Replacement engine in

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The engine in my C15 has been rattling and knocking so it was time for it to come out and get checked over.



I've bought a "new" one from Mike Kilvert (who sold Mark his green C15) and with his help got it in and converted it to 12v electronic ignition.

These are pics from when I went down to his place in Wales and wired up the Pazon kit, and a video of trying to fire it up for the first time while holding my iPad!

These are a few pics Mark took today when he came over to see the bike.



Sadly, it lost power with a clunk today after riding A MILE or so from home - wondering if a valve has failed seeing as there is no compression at the moment.

Happily, Mark was with me and he not only rode back to my house, picked up my car and drove back, but I was sneaky enough to walk really slowly so that I'd only covered about 150m before he pulled up next to me and took over pushing duties. The exercise will do him good - no flies on me!

Speedo light and ammeter

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	We bought Mark a new ammeter for Christmas. As it happens, guys 'n' gals, how's about that then, he didn't seem too enthused so we also had to get him a new kickstart rubber, a t-shirt, a mug, and a BSA star. Kids today, eh?
Anyway, after us putting him through school, A-Levels, and a Masters degree in Microelectronic Systems Engineering he came up with this little beauty. Education is a wonderful thing, n'est-ce pas? "Apparently", he was stopped the other night and asked how fast his speedo told him he was going. He replied, "Are you MAD, officer? At that speed I was keeping my eyes on the ROAD!" Truth is there was no light in the speedo so he ordered five 12v LEDS (with the obligatory 470Ω resistors) which is what you can see here as a PIERCING LIGHT.

	Mark has spent the morning wrestling with the joys of putting big butch manly fists (inherited from his dear mother, mange tout) inside the headlight of a BSA C15 and now has nocturnal illumination aplenty.
	New Earth (orange cable) run from ignition coil mount to the headlight – visible just to left/below centre in the shot on the right with the red/blue connector.

Mark's still cleaning his bike

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Here are some video clips I took when Mark was unaware - just to get my own back for the times he left his dictaphone in sound-activated mode to see if I snore:

1. Popping round for a brew
2. Burning me off out of a roundabout
3. Riding over the toll bridge
4. Nearly home
5. Made it back

Replacing the distributor clamp

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	These photos are actually from a while ago but I've only just found them on my pinhole camera obscura.
	Mike Kilvert (the seller of Mark's bike) came up with his Dad, Rich (that's what he told us, anyway) a few days after selling it to try to sort out why Mark's bike wouldn't start when cold.
	At the time we thought the clamp holding the distributor was moving so we bought a replacement and fitted it with their help.
	We haven't got a fancy stand to lift the bike into the air so we just rested it on Mike's knee and the foot peg!
One neat trick was using a screwdriver to pull the kickstart spring out of the way so that they could remove the inner cover.		We had trouble getting the inner cover back on though. Turned out that the shaft between the kickstart and the gear lever was coming under a hydraulic effect so we had to use a syringe to remove oil from the hole it sits in.

Autosol

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You've got to love the stuff.

We used it in the past to keep the exhaust pipes on our Hornets in showroom condition - including underneath so everybody could admire the shine while the footpegs were shooting sparks.

Mark bought the bike from a self-confessed non-polisher (hi, Mike!) but spent an hour this afternoon on the clutch casing and carb cover.   Looking good already.

Another speedo restoration

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We tried hooking up Mark's "new" speedo to his bike last weekend. Although the odometer worked, the needle moved not a jot.


This was somewhat disappointing given that in carrickbay's description on ebay it was claimed that the "needle moves when you spin with Allen key".


Mark was spitting sparks so I took the speedo home and dismantled it. Turns out the description was somewhat less than accurate as the needle mechanism was seized.

I eventually managed to free it up with some WD40 and today we tried it in the bike. It read 25mph when doing 30mph so it didn't take more than 3 or 4 turns of the brass adjusting screw to get it reading correctly again.

Maybe we should go into business - there's a fortune to be made judging by how much some people are charging for what we've done here more than once!

Oil change

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We changed the oil in Mark's C15 today.

We ran the bike until it was warmed up then drained the oil tank and cleaned both the oil filters before filling back up with 20w50 mineral oil.

To stop an oil leak we've tried replacing the metal washers on the sump plate with some fibre washers.