Britbike forum Forums British Motorcycle specific Brands Bsa bulletin board Robs engine rebuild help thread

Tonights the night!

Going to (try) and fire her up. I just need petrol...

Wish me luck

Good looking bike, your neighbours will love you for these open exhaust pipes.

I have fit internal baffels but bet that its still pretty loud.

Life is to short to worry about my neighbours.... haha

AARRRGGGHH!

So. Last night I was going to fire her up.

I am Running Electrex world 12v kit.

I had an ok spark 4-5 kicks, then nothing.

This kit works by charging a capasitor from the rotor, and the 65w to the lights.

I think the capasitor had som charge in it (which is why it fired a couple of times) and the CDI has either died or stator isn`t giving any charge.

Stripped the bodywork last night and disconnected the kill switch to eliminate that and nothing. completely dead.

Are you trying to start the engine with the lights on?

No!

I have absolutley no spark.

Dead.

I have orderd a new CDI, I ohmed the stator and that is working.

Got the new cdi yesterday!

I'll strobe the timing today and tweak the carb.. maybe even take her for a ride.

[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/XuzCq-2Y-Wo[/video]

Congrats! It's always a pleasure to see these things come to life. PRT

Thanks PRT.

I went for the first ride today.

The bike feels solid, the gears are easy to select, sounds nice and the suspension works well.

My lights don't work so I'm currently searching for a loose connection or bad earth but it's running very rich.

Pulls like a train up to half throttle but burbles and blows black smoke.

I took off the filter but that didn't help so I moved the needle down a clip to see how that works out.

Luckily with the single carb set up, I only need to take off the tank to get to the carb ( just one screw).

I have a small oil leak in the rocker feed hose but otherwise it seems fantastic.

Starts first kick and nice tickover at idle.

Could someone explain what the 2 screws do on the AMAL (pilot and air) ? I'm not quite sure how U should set them?

The horizontal screw controls the pilot mixture, screw in to make richer, out for leaner, the angled screw is the throttle stop and controls idle speed.Once the motor is warmed up ( after a short run) not just a few seconds of throttle blipping, adjust the pilot mixture screw to give the highest idle, then lower the throttle stop screw to the desired idle speed. Typical pilot screw settings are one to 1.5 turns out from fully closed in.

Is a turn 360 degrees or 180

360

Bollox.

My second electrex world ignition went belly up and I ended up re-wireing the bike again but this time I went for a Pazon ignition system with a battery and rotor/stator and dyna coil.

Simplyfied wireing as per Lowbrow customs diagram.

The bike just farts, burps and pops.

It wont start, even if I try bumping it. The battery was low yesterday 10.4v but I think that might be normal after 300 kicks and pushing the bike around the block a few times.

One fault I found was that the Pazon trigger was dragging on the crankshaft seal and moving position, so I measured an old Boyer trigger and put the Pazon on my lathe so it now fits as it should.

I`m going to swap petrol and change the plugs but i`m seriously starting to loose hope on this engine. I can`t figure out why she wont start. just so frustrating.

It was starting before without a problem, wasn't it ?
Using Electrex ignition.
Are you sure everything is all right with your AMAL carb, you complained in former posts about excessive richness ?
Perhaps your petrol level is too high for some reason ?
Or your idle circuit got clogged ?
I'd take a carburetor off the engine and check it, those engines with one carb should start with one or two kicks every time.
If they dont, something isn't right.

I charged the battery last night and because of the problem with the trigger yesterday I had really given up.

Started second kick

Went for a ride today, just lovely.....

Until I was going to start it again.

I think something has let go in my motor. It will only turn 30 degrees back or forth.

Gutted.

Your motor is so fresh, its hard to imagine a main component letting go, may be something as simple as a jumped push rod, a quick look in the rocker box will help narrow stuff down. Was it running OK when it was last shutdown?

Usual teething problems.
+1 to Gavin post.

Had exactly the same batch of problems with my BSA, after converting it to 1 carb.
After everything was buttoned up bike didn't want to start and didn't work properly.
After I limped to a friend's shop we took a carb apart and realized it's missing one part in the body, small "chimney" going into carburetor cavity around a needle.
Normally it's pressed in into the body, and I just didn't check is it there or not.
All my problems disappeared at once.

Stripped the motor last night and found that the tip of one of the cam followers was gone!

So lucky that it happend, when it happened. I found it with an inspection camera and manage the to dislodge it out of a balancing hole with the camera and a piece of wire.

This must be a first! Case looks good as it was stuck behind the oil pipe that leads to the sump.

Need to find some followers now asap so I can get it going before my summer holidays.

Posted twice...

Bloody hell, Manx. Good save ! I won't make an asinine comment about being lucky, ' cos if you were this wouldn't have happened in the first place ! Was that component original, or current new manufacture ?

Original follower that had been re-ground locally.

Those tips are hard, could have done a lot of damage if it let go while riding 90km/h.

I think I was very lucky. or very unlucky, depending on how I look at it.

Did the whole foot break off or did the stellite pad become detached?

Just the pad.

Some more good news, I phoned proberbly the only classic bike shop in Norway this morning and asked if they had some cam followers...

As it happens, he had a sett on his shelf.

"Are they in good condition? " I ask

" Good condition? " he replied

"they are new, and been on my shelf since 1971"

Haha, I hope the old price tag is still on them

Now, that's lucky !