Sunday, September 27, 2009
Still running
I took the Kanguro on a 100km round trip to the Staffordshire moorlands area yesterday. I'd seen an interesting-looking ridge road on the map and it seemed like a perfect length to check the ignition and carb balance a bit more. Close to Longnor the bike felt rough and cut out a second or so later. What's the problem? I'd run out of petrol! Well I still had 'reserve' but was the next petrol station in range? Well it was, I put 9.3 litres into a quoted 10 litre tank so I had a maximum of 10 miles or so left. In England the petrol stations are closing down as customers search out bargains to fill their tanks at petrol stations. That's fine with a car but not great on an enduro bike with a maximum range of 160 miles.
(1) comments
I took the Kanguro on a 100km round trip to the Staffordshire moorlands area yesterday. I'd seen an interesting-looking ridge road on the map and it seemed like a perfect length to check the ignition and carb balance a bit more. Close to Longnor the bike felt rough and cut out a second or so later. What's the problem? I'd run out of petrol! Well I still had 'reserve' but was the next petrol station in range? Well it was, I put 9.3 litres into a quoted 10 litre tank so I had a maximum of 10 miles or so left. In England the petrol stations are closing down as customers search out bargains to fill their tanks at petrol stations. That's fine with a car but not great on an enduro bike with a maximum range of 160 miles.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Book to be published
Thank you for your kind comments during what I have come to call 'the cancer debacle'. My short book will be published very soon and is detailed on my publishing website: Cava Cadavers.
(0) comments
Thank you for your kind comments during what I have come to call 'the cancer debacle'. My short book will be published very soon and is detailed on my publishing website: Cava Cadavers.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Rear wheel bearings
The rewound alternator saga is still ongoing...however on my return from a test ride today I wobbled the rear wheel. Why? I don't know. Anyway it was obvious that there was play in the rear wheel bearing on the drum brake side. I should have renewed them when I did the rebuild but they have been fine until now so why bother?
The quick release hub worked a treat and I had the wheel on a soft wood stool I keep just for this purpose in a few minutes. The left bearing and oil seal were easily drifted out whilst shifting the spacer. The right hand, brake side, wouldn't budge. Luckily before I did any damage I carefully levered out the oil seal and found that the bearing is retained with a circlip. Note that the circlip is not shown on the Morini parts diagram. Once the clip was out the bearing could be drifted out with difficulty, after heating the hub with a blow torch. It turned the edge of my Facom drift! The parts needed:
I popped the bearings in the freezer while I ate lunch and fitting was fairly straightforward. The only problem is that now I can tell that there is a tiny amount of play in the swingarm.
The drift was squared off with an angle grinder to restore its sharp edge.
(0) comments
The rewound alternator saga is still ongoing...however on my return from a test ride today I wobbled the rear wheel. Why? I don't know. Anyway it was obvious that there was play in the rear wheel bearing on the drum brake side. I should have renewed them when I did the rebuild but they have been fine until now so why bother?
The quick release hub worked a treat and I had the wheel on a soft wood stool I keep just for this purpose in a few minutes. The left bearing and oil seal were easily drifted out whilst shifting the spacer. The right hand, brake side, wouldn't budge. Luckily before I did any damage I carefully levered out the oil seal and found that the bearing is retained with a circlip. Note that the circlip is not shown on the Morini parts diagram. Once the clip was out the bearing could be drifted out with difficulty, after heating the hub with a blow torch. It turned the edge of my Facom drift! The parts needed:
- 2 x 2504 oil seal
- 2 x 3203 bearing
I popped the bearings in the freezer while I ate lunch and fitting was fairly straightforward. The only problem is that now I can tell that there is a tiny amount of play in the swingarm.
The drift was squared off with an angle grinder to restore its sharp edge.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Reassembly of X3 stator
As I'd mentioned, the spacer between coil and copper plates had perished so I made a new one from the blank plastic 'disc' that is included in 'cakes' of CDRs. It was rather a fiddly job but with care it was accomplished without cracking the plastic.
