The infamous pink Thunderbolt restore thread

[MysteryMachine]

Wooo Hooo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxxjJN02 ... ture=share

better than nothing I guess



Guess I will edit this post. After playing with the RCM's I realized that the numbers on the wires are differnt on one end than the other. No idea why that is. I was able to get the chopper to work off the RCM. The rotator still don't work off the RCM. There isn't any springs on the motor starter for it so I assume that's the issue.

Umm I get the test button on the timer to work most of the time. Sometimes it acts up. Alert works and at this time is the only signal to work. Fire will trip the chopper motor starter and it will spark like hell then shut off. Attack doesn't do anything

[Thunderboltlover]

If you haven't already, try hooking up the rotator directly to the phase converter (not going through the RCM). If it still doesn't work, there's a problem with the rotator motor.

[MysteryMachine]

Rotator motor works fine wired direct to power. It's something in the rcm. The motor starter doesn't even trip. Haven't had a chance to mess with it anymore

[MysteryMachine]

After the big earthquake I decided to do a full alert cycle. Ya know add more panic lol

Anyway here's the video for those that I don't have on my Facebook

http://youtu.be/t6X0IIih-tY

[CDV777-1]

Put the horn on that sucker. It'll sound 100% better.

[MysteryMachine]

Probably but I wanna figure out the other issues first lol. Can you send me pics of how you have your RCM's wired and of the motor starters. I need to see if I got it right and if I'm missing any of them heater things

[CDV777-1]

I'm looking at those big pics you sent me of your RCMs before they were removed. The things look brand new and everything is there except the fuses are removed from the fuse boxes. That's the only thing missing is the fuses. The heater coils are in the starters and everything else is there.

[MysteryMachine]

Wonder why it's not working then. I'll send you a pic of what I got wired. Maybe I wired it back up wrong

[MysteryMachine]

Well I wanted to make a video of the ring issue I found and ended up turning it into a 2 question video.

http://youtu.be/0WdgJ4Lj-sw

[Westgate Thunderbolt]

I had the same problem with my slip rings. This was probably from over tightening at the factory.

Those studs in the slip ring assembly are supposed to be threaded into the rings and then held in place by a thin solder joint filed flush to the ring surface. The problem is that the rings are copper which is too soft for the brass studs and clamping loads. If the nuts were over tightened the threads and solder joint get pulled and destroyed. It was kind of a poor design in my opinion in comparison to what was used for the chopper collector rings. On the chopper collector rings they used brass taper head screws to hold the rings to the insulators rather than studs. With the tapered heads there was no way to pull the screw through the ring. If the same practice would have been used for the slip ring assembly there would have been no issue.

To repair mine I ended up just soldering the loose studs and filing the joints flush to the ring surface. They still pulled the joint some because the threads were damaged, but it still held. I just used regular electrical solder with a lead content. You may be able to use another solder with a less soft alloy. Fine electrical or electronic solder with a silver/tin alloy may be harder than lead and less likely to break the joint.

Another option could be to drill tapered holes in the ring and use taper head screws. Though this may require some machining of the screw heads down to be flush with the ring surface.

Justin