Gentlemen................... the day has come................... Stumpy said to me, 'if there's anyone who can find out why this machine is not running, it's minivin'. Robert 'minivin' was kind enough to come visiting today. The first thing he spotted was that the exhaust cam follower was sticking so he redid the timing case shimming and timed the ignition again. This was out by about 90 degrees despite my best efforts - we'll see why in a minute. Anyway, having done that, he kicked it over and it RAN, YES, THE COMET RAN!!!!!!! And lovely it sounded too!!!
That was the last we heard from it for a couple more hours................... after a lot of head scratching and retiming of the ignition Robert found out that the atd was not fitting tightly to the taper and thus was moving every time the retaining nut was tightened up. There ensued a lot of grinding, flatting off (nail biting on my side whilst vast acreages of my atd u washer and the back of the atd disappeared in a shower of sparks) and refitting with no better results UNTIL Stumpy came back with a reconditioned atd and Robert lapped it onto my mag shaft (Hugo, that's all yours!). Retimed it...... AND IT RUNS LIKE A FRIGGING DREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A bit of carb tuning... and what a GREAT MACHINE THIS IS, PEOPLE!!! It sound just great and ticks over beautifully WHAT A FANTASTIC COMET THIS IS!!!
I'd like to say a lot of thankyous - everyone on the forum who has joined in the fun and provided useful comments, . Stumpy for being SO damned generous with time, bits, advice and everything, Hugo for the research and e-mails, and Robert minivin for spending the whole day making this happen and refusing to be beaten.
This is my first experience of being part of an Owners' club and I am really grateful for the help and encouragement. Well done and keep it up. As my stepson, Oli, said : it's unusual to find people who will give of their time so generously these days!!
So, it's goodbye from me on this thread - it's been a blast!!
Phil