Re: My new Norton. Model 88?
Rohan said:
The /P signifies it was built at Plumsted .
Some Norton featherbed twins of this era have an "M" stamped instead of a "P", so unless someone knows what all the letters on AMC twins stands for, we should not assume we know what any of them mean just because they happen to be the first letter of a word related to the bikes.
Lucas magnetos are unpredictable machines. There are some that are half a century old that have never been apart that still do their job, and there are many others that are not for either simple or involved reasons.
In the recent past I was given a Lucas magneto of a Matchless trials bike to sort out and the only reason it was not sparking was because someone had left an insulating washer out of it when the points were replaced. A few weeks ago I took the magneto for my 1962 650ss and completely dismantled it, cleaned it very well, put a small amount of wheel bearing grease into it's main bearings and put it back together using all old original parts, it has a very nice spark now.
This does not mean that these old magnetos will run the bike well once they are up to operating temperature though, as heat will bring out deficiencies in the windings, capacitor or magnet.
But it is not hard to take apart a Lucas Magneto into it's major components, clean it, grease it and put it back together, so it is well worth doing. When you are done it will either run the bike or it will not, if not then you can wade into the world of rewound armatures and replacement capacitors.
There is a nice fellow on Ebay U.K. offering complete rewound armatures for popular Lucas magnetos for a very reasonable sum. Check old garages in your area for one that still has their old equipment to re-magnetize them, a repair shop local to me that is about a century old still has theirs and will do the job for $20 if the magneto is stripped when handed to them, and a local motor rewinding shop is looking into rewinding an armature for me.
Also the Bright-Spark company in the U.K. sells new capacitors for a few tens of dollars and has complete installation instructions for them on their website.
So a decent DIY mechanic can get most Lucas magnetos into very useable condition for very little money. It is not black magic or anything mysterious, just takes some patients and care. A bonus is the self-education and knowing exactly what you have on your hands.
Having work done by others on Lucas magnetos is often going to be either expensive or of unknown quality, which doing the work yourself solves handily. With a bit of searching with Google on the internet, all the Lucas manuals and specs for servicing Lucas Magnetos can be found.
Good luck
