Source for good quality ignition points

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worntorn

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I'm looking for some good quality points, preferably ones with the tufnol heel. I have a twin point twin coil ignition setup on the Vincent which uses Norton Commando points. Until now this system has been trouble free for the 25,000 miles I have ridden the bike. About two thousand miles ago I replaced the points because the existing ones were getting quite pitted. The new points have white plastic heels.

The heels on the new points are wearing and causing the point gap to decrease. This in turn causes the bike to stop firing on the front cylinder until the gap is reset to a minimum of 30 thou. I know this is a very wide gap, but it is required with this particular setup.

The old points also had white plastic heels, but the plastic must have been a much longer wearing material, wear on those was minimal and never caused any ignition problem. I've heard that the very best points are those with the tufnol heel, tufnol being that red-brown material which is made from linen , which is made from plant material (flax)
 
I found some NOS Lucas points and installed them yesterday. The bike now runs perfectly again, amazing difference. The problem points were Daichi, made in Japan which I normally associate with high quality stuff.
Not in this case.
I've heard it said that the contact surfaces on the original Lucas points could sometime go as far as 60,000 miles before becoming pitted. Mine made it 30,000 at which time they were pitted but still worked OK. Perhaps the much maligned Lucas name is not so bad.

These Daichi points only went 2000 miles and then left me stranded 430 miles from home. I did get a good story out of that whole ordeal, however.
 
I had a look at my bike and the spares I have.
They are all 10CA type, Daichii PN 60600271.
The 6C type has Daichii PN 54419827 (I know because I once bought the wrong ones).

The Daichii parts are the only I can find.
Can you still buy original Lucas parts :?:

Regards,
Per
 
You can find them here and there. I found one pair at a small dealer on Vancouver Island, these were his last two sets of genuine Lucas 10ca points. I found 17 sets on Ebay for $18 per set, so I ordered 4 sets. I can look up the vendor if you are interested.

The funny thing is this points problem had the entire Vincent brain trust stumped at the rally. This group includes Dan Smith, the fellow who wanted a 1936 V4 double overhead Cam AJS. There were none left in the world so he went down in his basment and made one!
Dan and the other experts were going over the bike looking for very complicated problems like cams slipping on spindles etc. We worked for fourteen hours on the bike and then gave up.

I thought I had a ride back to the Coast in a Van belonging to one of the club members, however the owner was concerned that putting my bike in alongside his might make a mark on either his perfect Van or his perfect Vincent. Several people at the Rally told him he had to help, but he made it clear that he did not want to. This was a real shame since this member was going right by my house on his way home.

Lenny, an American member from Seattle took pity on me and offered to ride his bike 120 miles down to where his truck and trailer were parked in Montana. It was in Montana because Lenny had loaned it to a friend who used it to move his belongings. After getting to the truck, Lenny would load his bike in the trailer and then drive the rig back the 120 miles to the campground , pick me up and then do another 430 miles to get me home, plus another 100 or so on top of that to finally get himself home to Seattle. He really wanted to help me out of my situation so I accepted his help, even though it was a lot to ask of him.

On Sunday morning Lenny headed for his truck and trailer while the rest of the group of fourty or so or headed home, mostly on two wheels ,a few on four. I stayed behind at the campsite. After about five hours Lenny called to say that he had made it back up to the border with the truck and trailer but had been turned back by Canadian Customs who found a pot pipe his friend had left in the truck. Lenny then got a two hour search, a four hundred dollar fine and was suspended from crossing the border into Canada for 48 hrs. On top of that he was searched again for two hours by the US Customs when he returned into the US. He is now in the US and CDN computers and will always have difficulty crossing the border.
All that for trying to help me! I offered to pay his fine, however he had already made his pot smoking friend pay it.

I had no choice but to try and fix the bike. with no one around it was easier to think and in about twenty minutes I found the points problem. Twice on the way home I lost the front cylinder again and had to stop to open up the points a few thou, then away we went on two. I have never had this problem with the Lucas points, even in thiry thousand miles of running.
I got away from the campground a 4pm and made it to a friend's house in Kelowna by 11 that night, then home the hext day. I did get to ride hyway 33 which is said by some to be the number one motorcycling road in North America.
 
Hi, Looks like it was a tough weekend!

I would most certainly appreciate if you could help me with the e-bay source for the Lucas points.

Best regards,
Per
 
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