence clamps to a piece of metal that runs along the whole front of both the main and extension table (there is an identical piece that runs along the back of the table to hold the fence support):

This is held in place by three bolts and wing nuts as seen from underneath:

The remove the extension wing from the left hand side, simply unbolt the left most bolt (both at the front and at the back).

Slacken the 4 remaining wing nuts (two on the front rail and two on the back rail)

Then slide the rails to the right:

and then bolt the extension wing back onto the right hand side

Full sized photos are available here

 

[frugal]

Right, this motor then... if you turn it on then the motor starts to turn and then the main 100A breaker into the house goes. My beloved wife looked at it and declared the capacitor okay and there was no obvious signs of damage. there was a lot of gunk on the inside of the motor (the product of 40 years of use).

As you can see on the second image there are a pair of metal bars that are held in place by springs, when the starter coil gets going they are repelled and move out and up, this causes an attached collar to move down and the switch you can see in the middle of the image to move from the lower contact to the upper contact. This has the effect of switching the circuit from the starter winding to the main winding. As can be seen it is a bit gunked up.

Half an hour later with one of the kids paint brushes (now ruined) and the vacuum cleaner we have this:

Once all of this was clean and a little WD40 was added to the switching mechanism to help it move more freely, the whole thing was put back together (I have more photos of the wiring before hand so I knew where to put everything )

Then everyone was warned that I was about to interrupt the mains again and I threw the switch (well, pressed the button on the NVR ). Lo and behold the damn thing started working. It seems that the fact that it could not switch over from starter to main coil was causing a spike of some description.

So now I have no excuse not to start cleaning up the main body of the machine and trying to put it all back together.

 

[jimi43]

Hi Frugal

Excellent pictures and explanation and wonderful diagnosis by yourself and her indoors! It must be handy to have an engineer in the kitchen!! (ducks) - only jokin!!

One thing though...WD40 is a great water repellant and lubricant but I wouldn't use it on electrics if I were you. Firstly it will attract more rubbish that you have had to get out and far faster and might cause further electrical problems.

I would use switch cleaner from Maplins...(Servisol) which will both clean the electrics and prevent further failure. It has a long tube so you don't have to take the motor apart again...just spray it in through the air vents.

On the subject of the table - I understand that you can get the short fence brackets as spares if you don't want the extension on either end.

Now I have seen the pictures I will be able to work out what I intend to do about making an extension. The L brackets are simply steel...not a problem to fabricate but the extension bed is another story. I think I might splash out for one from either the USA or Switzerland. I think it is worth it.

OR...I could simply wait in the (unlikely) event that a tragically bad condition machine appears at a bootfair or eBay and I can get it for parts.

I look forward to seeing the rest of the restoration...keep the pictures coming....really helpful!

Cheers

Jim