Four stroke success!
Entry posted by Wagoneer
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Right then, ditch the points, condenser and old coil, distributor and leads. Buy a new set, or, like me, buy an electronic ignition set. Having researched a few, I settled on Accuspark. They provide a new distributor, high power coil, triple electrode plugs, ignition leads and for a little more, a timing light and rev limiter.
I fitted these items (all but the leads) and tried to remember how to set the static timing. The distant memory of getting No1 piston to TDC crept back between the burnt cells of my squishy bits up top so I got that sorted. My neighbour and I rigged up a temporary fuel bottle direct to the carb as I thought the pipe from the tank was blocked. Still no joy, but a few jolly good bangs! Some research needs doing then.
Fed up with failure I took the carburettor off (Weber 28/36) for a look at that. It seems fine, no blocked jets, floats look pristine, everything functioning (well, apart from the very wobbly throttle linkage) so I needed a new gasket to re-attach it.
A good evening spent reading about crossflow timing taught me where I'd gone wrong. I had got it 180 degrees out, a common error it seems.
A trip to my motor spares shop got me a new ballast resistor, some jubilee clips, a fuel filter and some gasket paper. As I had the carb off, I took it to work and scanned the mating surface to give me a template to cut a new one. A quick re-draw in Adobe Illustrator gave me some outlines to cut. I printed it out then lightly sprayed it with Spray Mount to temporarily fix it to the gasket paper. Some careful trimming with a scalpel gave me a good gasket.
Tonight I re-fitted the carb after cleaning all the mounting studs and nuts then moved on to setting the static timing again. This time having got No1 piston to TDC with the valve rockers jiggling, I rotated the crank pulley one more revolution unti the timing marks lined up again. This is where it should be. Now wherever the rotor arm was pointing indicates the position of the ignition lead to the spark plug for cylinder one. I then put the leads on the cap in the correct firing order.
Deep breath, turn the key. The engine fired up for the first time in 15 years, oh joy! Oh crap! Turns out the fuel pump and pipe is OK, it's now pumping fuel all over the place. After putting the original fuel line back in place I tried again only for it to burst!
Some replacement pipe that I already had got put on hastily and I started it again. Fantastic, it runs fine. All the oil that I'd put down the bores created a nice cloud that drifted through the house......oops. Now I need to get the timing spot on. Tomorrow though, it's tea time now.
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