Starting the Alton E-start installation

Tomorrow I'm driving from Mexico City to San Miguel de Allende, where my '73 Commando (and my wife's '12 F650GS Beemer) lives. I will be starting on the installation on Wed, hoping to finish it in a few hours per the instructions... we'll see if all REALLY goes that smoothly. I will also be installing a Podtronics to replace the Lucas rectifier as well as a Shorai 18AH battery. I wouldn't have bothered with the podtronics but the lucas system is the 180W 3 phase alternator/rectifier and I don't know if it would work with the single phase 150W alton. Fred at OB recommended the Pod for the 150 single phase.

I know that others here have installed the Alton so it's not like this is new stuff but I'll take some pics and give my opinion/impressions. I'm really looking forward to it, the kit parts definitely look top shelf!

Mexico D.F. to W.coast many times for me n' Alma. Do not drive at night , boulder launched off of overpass to derail - rob bus passengers a good reason. San Miguel large gay and retiree community but aspiring to be an American Mall. My Mexican wife refuses to take me there bless her heart. I miss Mexico bad but our hearts are tugging at Thailand again. The bigger Podtronics for that output is the way to go. I've held the Alton kit in my hand and was mighty impressed by the rare-earth magnets and workmanship.

mike996 said:

Tomorrow I'm driving from Mexico City to San Miguel de Allende, where my '73 Commando (and my wife's '12 F650GS Beemer) lives. I will be starting on the installation on Wed, hoping to finish it in a few hours per the instructions... we'll see if all REALLY goes that smoothly. I will also be installing a Podtronics to replace the Lucas rectifier as well as a Shorai 18AH battery. I wouldn't have bothered with the podtronics but the lucas system is the 180W 3 phase alternator/rectifier and I don't know if it would work with the single phase 150W alton. Fred at OB recommended the Pod for the 150 single phase.

I know that others here have installed the Alton so it's not like this is new stuff but I'll take some pics and give my opinion/impressions. I'm really looking forward to it, the kit parts definitely look top shelf!

Click to expand...

Do you know and ride with Art Bone? You must?

Bill.

"Do you know and ride with Art Bone? You must?"

Absolutely. Art and Carol (his wife) live about a two minute walk from our house in San Miguel. If there's a better guy in the Norton world, I have yet to meet him!

I apologize but I have to relate this story...

When we bought a house in San Miguel in '08, I was talking to our realtor ( now a good friend) and somehow motorcycles came up. He asked me what kind of bike I had. "Norton Commando," I replied, figuring he would say something like, "What the heck is that?" Instead, he said, "There''s a guy just a block away from you who has a Norton Commando." "Yeah, sure," I thought.

The day we moved in, a guy came to the door and rang the bell. I answered and the very first words out of his mouth was, "Do you have a Norton Commando?" It was Art and that was how we met. The Realtor (everybody knows everybody in San Miguel) had told Art that his new neighbor had a Commando. Turned out that Art, like me, didn't believe it at all. So between us we own all the Norton Commandos in San Miguel (he has two in addition to 8-9 other bikes)! We ride together whenever we can.

He really wanted to "get his hands dirty" on the Alton installation but unfortunately he/Carol are leaving San Miguel for the Holidays the same day that my wife and I are going up THERE for the holidays.

The Alton install looked real clean, not a hands dirty job. Did your REALator inform you all that it's Legally impossible for a foreigner to own property in said Napoleonic-law country unless by name-lender nonsense ? No ? Technically all foreigners are engaged in name- rental. Incorporate and hire locals. (My sister said come over to the Bank's house for X-mas dinner and I laughed at this truth as she is an executive accountant). Not many Nortons in Mex. that's for sure. Manana Amigos. Best country in the world. Napoleonic code of justice SO wrong.

"Napoleonic code of justice SO wrong."

I suppose thats why the drug cartels use thier own code over there...

