Frustrated Beyond Measure

Stock MKIII, original carbs and jets EXCEPT needle jets. When the bike started running rough I found the soft jets had been deformed by the engine's vibration. New jets, Pazon Altair, and it runs and idles excellently. Early Boyer gave me problems enough that I was ready to put the points back in, except I couldn't find the advance unit. The Altair has been wonderful.

As for E10: I hear all sorts of complaints yet other than some hose and diaphragm issues when it first came out I have had none, absolutely none. I leave it in small engines all winter or all summer with no problems. I simply shut the fuel off and let the carbs run dry.

worntorn said:

Wow they have almost doubled in price in one year with the switch to aluminium.
As I recall, Burlen had the Premieres listed at 180 +- GBP ea and not available for about 1 year leading up to the AL. Premieres. That was for most of 2022, if I'm not mistaken. Could have been 2021, it's all going by quickly.
It is a rather fast doubling of cost, even in these inflationary times.

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AMAL's Suggested Retail:

These are 600-series, pack of three for the Trident. The AL Premiers for the 600-series have been available for a long time.
2019 PACK 124AL 425.00 GBP
2021 PACK 124AL 482.50 GBP
2022 PACK 124AL 554.88 GBP
2023 PACK 124AL 638.11 GBP

These are 932, pack of two for the Combat (all 930 and 932 carbs are the same price):
2019 PACK 140 262.50 GBP (AL not available)
2021 PACK 140 324.16 GBP (AL not generally available to dealers)
2022 PACK 140 372.80 GBP (AL started becoming available at no increase in price)
2023 PACK 140 478.21 GBP (Only Premier AL available, non-premier still listed but not in stock)

I still have LOTS of back orders - and I'm a tiny dealer compared to some. The price increase on October 1st was 15% across the board to dealers. Fortunately, if they are ever able to fill my backorders, they will be at the previous price and of course I only raise my price when my cost goes up. They also switched to UPS from DHL (at least for me) which saves a LOT on shipping to me.

My price is a lot less than the AMAL suggested retail price; however, I don't have many left.

Re the comment about Trispark/OEM...The trispark (I've been running one for years), or any other E-ignition, doesn't function BETTER than a properly maintained set of points/AAU. Their advantage is reducing routine maintenance. Some of the E-ignition systems are a downgrade performance-wise from the points/AAU due to an improper advance curve.

FWIW, that would be any system that does not reach full advance somewhere around 3000 RPM.

@Big_Jim59 is this the same bike from fecebook that took 8,942 replies to end up with you changing the needle jets to .109s which finally fixed the problem?

MexicoMike said:

Their advantage is reducing routine maintenance.

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Which is exactly why I went EI on my bike.
40+ years of filing points, setting and resetting points, dealing with the mysterious and intermittent performance of a various condensers, yada yada.
Knowing how a points and condenser ignition can become integral to the well known and despised "intermittent electrical problem" switching over to EI was obvious.
And I applied EI to any and every engine I could too.

Well, I have an embarrassing confession to make. I will be honest and own up to it even though I feel really really stupid about it.

I pulled the carbs back off and checked the slide wear. The right hand side seemed OK or no worse than any old Amal Concentric slide but the left hand side had so much slop you could drive a truck through it with the doors open! It would never work and never run right. In my defense I was beguiled by the brass slides and took it for granted that the slides had been recently fit. Maybe they were replaced at some point but not recently. These slides are worn smooth out. I just didn't check close enough. Maybe I was afraid of this and was trying to ignore it away. I have ridden a plethora of British bikes with worn Amal slides but the left side carb, on my bike, takes the cake.

No judgments but I have a single 36mm Mikuni set up on the way.
(I do not want to worry about being out of sync again.)

Big_Jim59 said:

Well, I have an embarrassing confession to make. I will be honest and own up to it even though I feel really really stupid about it.

I pulled the carbs back off and checked the slide wear. The right hand side seemed OK or no worse than any old Amal Concentric slide but the left hand side had so much slop you could drive a truck through it with the doors open! It would never work and never run right. In my defense I was beguiled by the brass slides and took it for granted that the slides had been recently fit. Maybe they were replaced at some point but not recently. These slides are worn smooth out. I just didn't check close enough. Maybe I was afraid of this and was trying to ignore it away. I have ridden a plethora of British bikes with worn Amal slides but the left side carb, on my bike, takes the cake.

No judgments but I have a single 36mm Mikuni set up on the way.
(I do not want to worry about being out of sync again.)

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Glad you figgered it out

Now, get a very tiny air filter....

concours said:

Glad you figgered it out

Now, get a very tiny air filter....

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The kit I ordered comes with a bigger round K&N type filter but you never know. Parts orders have been a bit of a crap shoot lately and shipping has been a nightmare. I guess I'll break down the old Amals an add the components to my parts bin.

concours said:

Glad you figgered it out

Now, get a very tiny air filter....View attachment 110525

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I've often wondered about these super slim air filters
I have a pair somewhere that came with some other stuff
I've never considered using them because they just look too small
But maybe they do flow enough?

