Aircraft Magneto?

Bought a few things at a flea market the other day, I thought this was an aircraft magneto but i cannot find any reference to it on the internet.

its a slick 4 cyl magneto model 46-1 and has a 30 deg lag angle. left hand rotation..

It Does not have a government contract number...although there is a pad for one.

i did a quick test and it appears to work.

Anybody recognize it or know anything about it?

 

If it IS an aircraft magneto, I'd check the maximum rpm range. Aircraft engines operate at a lower RPM limit than automotive engines...

 

Good comment, yep most AC engines are only good for about 3500 RPM. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.....I can't even really sell the darn thing if i cant identify it...

My first thought was it was from an early contentinetal AC engine like an A-40. but ironically Slick Magnetos.......who makes it ............was then part of the case tractor company and used the "Case" name on their aircraft magnetos

 

It does look like an old Case tractor mag, LA or something. Lippy

 

no real reason, just the manufacturer i associated with AC mags. It may be from a tractor....I really have no idea

Case magnetos was spun off to form Slick Electro sometime in the late 40s early 50s as i understand it

 

Looks like the magneto on my oliver crawler

 

I'm not sure when Slick Electro was founded but I remember Case magnetos on tractors when I was a kid and the emblem on the old Slicks looks like a reworked Case emblem. The number 46-1 doesn't mach up with any aircraft mags that I can remember. 4-cylinder mags begin with 4 but the later mags would be 4200 series which were replaced by 4300 series some time ago. Your mag has an impulse coupling to retard the spark for starting but it could be from a tractor or hay baler or something like that too.

 

Hercules??

 

I looked through some of my Unison-Slick service bulletins from as far back as 1969 and it looks like the aircraft stuff started at the 400 series then went to 4000 series and so on. The early aircraft mags from the late 60s up until the early 1980s were considered throw away mags as it was more expensive to rebuild them than it was to replace them with a new one. Most of the old Continental and Lycoming aircraft engine used Bendix-Scintilla or just plain Bendix type mags.

 

Looks like one from an old tractor. My JD-H had a 2 cylinder one that looked just like that, less 2 poles.

 

The aircraft mags that i have delt with, Continental and Lycoming engines, have the drive gear atached to them, not a spade like what you have there. Tactor mags and aircraft mags look a lot alike so I don't think what you have there came from an airplane engine certainly not an A-40 Cont.

Also most Continental Aircraft engines came with Eisman or Bendix mags back in the day, Slicks were an aftermarket deal until later.

 

I agree, when i looked at some of my old manuals the A-40 was the only thing that had a mount and poles that looked like this one......Case made a mag for the A-40 also...but as you mentioned this is probably a little newer.

 

it looks like the 664 mag here, but its only 4 cyl and has that two ear mounting base like the Eiseman below it

http://www.sacskyranch.com/magtypes.htm

 

Thanks for all the comments

 

my father had an airplane with a Continental A-40 engine , it was the A-40-5 with the twin magnetos. i can't recall what they looked like , it was over 30 years ago. i only flew it once

 

wow ,this thread got me thinking about that airplane. my father bought in in 1976 from a guy in Ohio that had it for many years. he had done some restoration work on it before we got it , but me and my brother went through it.. a few repairs , some new paint and overhauled the motor , etc. i only had it off the ground once and it was a handful! he sold it sometime in the early 80's to a museum in Kentucky.


so, after a little internet searching i found it at the Aviation Museum of Kentucky..they apparently still have it on display. this is the actual airplane , the tail number is the same as i recall it. it does have a great racing history , i won't get into all the details. one cool thing: was on display at the 1933 Chicago World's fair

 

Looks like a continental 4 cyl. With impulse .the drive gear is missing.
Slick,unison, is now owned by champion spark plug co.

 

Neat Airplane looks like a Bowers Fly Baby with struts instead of cables....Nice work

I guess a Bowers Fly Baby actually looks like it....since its older

 

A buddy had an Aeronca Champ with a 65 horse Continental. One mag went bad, and we swapped the mag off a Case tractor on to it. Bolted right on! We had several tractor mags that wouldn't fit, though, the drives were different.

 

I did a quick web search to no avail. This looks like an aircraft mag without the gear. i don't know if you are planning to use this or not. If so there are some things to consider. First a lower power aircraft engine will not usually see above 2750 rpm (props become ineffective above this rpm). So for an automotive application this may be an issue. Secondly depending on the rotation of the mag, you may have to adjust the mag to run this way. They usually have a way internally by changing the gears to allow for the proper e-gap(internal timing) postion for both directions of rotation. I don't know if you can reverse the direction of the impulse coupling though. Which by the way as mentioned before the impulse coupling retards the spark and it will also make a more intense spark when it releases, Due to the fact that without an impulse coupling it won't make enough spark to fire the plugs until the engine reachs around 200 rpm. Third remember that the magneto works "backwards" electically. Meaning that when you unhook the p-lead wire from the magneto the primary circuit is live and will allow the magneto to spark. When you ground the p-lead wire it grounds the internal primary coil and prevents it from generating electricity. I was going to say thats my 2 cents, but i guess its a quarter!

MetalMike

 

Thanks for the insight, I did an internet search, called a few old A&P mechs i knew, even asked some folks at the EAA.... No luck yet

 

If i get some time i will take a peek at the school tonight and see if i can't scrounge up something on it.

 

Your mag is off a Lycoming 0-290G engine which was a ground power unit.
Its basically the same engine as the 0-290 D2 135HP engine used mostly in the Piper Tri Pacers. The major difference between the aircraft vs the ground power unit is the ground power unit only had one mag where the aviation version had dual mags and 2 spark plugs per cylinder.

QGM

 

an aircraft mag would have threaded bosses for the sheilded plug wires which yours dosent appear to have...

 

it does there just internally threaded older AC mags were that way.... the 0-290G would make sense.....the only thing that's a little funny is that it doesn't have a government contract number on it....i

 

Took a look at the school for a slick book, to no avail. Sounds like Quietgentlemen has it figured out though.

 

Thanks alot Mike and Quiet Gentleman........and everybody else that had some ideas....now i need to figure out if i wanna sell this thing or use it as a bookend...

 

found another picture of the Heath..i still can't believe i flew it

 

Cool is that plane designed by the same guy who made the Heath Parasol?

 

yep,,same guy