Motor repair

Just found some pictures of the motor repair I attempted last week. This is the motor from my own Berlingo which blew up in 2006. I had a spare so didn't do anything with this one until now, when I had to borrow one from another vehicle for Steve.

I knew from the way it had blown up the controller that the field had shorted to the armature at some point. But where? By connecting a sensitive ohm-meter and tapping the windings with a screwdriver handle, I found the point - of course, it was in one of the places where the interpole winding runs next to a field coil. There was clearly not enough insulation between them, and it had flashed through and taken a chunk out of one of the outer conductors of the field winding.

A local armature winder (R&T Barr of Dunfermline) was kind enough to not only tell me how to repair it, but lent me the materials to do so! He didn't have time to do it himself but will be skimming the comm on the same motor.

Here's my very first motor repair then.



This is the damaged wire, dug out of the winding. Beneath it is self adhesive fibreglass tape. I've attached a piece of earth wire from a normal domestic supply cable to bridge the gap, about to solder it in place.








The connection is soldered, wrapped in yellow (Melonex?) plastic tape and then another couple of layers of fibreglass between it and the large interpole winding which is now tied back on top with the magic armature winder's knot.







I hope it works!