dbraun99 is the name of the consulting engineering firm that I started when I closed my small full-color offset printing and graphic design company. To most of my casual friends, it was an odd change... going from printing to consulting engineering. After all, I had been in printing for almost 25 years of my working life! However, sandwiched between printing careers, I was a mechanical systems and product improvement engineer on aircraft, a mechanical contractor, and had dabbled in manufacturing engineering and technical writing. In addition, many of the processes which needed to be developed at my printing company were my own, which I then distributed nationwide.
I'm a graduate of the University of Minnesota, Institute of Technology, with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I also hold a commercial pilot's certificate with an instrument rating. I dusted off my Professional Engineer's license and have been offering my services to small companies who need engineering help. My clients are mostly aviation firms, and like a lucky few in the world, I can't believe they actually pay me for doing things that are so much fun! I do travel when needed, and just returned from Houston, Texas at the beginning of December (2008), and Pasco, Washington in mid-June (2009). We also traveled to Salt Lake City (2009), Buffalo, NY (2010), and Las Vegas, NV for the ABS convention; along with numerous trips to Wichita, KS and Oklahoma City.
The FAA has appointed me as a Designated Engineering Representative in the area of powerplants. This means I can approve design data for the FAA for powerplant installations, their accessories, propeller installations, cooling systems, fuel systems, and the like. I can also work with other DERs who have appointments in other areas for approvals on non-powerplant systems for which I provide the engineering and compliance data.
In 2009 I prepared the curriculum for the Aviation Program for youth at the Urban BaseCamp for the Northern Star Council, BSA. The program was rolled out for the first time in July of 2011. The same facility particpated in a historic NASA Downlink (where astronauts living in the International Space Station communicate directly to youth on the ground) in August, 2011. I was asked to prepare the 11 Scout based learning stations and create the complex scheduling logistics for the 240 Scouts, Girl Scouts, and school children in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) used during the eight hour NASA Downlink event.
The services offered to my clients are pretty straightforward:
I'm fortunate to have many talented resources available to me, so I can provide a 'one-stop' engineering service to my clients, drawing on additional help as the projects require. My fees are hourly plus expenses, but fixed price quotations with defined scopes of work are available upon request.
Questions? You can email me at dave@dbraun99.com
Your car will run better when your SU Carburetors are in great shape! Follow the link to our price list or Contact us for a quote and turn-around times. Here are some photos from our recent session on May 1st, 2010 and a direct link to the SU Carburetor rebuild from my restoration.
The Restoration Advice is free, and Restoration Services are reasonably priced. You can contact me by email. Unless I'm out in the wilds, I try to respond to advice requests and quotes within 24 hours.
I like it when people let me know that a project we worked on is successful. Here are some excerpts:
MG TD 15470 was produced at the MG Factory in Abingdon on Thames, England, on April 24, 1952. I've had the pleasure of owning the car for over 20 years. My sons learned to shift a manual gearbox in the TD and would often take the car on short jaunts in High School. The car was definitely in 'driver' shape, and I did very little beyond the basic maintenance to keep the car in that form.
When I took the car out of storage in April of 2005 I knew the time had passed where maintenance would enable the TD to be driven another season. The bias ply tires were at least 30 years old and nearly gone. The wooden framing in the tub had disintegrated leaving the metal panels hanging in mid air. The weather equipment was black vinyl and had become ugly with age. The XPAG motor was low in compression in number one cylinder and oil was finding its way into the coolant.
While most of these problems had plagued the car to varying degrees for most of my ownership period, they had progressed to the point that a 'rolling restoration' was no longer possible. Even though I had never restored an entire car before, and no one recommends tearing an entire project down to nuts in bolts in one sitting, that's essentially what I did, bagging parts and taking digital photographs as I went along.
The result is what you see here, a photosite of the restoration of MG TD 15470 with all my false starts, successes, mistakes, do-overs and victories.
I hope you enjoy the photo essay. If you are working on your own TD project, I hope you find the pictures of MG TD 15470 useful.
**** Viewers are warned that if they attempt any mechanical repairs or modifications, or follow procedures referred to here, they do so at their own risk, and no liability will attach to either myself or any of the companies that performed work on the car or assemblies.****
These are documents and websites that I have found valuable. I'll only publish them with permission from the original author or webmasters.
Some of the best websites for MG Ownership on the Web.
These are top-notch suppliers who can help you with a variety of components on your MG or other British car. While I can't warrant their results, I do recommend them without reservation.
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Copyright © 2012 by Dave Braun
