[Aircomet]

I made good progress on the 149 this afternoon. I removed the seat pan and completely cleaned up the outside of the hydro. Then I pulled the rear cover and cleaned out the gunk from inside the rear. Wasn’t actually too bad as the oil had little water and there wasn’t much of a build up of sludge on the sides. I presume it was been changed regularly although the filter looked like an original style IH filter. Then I changed the filter and refilled it with hytran.

The next issue I turned my attention to was the dash. I had to drill out some of the mounting screws and install new machine screws. I then had to figure out what was going on with the hydro control lever. It was very loose on the shaft and flopping around. Well, what I discovered wasn’t good. Apparently the previous owner had issues with it coming loose and decided to replace the set screw with a 1/4 bolt and drill all the way through the splined shaft. Now it is all worn out and about ready to snap off because the cross hole is almost as wide as the shaft. The splines are also a mess now in the handle and shaft.

So I elected to remove the control shaft and lever and research replacing them. From what I’ve researched they made two different models of the shaft for different serial number ranges. Mine is the older style and I currently can’t find a good used shaft anywhere. I can find a used handle on eBay though. I’ve attached some pictures of the shaft and the older style mount for it and was wondering if anyone had a parts tractor or spare shaft and lever hanging around that is is good condition they would be interested in selling? I also want to see if this is something Jeff could fabricate.