A proposition for the truly industrious...

I have an ARD mini mag on my '72 Norton Combat Commando. I believe they are no longer made. I also believe it would not be all that hard to reverse-engineer and build them at a decent price.

My proposition: If you have the facilities for machine work and electronics, I would be willing to offer up my unit to you, in exchange for my undamaged unit and a new unit in return (new one suitable for Triumph, CW rotation). Or two new units, if mine gets damaged in the reverse-engineering process.

Anyone up for it?

I would guess you would have a pretty decent market in race bikes, cafe racers, refurbs, and non-concourse restorers.

No takers yet? the alloy parts would be easy. The electronics .. i would think a min order of a few hundred parts would be required? No company would be interested in less.....ask Jim.

The ARD magnetos for Nortons are as rare as hens teeth and command a kings randsom. From what I am told, the external electronics (coil and trigger) are Yamaha or something like that. The unique aspects are the rotor, housing and wound stator. One improvement that must be made is the quality of material of steel rotor spindle which appears to be swaged onto the aluminum rotor. I was told these tend to break and I broke one. Herb Becker made me a new and improved spindle which I doubt will break.

I have one of those on a BSA powered Cheney. It works well.

Someone might want to have a quick look at the patent situation.
No point in gearing up to make these, and then get a letter demanding royalties etc,
and take all the profit out of it (and more ?).
Never ever mention ARD in any advertising....

What is ARD's position on the supply of these ?
If there was a market, they'd be making them ??

I doubt there is any IP on this thing. It looks more like a cam driven CDI?
Wouldnt it be better to replace the Lucas stator and rotor with a one that will drive a CDI and not have anything on the cam at all?

Cheesy said:

I doubt there is any IP on this thing. It looks more like a cam driven CDI?
Wouldnt it be better to replace the Lucas stator and rotor with a one that will drive a CDI and not have anything on the cam at all?

Click to expand...

Yes, removing it from the cam and the excite and trigger off of the crank is better.

The story is the fellow who was making these was up in years and his shop was in leased space. The building owner wanted to do something else with the space and the owner of ARD decided he might as well piss on the dogs and call in the fire.

I doubt there is a patent but would be prudent to check.

Probably best to take a fresh view of the concept and go from there. It may even be easier.

All good input.