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I am having a problem getting spark from my mags. I was told to check out the starter vibrator to see if it was working. After a lengthy trace and inspection the vibrator seems to be working. A direct power straight to the battery would cause it to vibrate. I also took the retard wire off from the back of the left mag and grounded it against the housing while turning over the engine. It did reveal a spark.

Has anyone had an experience similar to this with their ship?

It was flying fine the last time I flew and went back to fly about a week later and just didn't have any spark.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Don L.

Hi Don Sounds Like The Points In Left Mag Are Not Working .

I miss spoke in the earlier E-mail. The retard wire from the left mag did not spark when I grounded it with the engine turning over.

I was also told over the weekend that if I were to remove the P-Leads (Ground) wires from the back of the mags and turn the engine over it should start if the mags are OK.

Has anyone done this?

I am trying to rule out all other possibilities before taking the mags off. i.e. mag switch on instrument panel, starter vibrator.

It just seems strange to me that if it were the mags both of them wouldn't go out at the same exact time.

I finally got my starting problems fixed this weekend. Maybe this will give you something else to check before pulling the mags. We pulled the plug wires (both front and back) from the top cylinder on the passenger side. The front wire was laid near the front firewall so we could see the spark, if there would be one. When we pressed the starter button, no spark. We jumped from the battery to the starter vibrator and pressed the starter button and immediately had a spark at the plug wire. Upon further investigation we found that the in-line fuse between the starter vibrator and the starter solenoid was blown. Once that was replaced, I started it without any problems 10 times yesterday before 4 flights, and just once had a priming issue on a hot start where it took several tries.

Don, I was discussing your post with another Brantly owner and he suggested that you NOT pull your mags. They very rarely go bad and you can run into problems by pulling them. Make sure you check everything else before going there. If you haven't called Cy Russum at the factory yet, he's a great help.

Thanks to everyone who replied. Your advice and ideas were helpful.
I did talk with several people including Cy Russem.

I was able to get it started yesterday.

I am still not sure that it was a spark problem. I checked the mag switch by using a continuity tester on the ground wires to the mags. The switch was okay. I then went back to the starter vibrator to check. Turned on the mag switch, turned on the master switch, held my hand on the vibrator while engaging the starter and it fired. ????????

I then put the seats and dust cover back in started it up and ran it for a while. It seemed to run fine.

I am leaning toward the possibility that it may have been flooded bad enough that it wouldn't start. I personally wasn't actually looking for the spark at the plug wire. I had a friend helping me.

I flew for about 2 hours yesterday and started it and shut it down about 3 or 4 times. I seemed to have one problem with a vapor lock when I re fueled. I ended up bleeding air out of the fuel line to the boost pump.

I have been told that there is a new fuel system in the newer ships. Is anyone familar with this?

Thanks again, Don L.