Interesting ...

 

 

 

Steve McQueen's Husky.  https://www.dmarge.com/2018/07/steve-mcqueen-motorcycle.html

 

 

VW anyone?

 

9 hours ago, thaiguzzi said:

We coulda talked pushrods and tappet feet radius's and stuff....

No roller lifters in them days eh Guz !

3 hours ago, canthai55 said:

No roller lifters in them days eh Guz !

Only on Harleys unfortunately.........

 

Even the "little" ones back then had solid lifters. Rollers albeit non hydraulic...

 

 

Ah - the days of wishing they made rubber valve cover gaskets, not the crap cork ones, feeler gauge in hand.

Liked to set mine hot - didn't like getting burned but the price U pay.

At least the mag was easy to do - remember using a dwell meter ? 555

Ring dinging MZ ready for the track ..

 

12 hours ago, Justgrazing said:

Hardly something to brag about...

 

Besides, I once slept with a dozen of them. 

 

 

Well, I slept on a 747 that had 12 of them on board.

James Hunt was one hell of a guy, but still a softy compared to Harvey Williams.

Catching some air at the 1952 Isle of Man TT:

They ain't really trying .. Kawa' trip's can be much smokier than that .. 

Just dig that crash hat in the bottom pic .. 

 

8 hours ago, Justgrazing said:

Ring dinging MZ ready for the track ..

 

I dunno how they handled well, but they did.

The headstock is almost Honda Wave/Cub/Dream in its non existence of support.

Not even a head steady - c/head to headstock...

9 hours ago, canthai55 said:

Ah - the days of wishing they made rubber valve cover gaskets, not the crap cork ones, feeler gauge in hand.

Liked to set mine hot - didn't like getting burned but the price U pay.

At least the mag was easy to do - remember using a dwell meter ? 555

Dwell meters - blimey.

Light bulb & crocodile clip.

But my favourite, to which i still use to this day is a cigarette paper.

EFI, electronic ignition only, young, modern boys, have not got a clue to what i'm on about.

3 hours ago, Justgrazing said:

in the bottom pic .. 

Apart from him being a bit of a short arse and i'm not, that pic relays the Suzuki TL 1000 story i told a few pages back...

 

Nice.

 

2 hours ago, thaiguzzi said:

I dunno how they handled well, but they did.

The headstock is almost Honda Wave/Cub/Dream in its non existence of support.

Not even a head steady - c/head to headstock...

Dwell meters - blimey.

Light bulb & crocodile clip.

But my favourite, to which i still use to this day is a cigarette paper.

EFI, electronic ignition only, young, modern boys, have not got a clue to what i'm on about.

Apart from him being a bit of a short arse and i'm not, that pic relays the Suzuki TL 1000 story i told a few pages back...

 

Nice.

 

Oh yes, setting the points with cigarette paper, done many times! Oh happy days........????

papa has used the cardboard wrapper of cig papers to set points,

but the paper itself is so so thin....

4 hours ago, thaiguzzi said:

I dunno how they handled well, but they did.

The headstock is almost Honda Wave/Cub/Dream in its non existence of support.

Not even a head steady - c/head to headstock...

Yep looking at one you'd think " nah " but they manage to keep it together .. Here's another .. 

 

1930 Dresch 500 inline shafty twin .. 

Another 30's Sarolea 500 .. How nice is that .. 

 

6 hours ago, thaiguzzi said:

...Dwell meters - blimey.

Light bulb & crocodile clip.

But my favourite, to which i still use to this day is a cigarette paper.

EFI, electronic ignition only, young, modern boys, have not got a clue to what i'm on about. ...

I dimly recall dwell meters, though I don't know how they work.  I still have a dwell-tach that I got 45 years ago, along with a timing light.  I do recall having a small Suziki "buzz box" for setting points which would change pitch.  Sort of like those bio-feedback monitors which change tone based on your skin resistance. 

 

After I got back from Thailand in 1980, I switched careers from agriculture to electronics.  Had a teacher who was an engineer at Bell Labs, the R&D department for AT&T.  He explained to us how a conventional points ignition worked, crude as it was.  Interrupt current to an inductive coil and all hell breaks loose. I worked in the electrical utility industry and bad things happen with high voltage and current.

 

 

3 hours ago, papa al said:

papa has used the cardboard wrapper of cig papers to set points,

but the paper itself is so so thin....

Pot-heads and old fashioned machinists can tell you about the relative thickness of various cigarette papers. An old man at my workplace in Thailand just rolled his cigarettes with banana leaves.  Cool old guy. 

2 hours ago, Damrongsak said:

I dimly recall dwell meters, though I don't know how they work. 

Measure the degrees of rotation of the points cam. This allows proper time for the coil windings to become charged. Points gap with a feeler gauge replicates this, as the only time the coil can store energy is when the points are open.

Memory serves - 30 to 35 degrees was about right.

Now, as a man who never lubricates anything, I need to go out and smear grease on my tires. This decreases friction so the tires last longer !!!

555

5 hours ago, Damrongsak said:

Pot-heads and old fashioned machinists can tell you about the relative thickness of various cigarette papers. An old man at my workplace in Thailand just rolled his cigarettes with banana leaves.  Cool old guy. 

The thinner the cigarette paper, the more accurate you are when checking the point at which the points are JUST OPENING.

Green/Red Rizlas are a thou (0.001").

Best.

Blue Rizlas can be as little as 0.0006-0.0007" (just over half a thou) but they tear too easily...

5 hours ago, Damrongsak said:

papa has used the cardboard wrapper of cig papers to set points,

but the paper itself is so so thin....

