K2F Uneven Spark on 650SS

texasSlick said:
Triton Thrasher said:
In theory, the centre of rotation could be moved toward one or other cam lobe, but that's not easy.

I especially agree with the last sentence above....send the mag to a pro to move cam ring housing.
It IS EASY,it's dead easy,and you don't need a pro.
Just put a shim where I have been suggesting,and the cam ring WILL MOVE relative to the armature axis.Does nobody read the link,or do they just not understand?It worked for Tridentman,and it can work for anybody.
 
X-file said:
texasSlick said:
Triton Thrasher said:
In theory, the centre of rotation could be moved toward one or other cam lobe, but that's not easy.

I especially agree with the last sentence above....send the mag to a pro to move cam ring housing.
It IS EASY,it's dead easy,and you don't need a pro.
Just put a shim where I have been suggesting,and the cam ring WILL MOVE relative to the armature axis.Does nobody read the link,or do they just not understand?It worked for Tridentman,and it can work for anybody.


Not disagreeing with you. That's another way of moving the cam ring.
 
Is the purpose of putting a shim between the mag housing and the points housing to "tilt" the cam ring ?
How would this effect the wear rate of the points heel? Being cocked to one side
 
There seems to be some misconception of why we put a shim in one corner of the magneto-doesn’t anybody read my posts :?:
After finding I had a magneto firing 7 degrees out and chewing up the right hand piston because I wasn’t very knowledgeable on engines at the time and didn’t check the R.H timing when refitting a magneto it was the lesser of the two evils to put a magneto bearing slightly out than having to strip a whole top end to replace an expensive piston every 5, 000 miles.
If you was faced with this dilemma which road would you chose to go down :?:
 
No offence, but this sounds like a bodge applied to a magneto, rather than having it correctly set up.
Unless we missed something in your mention of this ?
 
Rohan said:
No offence, but this sounds like a bodge applied to a magneto, rather than having it correctly set up.
Unless we missed something in your mention of this ?

Forget what it "sounds like." Tell us about your experience.

Magnetos are full of bodges, from new.
 
You suffering from bad frostbite, or something ?

"My experience" is that you strip them down and examine them for condition.
If are not 100%, then pass them to someone who has all the gear to rebuild them like new.
My local magneto guy gave me the full guided tour of his shop quite some time back, and all the little tricks and work that goes into a fully rebuilt instrument.
Even down to being able to correctly (electro) plate all the little bits.
The wire winding machine, and all the insulating layers and epoxy coating is not for an amateur ?
A kilometre of wire, thinner than a human hair, is delicate stuff....

Tell us about some of the bodges they were built with new then. ?
I still have a few that are still going strong, all those decades later.
But, those little brightspark easycaps seem like the cleverest idea to appear in magneto electronics for about a century or more...
 
Since you ask, the paper daisy petal bearing insulators are a bodge.

Manual advance cams moving points opening away from max magnetic flux are a bodge.

Plate your screws with anything you like, mate.

Easycap capacitors, which you have no experience of, might be fantastic: who knows?

Geometrically, they look good. People who know their stuff have raised doubts about their properties.
 
Easycaps have sold thousands of them.
Someone would have noticed if they didn't work, by now. ??
I've seen some in use here.
And was in the computer industry, and recognise genius when I see it, from miniaturization.

And have a couple of old delapidated maggies I intend to try them in.
Just the bikes aren't quite there yet....

I've had some private discussion with magnetoman.
We agreed to differ.
He is obviously, old school, and this newfangled stuff can't be any good.
Maybe he uses a valve-powered computer. ?
Ever counted how many micro-caps are in a computer ??
 
Use the Easycap and report back.

As I said, its geometric arrangement looks very handy.

When guys who know the requirements say it might not be up to snuff, I pay attention.
 
Triton Thrasher said:
When guys who know the requirements say it might not be up to snuff, I pay attention.

When the caps work, perhaps its best to ignore the 'experts'. ?

Same as folks who did more than 20 mph in a train, when the experts said folks wouldn't be able to breathe.
Or folks who flew in planes, when folks said they would never fly.
And as that wiley old campaigner Joe Craig is once reported to have said "when we ignore the theoretical considerations, it worked perfectly'".
 
No point us arguing in absence of facts.

You say thousands have been sold, even thoughI doubt it.


What is the mean time before failure? If you don't know, I shall not be surprised, or even particularly disappointed.
 
We used to quote that MTBF (mean time between failures) in the computer industry as absolute meaningless rubbish statistics.

Hard drives were 'claimed' to be 10,000 hours mtbf.
Analysis of drive life showed that about 5% only lasted about 100 hours or less, and about 10% failed each year thereafter.
But a significant number appeared to be on track to go forever.
How that was contrived to be 10,000 hours was anyones guess ??
Which is only about 18 months of continuous constant use, after all.
And for Sunday afternoon use only, constitutes about 2000 years of intermittent use ?!
 
Rohan said:
No offence, but this sounds like a bodge applied to a magneto, rather than having it correctly set up.
Unless we missed something in your mention of this ?

Yes, Rohan I am aware of your opinion of this method of correcting a flaw on these Lucas K2F magnetos, if you care to reread my last post and keep rereading until it finally registers on your brain cell between your ears , you might understand, finally, why probably, thousands of us, including professional magneto rebuilders, resort to this method- No offence.

p. s. if Lucas had bothered to make the twin cylinder magnetos more accurate in the first place, then we wouldn’t be here arguing the merits of the best way to cure this malfunction.
That is all I have to say on this matter, so ……can we please close this :?:
 
I don't want to be unfair to the Easycap people, but so far as I can see, most miracle modern improvements to ignitions make roadside breakdowns happen more often than happened with original equipment.

I start out cynical and wait to be convinced otherwise.

The Easycap is in a different position in that it is replacing a component which was rather borderline in the original setup. The old Lucas condenser could be called reliable for ten years from manufacture, which means, for most of us old bike nuts with projects in the shed, the condenser in a magneto will give problems.
 
TBolt said:
Is the purpose of putting a shim between the mag housing and the points housing to "tilt" the cam ring ?
How would this affect the wear rate of the points heel? Being cocked to one side

My best estimate is "not much." I find that magneto points heels hardly wear at all.

The bearing isn't held very precisely anyway! Nor are the components of the points and points plate.

The inevitable small amount of free play in the points pivot will allow the heel better to follow the "tilted" cam.
 
Bernhard said:
Yes, Rohan I am aware of your opinion of this method of correcting a flaw on these Lucas K2F magnetos,

You must be psychic, or some such similar word, I don't believe i have ever said anything about this method before ?

We did previously ask for more explanation of this method though, initially it was very vaguely worded...
 
Triton Thrasher said:
I don't want to be unfair to the Easycap people, but so far as I can see, most miracle modern improvements to ignitions make roadside breakdowns happen more often than happened with original equipment.

I start out cynical and wait to be convinced otherwise.

The Easycap is in a different position in that it is replacing a component which was rather borderline in the original setup. The old Lucas condenser could be called reliable for ten years from manufacture, which means, for most of us old bike nuts with projects in the shed, the condenser in a magneto will give problems.

I've seen it said that new Lucas caps on the shelf were already suspect, from brand new, even back in the day !
Let alone 50 or 60 years on - when you still see them NOS for sale !

Those easycaps would be a lot easier to replace by the roadside than caps buried in the windings, if they should fail. ?!
I must say that they are getting good reports, there are NO stories of failures all over the internet... (?)
We look forward to 40 years hence, and getting good reports....
 
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