A sheared bolt and a mini adventure

On Thursday night last week my charge light didn’t go out. Since it was very wet I just assumed it was down to a slippy fan belt and decided to fix it at the weekend, provided the never-ending rains let up.

After a huge fry-up at the farm, daughter and I set about fixing the problem – which turned out to be caused by the alternator completely snapping off! The 200Di conversion involved making a custom alternator bracket. Though the bracket itself is made from 10mm sheet steel welded to a chunky steel tube I made on the lathe, the weak spot is the M8 bolt which runs through it. This bolt had sheared off, leaving the alternator hanging loose. Luckily the fan belt didn’t fall off on the way home and I didn’t drive far enough to overheat the engine (the water pump must have stopped working as a result of the belt going slack).

In the end I used a length of threaded bar instead of the stainless set screw that Emma is holding in the photo. Hopefully this will last a bit longer; stainless steel being notoriously brittle.

I wasn’t allowed to start the engine “unless we’re going on a journey” so, once the fix was in, we headed up the road to Bucklebury Common. After the weeks of heavy rain and strong winds the common was pretty muddy and there were fallen trees and branches everywhere. I think the daughter enjoyed her introduction to Green Laning.

In fact she took it so seriously she started compiling some pace notes!