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.

Cold ignition problem

As usual, click any image to zoom in.

Mark tried to start his bike this morning and it was having none of it.

When we originally bought it, it was hot starting that was the problem. Now we've changed the ignition coil and done the earths that seems to be fixed.





After checking battery levels (on and off load) and connections, we ended up replacing the ignition cable from the centre of the ignition coil to the spark plug cap. This seemed to help a little but not enough so we removed the ignition cap completely and looped the copper strand from the ignition cable directly under the top of the spark plug et voila.




Pazon recommend a 4.5k to 5.5k resistor in the ignition cap - or none at all. Mark's bike came with a 10k ignition cap which apart from being outside the manufacturer's tolerance could well have been breaking down.

Left it a few hours to go stone cold and Mark was able to ride 8 miles to my place, have a brew and ride it back without any issues at all. It now starts within three kicks every time so let's see what tomorrow brings!