Why don't you get a new set of Amal slides, Amal carbs are so easy to work on and I find them easy to tune and keep tuned and the Norton runs so much better with Amals, I have gone down the other carb way on my Norton but have just gone back to my old Amals and wondered why I ever decided to change them in the first place.

Ashley

ashman said:

Why don't you get a new set of Amal slides, Amal carbs are so easy to work on and I find them easy to tune and keep tuned and the Norton runs so much better with Amals, I have gone down the other carb way on my Norton but have just gone back to my old Amals and wondered why I ever decided to change them in the first place.

Ashley

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The slides are brass sleeves
That means the carb bodies have been bored oversize
So standard slides will not fit

ashman said:

Why don't you get a new set of Amal slides, Amal carbs are so easy to work on and I find them easy to tune and keep tuned and the Norton runs so much better with Amals, I have gone down the other carb way on my Norton but have just gone back to my old Amals and wondered why I ever decided to change them in the first place.

Ashley

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At this time I am done with the Amals. I have owned and ridden 4 Nortons and I have never actually owned one with a single Mikuni. I have done plenty of Single Mikuni installs. I like the simplicity factor of Triumph Tiger vs Bonneville. I have decided to give single life a go. I am not troubled by any performance tradeoffs since I am mostly a slow book roads plodder these days.

baz said:

I've often wondered about these super slim air filters
I have a pair somewhere that came with some other stuff
I've never considered using them because they just look too small
But maybe they do flow enough?

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I think not.

JMWO

Big_Jim59 said:

At this time I am done with the Amals. I have owned and ridden 4 Nortons and I have never actually owned one with a single Mikuni. I have done plenty of Single Mikuni installs. I like the simplicity factor of Triumph Tiger vs Bonneville. I have decided to give single life a go. I am not troubled by any performance tradeoffs since I am mostly a slow book roads plodder these days.

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All good, I just think some give up too easy with Amals, as I say can't get any other simple carbs that work so well on the Nortons once they have been sorted out, spending money on a new set of premiers be the go.

concours said:

Now, get a very tiny air filter....

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Those pancakes are the worst. The total free area between the carb throat and the backside means you don't get the best flow. If you aren't retaining the ham can, why use a pancake?

ashman said:

All good, I just think some give up too easy with Amals, as I say can't get any other simple carbs that work so well on the Nortons once they have been sorted out, spending money on a new set of premiers be the go.

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I get it. Amals work great and I have used them for years but I do like the idea of a single carb

grandpaul said:

@Big_Jim59 is this the same bike from fecebook that took 8,942 replies to end up with you changing the needle jets to .109s which finally fixed the problem?

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No, I don't think that was me but I do have a 8,942 reply thread on BritBike.com concerning the trials and tribulations of a Triumph T100 and a Amal Monobloc build. It took me very many tries to unblock the pilot circuit and in comparison to the Concentric it is cavernous.

grandpaul said:

Those pancakes are the worst. The total free area between the carb throat and the backside means you don't get the best flow. If you aren't retaining the ham can, why use a pancake?

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What's with all this talk of pancakes and ham?

Big_Jim59 said:

No judgments but I have a single 36mm Mikuni set up on the way.
(I do not want to worry about being out of sync again.)

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I have a 34mm Mikuni on my bike. Makes everything so much easier. When you fasten the 2/1 manifold to the head put some blue loctite on the two inner cap screws. If one of those works loose catastrophic failure will occur. Choke on when cold and off 1/4 mi. down the road. No choke when warm.

Larry S, Did you install your manifold with the phenolic blocks? I hear ya on the blue loctite on the two inner cap screws

I posted this in another thread, but as we’ve ended up talking Mikunis here, I thought I’d copy / paste it…

The single Mik vs twin Amals debate is like oil threads, they come up from time to time and are never resolved! IMHO it’s not about right or wrong, it’s different horses for different courses.

Mikunis are good, well made instruments that meter fuel well. They are also very cheap to buy, especially when only buying one!

As such, a single Mik gives good low to mid rpm running. Being a single carb, the ‘hassle’ of synchronising etc is removed (I used inverted commas there because for many, in fact most, synchronising carbs is not really an issue). The single carb is therefore definitely easier to get the bike idling well, getting good off idle throttle response, etc.

But there’s no question that they reduce performance above 5k ish. Comnoz showed it to be the manifold design that’s the bottleneck rather than the carb itself, hence different sizes of carb make little difference.

Its worth bearing in mind that when folk say there’s a loss of ‘top end‘ performance, it doesn’t just mean top speed, it means performance above 5k in all gears.

So, if you don’t ride above 5k anyway, then a single carb will not reduce your performance at all and of course, if replacing worn out or out of synch carbs, you’ll actually notice an improvement in performance.

However, if you’re someone who enjoys the benefits of revving their Commando to 6k, a single carb is gonna impact your fun factor somewhat.

Some people seem to struggle with the cold start on Mikunis as it’s a bit ON/OFF. I’ve got Mikunis on another Brit and I always start it and ride off ASAP not leaving it to idle, that seems to help avoid hassles when the engine temp is between the ON/OFF settings of the cold start system.