Trickle charger plug

[pasini s]

Hello,

sorry to bother you all with such a trivial matter, but I would like to buy a spare plug for the trickle charger socket provided in the engine bay of my 409.

I made a couple of pictures to show what I am looking for:

Bristol 409: the plug for trickle charging

I think that this may be a very common plug in the UK but I couldn't find one even on eBay UK....

Happy Easter

Stefano

[David Olivant]

Stephan,
Your lucky you have one plug! I to have looked in vain for one with no luck.
I have come to the conclusion that I will have to resin cast one using pins from some-one like Farnell. However it is not top of my list. I'm having problems with carburation very similar to you! I'm in the process of levelling the inlet manifold flange and making new studs.This should hopefully solve the air leakage problems.
I found the linkage setup and kickdown setting etc critical to trying to achieve tickover at 500rpm. I still have a sneaking feeling the carb may be porous.
If so i will have to look at an Edelbrock replacement.
If I come accross any plugs, I will buy two and send you one.
Regards,
David

[pasini s]

David, you have mail....

Stefano

[Stuart]

These are indeed obscure, a 3 pin UK old type mains plug, once used for low power appliances such as lamps... I have a few in stock and can send you one Stefano if you let me know your address off-air... My source was Saudi Arabia where, they are, or were, used as telephone plugs, so I stocked up with a few when I worked there. Mine are a cheap Chinese plastic model, not quite in place in a Bristol engine bay but they do the job...

Regards, Stuart

[GREG]

They are quite common ! I have some spare but my local electrical shop sells them too !

They are uses a lot in pubs and hotels for table lamps and I believe are used a lot in South Africa

I know they can be used for charging but I thought the primary use was for an under bonnet lamp ?

[Kevin H]

post deleted - incorrect advice

[GREG]

It's still a UK mains plug for table lamps and picture lights.

It's the smaller version of the original UK plug.

My local shop has them in black or White but not bacalite ;-)

[Andy Bernard]

You may need to be careful of the plug size - the Leads Direct site mentions the 15A plug which is much larger than the 2 / 3/ /5 A plug we seem to be talking about.

[pasini s]

Thanks everybody for your help. The problem, as Andy points out, is that you can find quite easily the 15A plug, that is much larger than the one I need. Clarification on the BS-546 plugs can be found at BS 546 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .

The 2A plug is the smaller of the three and it is the difficult one to find.

Dear Greg, you are right, as always: the instruction manual of the 409 states (pag.61) that "...the trickle charger socket....is to be used for an inspection lamp or for a trickle charger..."

I'll go on exploring the links that you kindly provided me.

Have a nice day,

Stefano

[Sam410]

2A plugs are not hard to find here in UK. The Bristol's socket is the same as lighting circuits widely used today.

- 2 Amp Round Pin Plug White - 2APLUGW: Amazon.co.uk: Kitchen & Home
2 Amp 3 Pin Plug

[pasini s]

Thank you Sam,

your message was precious as you gave me the correct 'name' of those plugs, then the search was easy. Sometimes it's just a problem of the correct word!

I was able to check several stores at Amazon and found the 2A plugs. The tricky part was finding a shop that would ship those small plugs to Italy for less than £17, that was the price asked for P&P by the two shops I asked first! The one I chose will send me 2 of them (for 2 chargers) for £8, P&P included, quite reasonable. Thanks again,

Stefano