If you are checking the gap, then you want feeler gauges.

 

Remember books of matches ? About 16 thou

No one could accuse this thread of being pointless.

7 hours ago, canthai55 said:

Points gap with a feeler gauge replicates this, as the only time the coil can store energy is when the points are open.

..and I always thought the points are closed so the coil can be charged. The sudden opening of the points causes the voltage to drop off dramatically and in turn generates back emf of a higher voltage. This is transformed by the coil into a higher voltage which jumps across the plug gap. The condenser/capacitor is there to slow down slightly the discharge across the points to prevent arcing.

An interesting article about the Thailand Triumph factories.  With the usual "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" comments from the peanut gallery at the end of it.

 

(Only one of these is Thailand, the other is Meriden.  No prizes for guessing which is which).

 

One of the good points (no further puns intended) made is:

"If any motorcycle manufacturer said ‘I’m going to source 100% from my home country, and I’m going to manufacture 100% in my home country’ they’d never compete.

“The difference between what Triumph is doing [in Thailand], and maybe what some of its competitors are doing is that instead of saying ‘Right, we’ll buy our crankcases or engines from someone in China,’ what we’ve decided to do is acknowledge that we need to have a lower cost manufacturing process, but we’re doing it with our own people, and we’re keeping control of the quality. In addition to that, everything that we learn from manufacturing those components is fed back into the design of the motorcycles".

 

https://www.bennetts.co.uk/bikesocial/news-and-views/features/bikes/where-was-your-triumph-motorcycle-made

 

3 minutes ago, VocalNeal said:

..and I always thought the points are closed so the coil can be charged. The sudden opening of the points causes the voltage to drop off dramatically and in turn generates back emf of a higher voltage. This is transformed by the coil into a higher voltage which jumps across the plug gap. The condenser/capacitor is there to slow down slightly the discharge across the points to prevent arcing.

When the points are closed, the current flows through the primary windings of the ignition coil and generates a magnetic field.  When the points open, the current suddenly stops flowing, the field collapses very rapidly, and a current is induced in the secondary windings, which have far more coils than the primary, acting like a step up transformer.  The high voltage generated is then sent to the correct spark plug via the distributor.

46 minutes ago, ballpoint said:

No one could accuse this thread of being pointless.

The "Prince of darkness" rears its ugly head 

6 minutes ago, CGW said:

The "Prince of darkness" rears its ugly head 

“A gentleman does not motor around after dark.” - Joseph Lucas.

44 minutes ago, ballpoint said:

An interesting article about the Thailand Triumph factories.  With the usual "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" comments from the peanut gallery at the end of it.

 

(Only one of these is Thailand, the other is Meriden.  No prizes for guessing which is which).

 

One of the good points (no further puns intended) made is:

"If any motorcycle manufacturer said ‘I’m going to source 100% from my home country, and I’m going to manufacture 100% in my home country’ they’d never compete.

“The difference between what Triumph is doing [in Thailand], and maybe what some of its competitors are doing is that instead of saying ‘Right, we’ll buy our crankcases or engines from someone in China,’ what we’ve decided to do is acknowledge that we need to have a lower cost manufacturing process, but we’re doing it with our own people, and we’re keeping control of the quality. In addition to that, everything that we learn from manufacturing those components is fed back into the design of the motorcycles".

 

https://www.bennetts.co.uk/bikesocial/news-and-views/features/bikes/where-was-your-triumph-motorcycle-made

 

In the Thai factory they are actually working, but in de Meriden picture it looks like the workers are playing cards............

45 minutes ago, VocalNeal said:

..and I always thought the points are closed so the coil can be charged. The sudden opening of the points causes the voltage to drop off dramatically and in turn generates back emf of a higher voltage. This is transformed by the coil into a higher voltage which jumps across the plug gap. The condenser/capacitor is there to slow down slightly the discharge across the points to prevent arcing.

Apologies - I posted it bass ackwards

Coil builds when points closed, when open ground is severed, so goes thru the coil wire to spark plug, jumps the gap, and grounds thru the side electrode.

Just now, damascase said:

In the Thai factory they are actually working, but in de Meriden picture it looks like the workers are playing cards.........…

Looks like it.  Only 5 guys visible in the whole factory, and they're all seated at a table.  Of course, it could be their lunch break.  Or mid morning tea break. Or mid afternoon coffee break.  Or early morning tea break. Or late morning tea break...

 

(We can laugh at them, but I'd have one of the bikes they're making in a shot).

1 hour ago, ballpoint said:

With the usual "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" comments from the peanut gallery at the end of it.

LOL.

Bet he's a Brexiteer...

 

Note the R/H chain drive.......

 

One of the most efficient forms of I C engine ignition is the COP or coil on plug .. Lift the bonnet on most modern cars and if , if you can see past all the fairings and covers that modern engines are garbed in the chances are it'll have this type of setup where each pot has its own coil sat directly atop the plug with a couple of wires into the engine loom for input from the processor and timing eye .. Numerous advantages that can only come from a system with few moving parts , reliable , capability to alter the whole spark map and considerably higher KV resulting in a more powerful spark promoting a more efficient burn especially in direct injection pet' engines .. Just don't touch 'em when the engine's running .. Kawasaki were first to fit CDI systems on the first of the 500 triples though it weren't perfect so they went back to points for a couple of years before going electronic again with same system that appeared on new 750 '72'ish .. 

 

NSU 500 single banger .. What a beautiful old bike and check out the elegance of the headlamp bracket ..