Nortonic code of justice, on the other hand... "ride me, it'll all be better"

Napoleonic nonsense guilty until proven innocent and those associated with you at wrong place wrong time. Nortonic code to ride more sensible. Only feeds Bribery and corruption. Insurance for a foreigner not honoured at border crossing ,must deposit bond moneys to ensure returnage - no sellings. Then peel off more for ins. for trip south or possible bribes etc, but best to clear up any collision disputes immediately before police= crookage ensues. Found bricks all over the beach at night romantic beachstrolling then army everywhere who wanted it all back.. yikes.

"Technically all foreigners are engaged in name- rental."

That is only true in the "Restricted Area" - within 100 KM of an international border or 50 KM from the coast. Any other area in Mexico there are no restrictions - it is the same as buying property in the US, you buy it, you get the title, it's in your name and you own it. For properties in the restricted area you establish a trust through a bank and the trust purchases the property. It is not considered risky at all and it's done routinely. Many foreigners own property on the coast in places like Ixtapa, Puerta Vallarta, Cancun, etc. A US citizen in Puerta Vallarta owns a really nice vintage hotel property in Vallarta that includes the former residences of Liz Taylor/Richard Burton. So it's not really an issue to buy property in Mexico.

Mexican vehicle insurance is easily obtainable at the border and the cost is no higher than equal insurance in the US.

Thanks Mike for the clarifications (I love the banter). Very,Very few foreigners purchase property away from the coast as life is short and retirement is too real. Many name -lenders on coast whether banks or private. Have swam with Alma in Richard Burton's - Liz Taylor's cement pond. Stunning view. Motorcycle ins. not honoured so a visitor must purchase it twice ,meaning another policy ,after posting vehile bond too. Or just drive thru the border but fast and risk it ,as half of all Mexicans have no ins. (as optional). Pay as you go. Carry $10 bill in passport or liscense if pulled over. Wear cheap sunglasses and dress like a farmer.

We've lived in Mexico since '06 (job related) so we're pretty comfortable with the way things are done (or not done) here. Frankly, my only complaint about living here is that it is not convenient to order parts/ebay/whatever due to the duty imposed. So I do such actions when I'm going to be back in the US for whatever reason and carry them back on the plane. I ordered a SD card reader the first couple of months we were here and the 30 USD reader was nearly double that when it actually got to me and spent two weeks in customs!

Started the install today.

I agree with the instructions that it SHOULD take 1-2 hours. However, one minor note in the instructions states something to the effect that you may need to polish the crank shaft spindle slightly to ensure a proper fit of the Alternator rotor." IOW, they are saying the rotor may be a bit tight. In my case, the crankshaft spindle was 1.5 thousands larger than the I.D. of the rotor. This is not some minor polishing. It took us two hours to get the rotor/Crankshaft to match. Once that was done, it was all pretty much IAW with the instructions and very straight forward. It is not complete because I have to figure out where to mount the relay and I'm also adding a podtronics rectifier so I expect to finish it tomorrow.

I did try the starter by touching the starter motor cables directly to the Shorai 18 battery. I could not believe how fast it spun the motor (with the sparkplugs installed). My friend, Art Bone, commented, "The bike could go 30 miles an hour on the starter alone!" Gotta say it's quite impressive. I turned the ignition on, tickled the carbs, touched the starter cable to the batt and the bike started virtually instantly.

Tomorrow, after all the elec work is done I'll do some alternator charging checks to see how the Alton 150W single phase alternator compares with the Lucas 180W three phase unit at various RPM.

Mike
Would it have been possible to use an adjustable reamer and "fit" the rotor to the crankshaft? Polishing off .0015 doesn't sound like much fun. Hopefully you will give us periodic reports on how the Alton kit holds up, I'm not getting any younger and my Commando is not getting any easier to kick over!
Dave

Dave - yes, an adjustable reamer would have been a lot quicker/easier but we didn't have one small enough. We tried a small brake hone in a drill press but the one we had just didn't have the moxie in the spring power to actually remove any metal so it was emery strips on the crank spindle. I assumed that the rotor was machined slightly too tight in error until Art pointed out we were working on a Norton so the odds were much better that the crank spindles were inconsistent in diameter from the factory. It seems entirely possible that the Alton is machined for the MINIMUM OD of Norton crank spindles specifically to handle that since it's much easier to remove metal than to add it!