Rather annoyingly my rewound Lambretta coil was not suitable for the X3 stator as the iron laminations, despite having a basic height of 11mm, are rather 'tall' and the coil terminal would have been very close to the iron. I got a Vespa PX part from Beedspeed and that had its terminal a little higher and thus with more distance from ground. It had the traditional scooter 450 ohm windings so I stripped those off and rewound it wit h300 turns, achieiving 320 ohms. The coil was then coated with acrylic varnish and then araldite.
But, and there's always a but, the former is a little larger and with the plastic spacer there is only room for one of the 2 copper plates.
After rewiring the stator I covered the terminals with more Araldite, paying special attention to the ignition LT coil. Water or dirt between these is likely to stop the engine.
The end result looks fine.
Refitting the stator was straightforward although i did manage to strip the thread on one of the cover retaining screws. Luckily my 6mm Helicoil kit was to hand and it was sorted in a matter of minutes.
But does it work?
(0) comments
As I'd mentioned, the spacer between coil and copper plates had perished so I made a new one from the blank plastic 'disc' that is included in 'cakes' of CDRs. It was rather a fiddly job but with care it was accomplished without cracking the plastic.
Rather annoyingly my rewound Lambretta coil was not suitable for the X3 stator as the iron laminations, despite having a basic height of 11mm, are rather 'tall' and the coil terminal would have been very close to the iron. I got a Vespa PX part from Beedspeed and that had its terminal a little higher and thus with more distance from ground. It had the traditional scooter 450 ohm windings so I stripped those off and rewound it wit h300 turns, achieiving 320 ohms. The coil was then coated with acrylic varnish and then araldite.
But, and there's always a but, the former is a little larger and with the plastic spacer there is only room for one of the 2 copper plates.
After rewiring the stator I covered the terminals with more Araldite, paying special attention to the ignition LT coil. Water or dirt between these is likely to stop the engine.
The end result looks fine.
Refitting the stator was straightforward although i did manage to strip the thread on one of the cover retaining screws. Luckily my 6mm Helicoil kit was to hand and it was sorted in a matter of minutes.
But does it work?
Monday, July 27, 2009
X3 stator
OK, so after many evenings of experimentation I finally decided to work on the X3 stator which is the one normally powering my old Kanguro. In previous posts I'd mentioned that this has a 200ohm ignition coil and quite unpredictable starting. The stator is slightly different to those I've been working on as it has the power coils would directly on the stator, no plastic bobbins. The ignition coil is the usual bobbin affair. I decided to leave the laminations on the alloy baseplate as removal is a horrible job, and I have now decided, unneccessary. The copper limiter plates came off easily enough but the plastic seperator was weak, fibrous and broke up as I tried to lever it off. Likewise, the ignition coil bobbin was very brittle and although I managed to move it a little it broke before it was off. The wire inside was a congealed mass, I'm sure the enamel had overheated and, of course, that leads to shorts and a gradual loss of effective turns and this a lowered resistance. The cable insulation is also brittle next to the coils and so that needs to be replaced too.
When I did the original re-wire I left the stator wiring alone and actually handled it very carefully as I was concerned that things might be fragile. It seems than tI wa right to be concerned.
I have a rewound Lambretta ignition coil and so that will be fitted when the stator is cleaned up.
(0) comments
OK, so after many evenings of experimentation I finally decided to work on the X3 stator which is the one normally powering my old Kanguro. In previous posts I'd mentioned that this has a 200ohm ignition coil and quite unpredictable starting. The stator is slightly different to those I've been working on as it has the power coils would directly on the stator, no plastic bobbins. The ignition coil is the usual bobbin affair. I decided to leave the laminations on the alloy baseplate as removal is a horrible job, and I have now decided, unneccessary. The copper limiter plates came off easily enough but the plastic seperator was weak, fibrous and broke up as I tried to lever it off. Likewise, the ignition coil bobbin was very brittle and although I managed to move it a little it broke before it was off. The wire inside was a congealed mass, I'm sure the enamel had overheated and, of course, that leads to shorts and a gradual loss of effective turns and this a lowered resistance. The cable insulation is also brittle next to the coils and so that needs to be replaced too.
