Options and decisions

The points for our bike on the bench came complete with back-plates and this was a fairly common approach back in the day. The contact points themselves are mounted on a pivot post and secured in place with an E-clip. There’re also insulating posts, nuts and washers involved, so most manufacturers decided to make life easier for mechanics and owners by selling the contactor assemblies pre-mounted. You can still buy bare points sets on line or from specialist suppliers and, providing the components are OEM or equivalent, you should be able to swap the points sets new for old. However, always take pictures of your existing set up in order to note where clips, insulators, washers, etc., go. Condensers are normally mounted adjacent to the points they protect purely for convenience, but they can go anywhere. This means if you can’t get the original part that fits within the generator housing, literally any condenser of the same value can be mounted wherever suits. The OEM units on this bike are marked up at 22μ F or 22 micro Farads, which seems to be a fairly common value over many bikes and also numerous cars. Find condensers that match the original value, note how the existing ones are wired in and then copy/extend the wiring to the new location… easy fix. Even better, re-sited condensers will normally be in a cooler location and therefore won’t be perpetually subject to thermal cycling so should last longer.