More Surflex clutch plates!

As usual, click any image to zoom in.

After Mark reviewing his new clutch so highly, I decided to replace my plates too.

The gear changes seem better, and although it was only a short ride from Mark's house back to mine, the gear changes didn't seem to be stiff when the engine was hot.


We'll see how it performs Thursday night when we do our ride-out to The Antrobus Arms for the BSA Club meetup.

We also drilled the rear light housing and fitted the rear indicators. We just need to get some bullet connectors to finish up the wiring and add the flasher unit.

Indicator kit

As usual, click any image to zoom in.


I've been feeling guilty about all the work I've been getting Mark to do on my bike. What, with him lecturing in Mathematics at degree level, taking me shopping, cutting my grass, maintaining my car, picking up my pension and looking after his family he probably has enough on his plate.



Therefore I've decided to fit the indicator kit I bought six months ago and have been leaving out on the kitchen table half-hidden under a tea towel every time he comes round for a brew.



What a pain it's been - worse than that time I dropped a dumbbell on Mark's foot, I reckon.  Didn't have a drill big enough, had to file to size, broke several small files, getting the stems to look symmetrical took absolutely ages.  Rear pair should be easier. (Famous last words, ha)

Rebuilt engine back in!

As usual, click any image to zoom in.


It was a lovely, sunny day yesterday. Mark and I started work at 11am and by 8pm all the tools were away.

It wasn't too bad a job really - removed the seat, petrol tank, rear mudguard, chainguard, chain, carb, exhaust, engine and then put it all back together.






Once the new engine was in we filled up the oil tank and gearbox and Mark ran the bike up and down the road with the spark plug out and in gear to get the oil round the engine until we could see the oil return pumping oil.

The bike fired up first kick, which was nice!

We had a bit of trouble starting the bike a while later because the clutch needed adjusting (adjustment bolt was too tight).

I was sitting on the bike ready to ride home when it cut out and we couldn't get it started again.

I left it at Mark's overnight and we had another go this morning, adjusting the timing, and were fast running out of ideas when Mark suggested changing the spark plug. At that point he noticed that the rebuilt engine had a Champion N4C plug and not the recommended N5C. It started first time with the N5C plug in...

Back on the road

As usual, click any image to zoom in.

After the recent breakdown, Mike reckoned they might not have tightened up the tappets when they were working on the engine which would explain the pushrod jumping off.

I went for a decent length run with Mark today. At one point the engine cut out completely for about 1 second. Strangely, it had been showing a discharge leading up to that point but the engine fired up again and the ammeter began to show a charge. I'll have to take the seat off to check the wiring (and also in the headlamp) since it felt like an electrical fault.

Speedo light and ammeter

As usual, click any image to zoom in.

	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.

Ignition sorted - hopefully!

As usual, click any image to zoom in.



Mark has had trouble again this week with starting his bike - in as much as it would not start at all.

If you were lucky enough to kickstart the bike within the first two kicks then great, otherwise the spark plug was wet and we had to dry it out on the kitchen hob before trying again.

There were several times when the exhaust would spit or even shoot a 3 foot long flame. Admittedly, that's a bit like me after a vindaloo but I am bobbing on a bit after all and my gaskets aren't what they were. Still, the point is his bike wouldn't start.

The bike has a Pazon 12V electronic ignition system - modified for single cylinder - and we noticed that the ignition coil was getting quite warm if not hot fairly quickly after a cosmic ray struck and we were able to start the bike. A miracle in itself after Luigi's trick of pulling the clutch in while I was kickstarting it the other night.

This morning we fitted a new ignition coil from Brian at BSA Lightning Spares and tidied up some of the wiring on the electronic ignition system so that leads were "cut to length". We also found a few poor earth connections and resoldered those. The frame has been repainted at some point and looks brilliant, but from an electronics point of view there was a non-existent earth for the coil and rectifier so we scraped away the paint under the bolts in those areas in the shot and also hard-wired an earth (orange cable) from the chassis to the positive terminal on the battery.

As per a previous post, the kitchen sink filter/air filter is now in situ and working well.