I could not agree with you more John. Many ercoupes came with only one mag with an impulse coupling. The other had a bell shaped gear. Over the years I suspect many owners "upgraded" the dumb mag so they would have two sparks per cylinder two degrees or so of rotation apart to make starting easier. Also, less chance of getting stranded if one impulse coupling failed.
Spares for Eisemans can be found, some new and some old stock. I get mine from Fresno in California. They can be rebuilt time and time again and you have a perfectly good magneto that is equal or better quality and certainly better time-proven reliability than any newer design. Many of the components, such as gears, bearings, points, cap, rotor, etc. are either identical or suspiciously similar so the differences are mostly cosmetic between Eiseman, Bendix and Slick. Shame so many Eisemans were crushed in the genocidal trade-in programs. Alan Fairclough N87333 N94694 --- In [email protected], John Cooper <j...@...> wrote: > > On 8/18/2010 2:58 PM, Fred Goff wrote: > > Only one coupler clicking could be heard most of the time and there > > were no plugs with spark. Occasionally (one out of 8 to 10 turns), > > the second coupler would click and a spark could be seen at one of the > > plugs. > Here's what I think happened. > > At some time in the past (maybe several years ago), one of your impulse > couplings failed. From that time forward, when you started the engine > you were starting it on one mag, the one with the functional impulse > coupling. The other mag would fire at normal speeds and your mag checks > were normal, but was not firing while starting. During your last flight > one mag ( the one with the functional impulse coupling) failed > completely. This was the power loss you noticed. This left you with one > mag that could only fire plugs at normal speeds and one mag that was > dead. When you went to restart the engine, you had no working mag with a > functional impulse coupling. > > A year ago I would have said scrap the Eisemanns and throw a brand new > set of Slicks on there, but, since Unison sold the mag line to Champion, > the price has gone up almost 100%. In light of that, I would strongly > suggest you at least find out how much (money) it would take to get the > Eisemanns back in working order. > > -- > John Cooper > Skyport East > www.skyportservices.net >
