New voltage regulator fitted, charging. Aircraft fixed – hooray.
Two glider pilots turned up and a helicopter pilot just back from flying Victoria Falls. We can get your plane in there, how? With lots of two and frow, lots of tail down, front wheel up pivoting these geniuses got my plane fully into the poly hangar, amazing.
That’s how we used to get the Auster into the glider club hangar (which is narrower than the plane’s wingspan) but it’s much easier with a tailwheel aircraft with a castoring tailwheel than a nosewheel aircraft. These days we put the plane on a trolley built for the job and wheel it in sideways.
I once had a voltage regulator fail on a TB10 , which failed with the contacts welded closed giving full alternator output. This then welded the contacts of the so-called “overvoltage protection” device, which failed allowing the death of two nav/coms, an adf, an intercom, a dme, etc etc. The original regulator was a similar design with two coils as fitted on my 1946 Ferguson tractor.
Maoraigh is right I think. The aircraft had to be started outside without cowls of course and the rain was belting down. The engine started and the prop picked up gallons of water from the mossy ground.
The voltage regulator on my aircraft has not done badly, it is the original one fitted in 1979. It was also sealed up with silicone or similar but obviously not sealed well enough. OR, conversely too well sealed and the water was condensation.On the question of Oban Airport itself, since Argyll and Bute council invested and upgraded the airport it is a fantastic place to visit. Unfortunately, it’s not a good place to breakdown. However, the locals including the firemen at the airport are fantastic and made a near impossible task possible with all their help. Donald borrowed me an engine lift so I did not have to take one up there. Kevin, a helicopter pilot, worked a full day with us and took me to a VERY good welder in Oban to weld up a broken bracket. Fantastic. The firemen lugged the engine lift around for me, helped me move the plane, honestly brilliant and done with great humour.
Some of the criticism of Oban Airport seems to stem from some old politics at the time of the upgrading with some getting their nose pushed out. Not everyone was happy at the time. Today it is a must visit and I’ll be back even though I’ll not forget the experience of taking the engine out in dire conditions.
Maybe rain on the ground, with the cowling off, at Oban?
P.S.I don’t know if the Oban guys monitor EUGA, but some do read the Oban-Glenforsa thread on PXXXXX, and, I’m sure, would appreciate some positive comment there, if the OP uses it. They’ve got a lot of (IMHO unjustified) stick on PXXXXX over the years.
How can they get water in them? Surely there are baffles on the back of the engine, whose purpose is to ensure that the air gets compressed into the space above the engine and is forced through the cylinder fins. There should bo no significant airflow, and certainly no significant water, into the void behind that baffle, which should have seals all around it. The exception to this is air passing through any oil cooler, perhaps.
The Cessna voltage regulators are solid state in a non water proof aluminum/plastic case. They are usually screwed against the firewall.
My retirement business plan has just been blown out of the water 
That’s not one of those vibrating reed regulators, which turn the field current on/off with a mechanical sensor which is constantly arcing?
If so, there must be an aftermarket solid state regulator. I used to build those in 1975, for Yamaha bikes, with a 2N3055 switching the field current (a total overkill). It went into a tiny diecast box about 1 × 1 × 2″.