Also, initially we tried marking the Alton rotor with a timing mark but doing it the way I had planned didn't work out because even though we tried, we managed to bump the engine slightly when removing the rotor bolt/clutch bolt even though we refitted the outer chain case a couple of times. I'm sure it can be done as I described in an earlier post but we ended up just using a degree wheel to mark it exactly right.

Deleted.

Take an ohm meter to the output wires and confirm if there is an open or not. I don't know what spec it is, but at least you could get a go/no go from it.

Well, well well... The Alton alternator was not charging and I thought at first it was defective. But there is NOTHING wrong with the Alton alternator. The new Podtronic unit was the problem. I had replaced the Lucas rectifier with the Pod as part of this installation. A few minutes ago, just for the heck of it I pulled the Pod and put the Lucas back in and all works perfectly. The Alton alternator is now putting out over 13V at idle with the headlight on!

I'm not sure of the issue with the pod - I checked the wiring multiple times - maybe it's dead out of the box or it doesn't like the Alton alternator. I'll see if I can find some pod troubleshooting info. It's funny, I had no real interest in replacing the Lucas rectifier in the first place, I just ASSUMED that the 3 phase rectifier wouldn't work with the Alton single phase alternator. But it works just fine.

I tried to go back to my post and rewrite it to explain the whole thing and delete the references to the Alton not working since there was NOTHING wrong with the Alton. But I could not get back into the post.

MODERATOR - if possible just delete my entire previous post ; I don't want people to read that and perhaps stop there and decide not to consider the Alton Estart. Both the starter and associated alternator work extremely well.

Did you check for "A/C" at the wires coming out of the alt. before hooking it to the pods unit? Make sure your meter is set on A/C.

Don't mean to offend. This is a common mistake. Just playing it safe.

When checking feed wires from the pods unit to the battery, then use D/C.

"Don't mean to offend. This is a common mistake."

And I made it! The first thing I checked after seeing no charging voltage at the battery was to check the output directly from the alternator. Without thinking about it, I touched the multimeter leads to the alternator output wires - got no reading. BUT I had forgotten to change the meter to AC! That's when I quickly assumed there was a broken wire in the alternator windings. I'm not sure why I decided to put the Lucas rectifier back in but glad I did!

However, even if I hadn't done that, as soon as I would have seen your post and realized I had the meter set for DC when measuring at the alternator, I would have done that check correctly and realized the alternator was OK.

Thanks

Another Update - The Podtronics unit is fine. The problem was (again) operator error.

I made two faulty tests which led me to believe there was a problem but the problem was my testing.

First, I ASSUMED the unit was initially not charging because the red warning light on the headlight shell was illuminated regardless of RPM. So then I disconnected the Pod terminals from the bat and checked the DC voltage directly - it averaged around 7V and varied dramatically from less than a volt to over 13. So I concluded the unit was defective.

A little while ago, common sense reared its ugly head and I thought about reconnecting the pod and actually checking the voltage at the battery itself (DOH!). The pod's output was fine - 13.3 at idle (same as the Lucas rectifier). I checked it through the rev range and the Pod duplicated the Lucas rectifier readings. All this time the red warning light was on. I hauled out the wiring diagram and discovered that the light is controlled by the Assimilator which, in stock form is connected to one of the alternator outputs. But when I installed the Alton alternator, I did not use the stock wiring at the rectifier which would have included that assimilator connection, I upgraded it to make it simpler! I attached a jumper from one of the alternator leads to the assimilator lead and what do you know, everything works perfectly!

This morning I contacted Fred at OB and exchanged a couple of emails re this. He offered a couple of suggestions but also, in typical OB manner, offered to send me a new Podtronics and/OR a new Shorai batt if I concluded that either/both were defective. Of course I have sent him a message describing my poor testing procedures and verifying that the Pod and the batt are perfectly OK.

I would like to blame the fact that I was in a hurry yesterday due to some other commitments and I needed to get the bike out of my friend's shop and that was the cause of my not thinking through the testing. I'd LIKE to assign that blame but the fact is, I simply screwed up.