6V Dynamator - first hand experiences...

[jonblob33]

When fittng new dynamos to engines it is quite common to find a difference in this area, I usually have to pack up the housing with gaskets or find another, if it has to go down the way.  Good idea to blue the tops of the teeth to make sure they are not bottoming - this usually shows up as a witness mark, again, quite common if not checked and not always obvious if only checking the backlash.

Same gears, same housing, different mesh on gears? Should have been the same - something else not quite right with dynamater. But it’s alright now.

[Tony Betts]

Stayed out of this one so far, but feel I have to add to it.

I've had a few customers fitting these units.

Some are very angry bits have fell into the engine, and are finding themselves having to do a secend expensive rebuild.

But the wons that worry me the most are those who are still building there cars and do not know of the problems with these units.

I've put as many of these people onto the forum as I can to read this thread, so they properly understand what to do.

But the thing that's nagging me, is accu spark are quite a large company. And as so they are likely to keep customers details for future orders etc etc.

If this is the case, then they should be warning buyers on there books of these problems. Rather than leaving the rest of the seven world with angry car owners.

If they don't have customer details, then perhaps an advert in club magazines. I know nobody likes to advertise there company is having problems with a product, but most forum members are overcoming these fixes and understanding sometimes things go wrong,  And I'm sure club members would do the same. Accu spark will cause themselves more problems in the future from engine failiers from gears falling into the engine. Than a negative recall now would.

Sorry to stick my nose in this one. But felt it needed pointing out. Tony.

[Andy Bennett]

I have an Accuspark distributor and am nervous (understanding that the major problem isn't here) but agree completely with Tony.

Most people are grown up enough to understand that sometimes errors are made, the important point is how it is handled.

If a company puts its hands up and does all it can to resolve the problem then the up front cost is usually higher but the long term impact/cost/outcome to their business is always better.

I speak from experience. The company I worked for made power devices for TV transmitters, I was the Business Manager. The biggest market was US and our biggest customer and competitor were in US. Basically a very tough market to break in to. Our US competitor had technical problems and did not support their customer base. As a result we were invited in to the US customer and asked to provide a second source. We did that but in our haste also had a different technical problem. We had huge failures with one module (at one transmitter site we had 33 failures in a year). we made the decision to support at any cost and flooded the market with replacement modules whilst we solved the problem. Eventually we did solve the problem and the customer with 33 failures became one of our biggest advocates. Within 2 years we had 90% of the US market and made a lot of money and long term friends with our reputation for doing what was right rather than what a contract might say.

Personally I am now (probably unnecessarily) worried from what I read here as to Accuspark's quality control and attitude to customers (how long will my distributor last I wonder) and will not buy any product from them again. This might be unfair but is is how I feel and from what I can see they have done nothing here to alay real and reasonable concerns.
Andy B

[Ian Williams]

Well done for speaking up Tony, I hope you don't get berated as others have for doing so, irrespective of some peoples opinions Accuspark have a responsibility here. They they are not a small one-man band trying to provide a much needed and long since obsolete product, they actively promoted this product as a way of making money out of enthusiasts, and they used club publications to do so. They have shown blatant disregard to the damage caused by their product and unsurprisingly a complete lack of customer service. I have spoken up in the past against misinformation and poor service, it has not always won me friends but I will continue to do so where I see there is cause, its a pity more are put off by fear of reprisals. The worst part of this whole debacle is that nobody has yet come up with a truly genuine reason why the average A7 owner actually needs one of these, late model dynamos work perfectly well unless you ask it to do something it was not intended for, they are not in short supply and can be rebuilt easily. As a result Accusparks advertising designed to prey on A7 folk law, folk law from the days of cash strapped owners trying to push a scrap heap seven's beyond their capabilities, we now have a lot of cars damaged for what...so someone can make some money, that in any decent persons book is inexcusable.

[Ruairidh Dunford]

There is an article in the most recent A7CA Magazine that outlines the issues raised here, a number of Club magazines have also published similar articles already.

[Tony Betts]

Hi andy,

I don't want to see people stop useing accu spark, the seven world in the sceam of things is quite small. And although people use there cars less and less. They do still get used from time to time unlike other makes and models. So we need as much help as we can get to keep them on the road.

However accu spark do need to come forward to help those who haven't found the problems yet.

Tony.

[Andy Bennett]

Thanks Tony but until I see them taking the responsible attitude to customers we see from the likes of you and our other cherished suppliers then they have done nothing to earn loyalty, or more importantly confidence in the quality of their product. It's a tough world as they say.
Andy B

[Ian Williams]

The FACT everyone is conveniently ignoring is that unlike most of what Tony and our other cherished suppliers produce Accuspark are not supplying a product that is necessary to keep cars on the road. I challenge anyone to provide a VALID reason why I am wrong for the AVERAGE seven owner. Yes of course if it worked correctly an alternator will charge a battery better, disk brakes will stop a car better, a Suzuki engine will make it go better but are these VALID reasons for fitting these things, personal choice maybe and more power to your elbow if thats your particular poison.

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Hi Andy,

My dealings with Accuspark have been good (and continue to be so, as I feed back my experiences of using the unit on a daily basis).

I understand that Accuspark were approached by an A7 enthusiast (not me) to, initially, produce a 12v. version which was trialled as a prototype (again, not by me) - Accuspark received positive feedback from this after a number people had trialled it’s use. Why the trials did not show up anything pre-production I do not know.

I have never used a 12v system in any of my cars so the item did not appeal to me but, when they said they could produce it in 6v, I thought I would like to try it and make my own mind up about it based on personal experience. In use I can see several advantages to it but will report back fully on that once I have completed my trip.

The new gears are something that would have been benificial as new over worn are always going to be better, this was not to be and, as reported on this thread, caused me some issues. These issues however were overcome and my unit now works as intended. Accuspark were initially going to produce the unit without gears but, at the request of the person who started the project with them decided to make them.

The electronic distributor that Accuspark produce is a superb and very worthwhile upgrade and you have no need to be nervous about fitting it, in my opinion. I would urge you to carry your old unit as a spare because if the solid state technology inside fails it cannot be coaxed into life again. As noted previously I always carried a spare distributor before using the Accuspark unit.

[Ruairidh Dunford]

2200 miles into using the Dynamator - temperatures are in in the mid 30c range.

All good, so far.

Photo at Millau viaduct last week.