When I did the original re-wire I left the stator wiring alone and actually handled it very carefully as I was concerned that things might be fragile. It seems than tI wa right to be concerned.
I have a rewound Lambretta ignition coil and so that will be fitted when the stator is cleaned up.
Remade X1 coil
At last my rewound X1 coil set was ready for mounting. Of course I only set it up with a single power winding rather than the daft 6VDC and 12VAC system.
(0) comments
At last my rewound X1 coil set was ready for mounting. Of course I only set it up with a single power winding rather than the daft 6VDC and 12VAC system.
The ignition coil seems spot on, achieving nearly 200V peak on kick and not oging above 250V peak when running.
However the power coils are not succesful as they produce only 8.4VAC at idle and don't reach 13V until 3000rpm. I'm not entirely surprised as used 1.2mm wire rather than 1mm which seems to be standard on this coil set. Notably 0.8mm is suggested elsewhere for the early 2 phase system.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Still winding - power coils
The alternator saga continues. While I'm waiting to get the Indian Scooter stator turned out in the centre I'm rewinding my old X1 stator. The ignition coil went really well, 3000 turns and 307 ohms. I'm also doing the power coils as they were really dirty, slightly damaged, and more importantly, I reckon that with fewer turns of thicker wire I can get more power. That might be wishful thinking but my theory is that the original windings gave an excess voltage. Now that is pointless as the regulator merely wastes everything above 13.8V or whatever, it doesn't 'repackage' it. So with heavier wire I'm hoping to achieve a bare 13V at idle but be able to suck out more current. We'll see. However although I've done the coil set I have discovered that by remaking the coils as per orginal, I've set my self up for messy interconnections. One will have to be remade. At least I'm in the swing of it now.
(0) comments
The alternator saga continues. While I'm waiting to get the Indian Scooter stator turned out in the centre I'm rewinding my old X1 stator. The ignition coil went really well, 3000 turns and 307 ohms. I'm also doing the power coils as they were really dirty, slightly damaged, and more importantly, I reckon that with fewer turns of thicker wire I can get more power. That might be wishful thinking but my theory is that the original windings gave an excess voltage. Now that is pointless as the regulator merely wastes everything above 13.8V or whatever, it doesn't 'repackage' it. So with heavier wire I'm hoping to achieve a bare 13V at idle but be able to suck out more current. We'll see. However although I've done the coil set I have discovered that by remaking the coils as per orginal, I've set my self up for messy interconnections. One will have to be remade. At least I'm in the swing of it now.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Too tight!
I assembled the Indian Lambretta stator onto the Morini baseplate with 3mm Alllen headed screws and locking nuts. It looked good and due to the shape of the alloy casting must be pretty well centred.
Last night I fitted it to the engine and all looked good. I even got a few photos of the increased ignition voltage. However as the engine heated up the rotor started to bind on the laminations of the stator. I knew there was less clearance in the centre hole but hoped it was adequate. Basically it's not! As an experiment I tightened the rotor onto the crankshaft and that made it bind in the centre when I turned the rotor by hand.
Unless I can find an easy way to enlarge the centre of the stator, that's the end of that route. A pity as there was significantly higher volts at kick over and idle.
(0) comments
I assembled the Indian Lambretta stator onto the Morini baseplate with 3mm Alllen headed screws and locking nuts. It looked good and due to the shape of the alloy casting must be pretty well centred.
Last night I fitted it to the engine and all looked good. I even got a few photos of the increased ignition voltage. However as the engine heated up the rotor started to bind on the laminations of the stator. I knew there was less clearance in the centre hole but hoped it was adequate. Basically it's not! As an experiment I tightened the rotor onto the crankshaft and that made it bind in the centre when I turned the rotor by hand.
Unless I can find an easy way to enlarge the centre of the stator, that's the end of that route. A pity as there was significantly higher volts at kick over and idle.
