Went for a 10 mile ride today, to check out the rebuild and tuning. The bike ran very well and is a 1-2 kick starter when warm with the Norton dual points. It starts best with no flooding tickling and no throttle. It idles nicely, but I've got some more tuning to do with the 928 Amals, and I am getting a little oil film in the exhaust pipe tip, but not troublingly so. 106 needle jet, 180 main, needle in lowest notch, ~1 1/4 turns on air screw, modified Norton style stepped spray tubes, still has the pilot jets the Amals came with, probably 17's. The Thornton "B" suspension front and rear with Justin's springs and boxes is a revelation compared my memories of the semi stock girdraulic setup, with Pettefords and a fully suspended seat, that I had on my '52 C Touring Rapide. Very smooth and comfortable, almost un-Vincent like over humps and bumps. The Speet 2LS front brakes are nice, controllable, and firm too, and I was initially careful as I was warned they they might be "too fierce", but not so, though I have not done a panic stop yet. I am getting some drag from the V3 clutch, despite putting the club kickstart case adjuster mod in and adjusting all the slop out. No trouble getting into first, but neutral is elusive or impossible and I have to keep the front brake on when idling in first with the clutch lever in trying to find neutral due to drag. I will call Steve Hamel about this since the unit is a 2002 version and not used until now. (I wonder if Paul Goff got his sorted.) I think some changes have been made in plates or clutch stack over the years that help with drag and lift.
(Knock on wood, no oil leaks yet, and yes it does have oil in it, 5w-40 even)
The reason for putting this first ride report here is that the biggest problem I had was a loss of charging from the Alton, which had been doing fine for the first few miles. Returning home I opened up the dynamo cover, on the principal that troubleshooting starts with obvious things first. Lo and behold, the nylon pinon was completely adrift and the center had melted and broken out of it. Quite a sight! The question I asked last August was about whether to use a ET164 ring with the Alton may be a case of perhaps not. Truthfully I still don't know if that is typical, but I put one in. I appears that what had happened was that the oil thrower had too little clearance on it and the heat from it rubbing metal on metal caused the nylon pinion to get too hot, fracture, and go south. I thought I had enough clearance on the thrower when I put the Alton against its ring of mastic , but apparently not. (I have about 3/16" clearance now between the Alton face and the crankcase spigot. This is probably too much. What do others have?) I thought I had it right because I lined up the sprocket teeth with the center chain row, but next time the clearance at the crankcase gets priority.
By the way, I am amazed at how strong the magnets on the first generation Alton are. It takes quite a bit turn the thing by the poles. I am sure this contributed to the failure when the sprocket got compromised by heat. I bought this first generation single phase alternator way back before the 3 phase problem, and this was its first use. (Podtronics regulated) It is probably just like the one Bruce Metcalf is still using from new.
Despite the trouble today, and my grinch like comments a week or so ago, Christmas did arrive today. If nothing else major pops up, I think the home stretch is here.
Ron
. Well all the other bikes we were racing against were at least 10 years younger than us and in fact later BMCRC introduced a production age limit of 10 years , I suppose the 'old' Vincents passing the latest 1965 machines down the Snetterton straight was becoming embarrassing