"D" Distributor is the way Mr Vincent went,
I still think it's the best for us.
Cheers Bill.
I still think it's the best for us.
Cheers Bill.
Misc: Ignition Series 'C' Magneto
- Thread starter lotus15racer
- Start date
Thats certainly good advice, but out of reach for me. Even a non-refurbished K2F is kind of a rarity here and there are no bargains I know of, not to mention any knowledge about the armature it will provide. So an attempt to collect a bunch of armatures to chose from would be at least a quite expensive enterprise with its own uncertainties. Also stress-testing inevitably requires higher temperatures and for me as a standard user/rider without professional equipment that means "drive it until it fails" (which in my case was kind of fun. I remember pushing the bike home one day and thinking "Man, this thing looks so good its even fun to push it and admire its beauty while doing so"
Most "noteworthy" failures of magnetos I know of are winding-related. You can tell because (as also in my case) they still fail the same way after everything except the winding has been repaired. That characteristic failure is the common "runs until it gets hot, then fails and runs again after cooling down"
Of course I dont have any statistics but from my observations I would infer, that the winding issue is the main reason, why people walk away from magnetos. That doesnt say, that it fails more often than condensers (or other issues). But whilst the latter ones are also successfully repaired more often, it usually ends with the search for a reliable rewinding. At least that is what I hear from discussions and experienced myself.
Having said that, I would never replace a working magneto. I really love the concept and technology. But when its winding fails, I go electronic.
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I think Bill has a good point, but only if you have your battery and charging well sorted out, a couple of years ago I set off on my D Comet, and it started to behave horribly, I turned around about 10 miles from home, and only just made it back, eventually, it was only firing intermittently, and I was seriously concerned what effect it might be having on the entire drive train, and the engine for that matter, as it lurched forward and then wouldn't fire for an age before lurching forward again, made for a very stressful 10 miles, but once home I fitted a new replacement condenser supplied by the Distributor Doctor and normal service was resumed instantly, with a magneto failure I think it would have been a whole lot more complicated.
Peter, As for your backfire the other day, Slip the base plate off to check the springs,
My Special never kicked back, Till one day at a Liphook meeting, = Broken spring.
Cheers Bill.
Broken springs - very unusual with distributors. What sort of mileage did they have ? Did any of you ever have same defect on any car you had in olden times ? All of them had distributors with flywheel ATDs in them. So this should work the same on bikes with distributors. Only you get a lot more miles out of classic contacts on a bike with just one or two cylinders. With 4 or 6 cylinders I like contactless ignitions on cars - too much wear on contacts when they are no longer to be had at low price.
Certainly reproductions of capacitors can be doubtful. So when you got the space for electronic supply types you could have MKP or MFP capacitors, see Ebay or else. I would not know any types more suitable for this job. You look for max AC voltage at 0.22 myF and your space to fit them. The higher the voltage the bigger the capacitor. So for a Lucas mag you got a limit to keep size.
There are fancy tiny capacitors in the classics market today, at silly price. Would I have a lot of faith into these - I don´t know. Anybody with good experiences on these and high mileage as well ?? As these are extremely small I don´t quite believe in handling the voltage you can get in ignition systems.
Vic
Certainly reproductions of capacitors can be doubtful. So when you got the space for electronic supply types you could have MKP or MFP capacitors, see Ebay or else. I would not know any types more suitable for this job. You look for max AC voltage at 0.22 myF and your space to fit them. The higher the voltage the bigger the capacitor. So for a Lucas mag you got a limit to keep size.
There are fancy tiny capacitors in the classics market today, at silly price. Would I have a lot of faith into these - I don´t know. Anybody with good experiences on these and high mileage as well ?? As these are extremely small I don´t quite believe in handling the voltage you can get in ignition systems.
Vic
That characteristic "hot" failure you describe is due to the condenser, not the windings. Again, the reasons are explained in excruciating detail in my thread on Britbike. I realize that magneto thread a lot to read, but it contains actual, verifiable information on the operation of magnetos, not repetition of incorrect information found in various post in this current thread.
Although a distributor and coil is cheaper than a magneto, certainly a wealthy company like Vincent wouldn't have made the switch merely to save money on production costs, and instead an ignition system dependent on a 1950s battery and voltage regulator is superior to a magneto in some way I fail to comprehend.
Vic, My spring only broke the once,
Since 1975, And the unit was old when I bought it !,
And in the early days I had put a plastic tube between the bob weights,
And the centre shaft,
To cut down on the advance, I was running 12 to 1 pistons on 100 octane petrol, For top performance,
A road bike that I also raced.
But it was cheap enough and easy enough to fix.
Cheers Bill.
Since 1975, And the unit was old when I bought it !,
And in the early days I had put a plastic tube between the bob weights,
And the centre shaft,
To cut down on the advance, I was running 12 to 1 pistons on 100 octane petrol, For top performance,
A road bike that I also raced.
But it was cheap enough and easy enough to fix.
Cheers Bill.
I am about to fit a Bright Spark condenser to my KSS Velocette for starters have any menbers
tried these on Vincents.As Magnetoman has said many Mags have being
overhauled without lasting very long my Velo is a case in point recomendations for specialists please.
tried these on Vincents.As Magnetoman has said many Mags have being
overhauled without lasting very long my Velo is a case in point recomendations for specialists please.