Nostalgic Bicycle Life ep. 1
Reassemble a Soubitez 89 “block generator”.
I bought this, NOS, off ebay. Still shrink-wrapped to its Huffy branded card. Unfortunately, when I removed it from the packaging, it made a grinding noise whenever the drive wheel on top was rotated. So I decided to take it apart and investigate. After finding nothing serious was wrong, I put it back together.
Here it is disassembled.
First step is to insert the magnet into the housing. “Bottle” generators are technically magnetos as they use a permanent magnet to produce alternating current.
The drive shaft fits through a long graphite bearing. It’s no wonder these things wear out after a while, there’s a lot of pressure for a graphite bearing to take when the drive wheel is rolling along the bicycle tire’s sidewall.
Next the drive wheel and locking nut are put on. Screw the drive wheel all the way on, then loosen it slightly (maybe a 1/4 to a 1/2 turn at most). If the drive wheel is tightened down all the way, it will destroy the graphite bearing. If it’s too loose it’ll produce rattling and poor electrical contact with the baseplate. Check that the magnet spins freely but with only the slightest amount of play.
Once you have the magnet spinning freely without too much play, tighten the locking nut down against the drive wheel to keep the free-play set. I used a mini vise grip to keep the wheel from turning while I tightened the nut.
Next the coil is inserted into the housing. It should fit tightly into the housing, but have room for the magnet to spin freely. On my example it doesn’t fit tightly enough, causing the scrapping sounds as it tries to rotate in the housing when the magnet is spinning. French quality.
Here the coil is full seated. Note the wire on the bottom.
Next, the base screws on. This was really tricky to do. Do not use any tools to grip the housing, it is soft aluminum and if you deform it, you can forget about ever getting it to screw onto the base. It took me a few tries to get the thread started - tip: it’s reverse threaded!!!
The “generator” all back together. Now to attach the headlamp.
The lamp bucket is held on by a small nut, I bent the electrical contact forward to get space to tighten it down. Remember everything is made of soft, thin metal, you don’t need to wrench down on anything, just snug it up. Note the bucket is adjustable, the nut can be tightened at any point in the slot for aiming the headlight, I decided to aim it in the middle of the slot.
Next the reflector and wire are fitted into the bucket. The plastic lens holds the reflector into the bucket, the nut and retaining tab on the bottom of the bucket hold the lens and reflector in.
It’s a pretty neat looking unit, even if it is one of the flimsier ones I’ve seen. It looks great mounted on the bike!