Cherokee battery box repair

Hey all... I've got the plane down for an annual and have discovered a small
weeping leak in the bottom of the battery box (where the drain nozzle attaches). Am I
correct in recalling that the box is made of tin and the nozzle of copper? Will
regular Lead/Tin (60/40) solder this, or do I need some special solder for it? It
seems like it should be repairable, since it looks like it was *made* by soldering.

Oh yeah, and of course a good cleanup and repaint is in order back there.
Very little corrosion back there, but enough to do a bit of cleanup.

-Cory

--

************************************************** ***********************
* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
************************************************** ***********************

The battery boxes that I have seen are made of aluminium.

Mike
MU-2

wrote in message
...
Hey all... I've got the plane down for an annual and have discovered a
small
weeping leak in the bottom of the battery box (where the drain nozzle
attaches). Am I
correct in recalling that the box is made of tin and the nozzle of copper?
Will
regular Lead/Tin (60/40) solder this, or do I need some special solder for
it? It
seems like it should be repairable, since it looks like it was *made* by
soldering.

Oh yeah, and of course a good cleanup and repaint is in order back there.
Very little corrosion back there, but enough to do a bit of cleanup.

-Cory

--

************************************************** ***********************
* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
************************************************** ***********************

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 12:59:09 +0000 (UTC),
wrote:

Hey all... I've got the plane down for an annual and have discovered a small
weeping leak in the bottom of the battery box (where the drain nozzle attaches). Am I
correct in recalling that the box is made of tin and the nozzle of copper? Will
regular Lead/Tin (60/40) solder this, or do I need some special solder for it? It
seems like it should be repairable, since it looks like it was *made* by soldering.

Oh yeah, and of course a good cleanup and repaint is in order back there.
Very little corrosion back there, but enough to do a bit of cleanup.

-Cory


Solder should work fine. My '67 Cherokee needed fixing last year and
that's how I took care of it.

HTH.
z

I'll respond to my own post and a few others with the results.

- I believe my version of the Service Manual wasn't quite so descriptive on the
"Alternator source power circuit" label... it was pretty vaguge.

- I wasn't sure how sensitive the external regulator was to low bus voltages...
whether or not it would self-excite. The only self-exciting alternators I've played
with are the standard Delco GM (GM-10 or something?) that would be hung off a '78
pickup or equiv.

- It certainly seems like the box is tin, so one would think that if it were clean
enough regular Pb/Sn solder would stick. I was unsuccessful last night, but about the
only soldering I do is electrical in nature, so I didn't have any acid-based flux.
The Rosin core beaded up and wouldn't stick, as expected. A buddy of mine had a
rod of "magic solder" from when he did his box. Looked like a stick welding
rod with florescent orange flux. Took a hot-ass flame to melt it, but when it did it
bonded the copper/tin together nicely.

-Cory

--

************************************************** ***********************
* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
************************************************** ***********************