Tel: +44 (0) 1234 741 BOO E: inf o@lrockshocks.co.uk .rockshocks.co.uk
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Encouragement from many mates meant that I j ust had to show off the now famous project Crusader 250. It would indeed turn out to be a crusade. It's a long, long way to Tipperary and we, man and machine, needed a good long run to make or break things. So we set off to an MZ rally, as you do. On an Enfield. The Crusader faded away ignobly, stuck in Friday traffic with the sun belting down - most unwelcome. I made i t to my regular pit stop and, after a morale-boosting hot chocolate and beef sarnie defiantly decided to carry on and not l i mp home. I knew something was not well inside the little, highrevving and very thrashy engine.
At the rally, congratulations were forthcoming and we j oined the Saturday 80 mile ride-out. The Crusader sounded rough but kept up, although I had to admit to feeling a definite high frequency tapping, first in the footrests and then through the hand grips. Just get me home tomorrow, please, I willed it. The next day, i t was almost impossible to start. Just get me home, went my mantra.
Amazingly, there was not a red l i ght in sight and I arrived home in an acceptable time on quiet Sunday roads. I'd accepted that something was not right and must
be investigated, and then felt much more relaxed and did find some fun moments on the ride. Vibes and clear tapping sounds kicked in badly at 30mph but between 55 and 60 the engine seemed more comfortable.
In the morning I looked at the points and opened them slightly to 16 thou. The spade connector had swivelled round a tad and may have encouraged a loss of power to earth. With i t repositioned and tightened, the engine started first kick and settled to a lovely tickover! No one was present to witness this phenomenon, though, and the rumble and tapping noises were still evident. The 300odd miles over the weekend had produced both questions and answers. Instead of being anxiety riddled, I accepted the oil leaks, rumbles and rattling as part of my learning curve.
It was inevitable that the 250 would have to be stripped down again, its engine back on the bench, parts stored in takeaway trays. But my attitude had changed. I read somewhere that'an amateur is someone who has not made mistakes'. This doesn't make me anywhere near a professional mechanic, but my experience with the Enfield has provided so much i nformation, way more than you
Alistair's ongoing battle to make the Crusader's chaincase oil tight meant that many worn threads had to be rescued. Replacement screws weren't quite the right size and their heads were too large for the recesses in the chaincase, so they had to be ground down and then painted
read in workshop manuals and books. Meeting and talking to other people is the valuable outcome.
Three things came to light. One, I think the small end needs bushing. Two, the piston seems very slappy at the top end. Three, the inlet valve is touching the piston! There was a lot of carbon around as well. The valves will need lapping in again. Is the inlet valve bent? I fitted i t into the pillar drill and turned the chuck slowly by hand, the lip of the valve against a block of wood. Yes, a slight wavering was apparent.
During this stripdown I could attend to the gearbox mainshaft / sprocket oil leak that sprayed the rear mudguard. I fit the correct 30- thou thrust washer behind the camshaft, and remedied the stiffness in the camshaft by polishing the two bushes together. A bit crude but i t did the j ob. And back I went to the machine shop with engine parts, confident that Engine 2.0 would be a roaring success.
Paul at Cork Engines produced a little list of measurements to peruse. Most surprising, the big end was under tolerance. That needed to be ground to minus 40 thou then. He questioned the oil supply, noting that the bearing shells showed overheating. The bore and piston were fine, just over six thou clearance, nearly perfect. Paul did not consider the small end a problem, saying that machining a bronze bush i nto the alloy eye could create more problems than i t would solve. Erm?
The valve getting up close and personal with the piston was a bit of a conundrum. I thought I'd addressed this before by using two copper head gaskets. Obviously too much had been shaved off the head. How to sort that out? My idea of grinding some metal off the piston was met with a professional ' no way, Jose!' I retreated with the usual ' the more you know the less you understand' music playing in my head.
I posted the conrod to a guy recommended as reliable, and a fortnight later a phone call from him made things a l i ttle more clear. It was perfect and had passed the (apparently) well known ' gudgeon pin drop
test'. Great news. Importantly, my new friend's knowledge extended to the slippery question of which oil had I been using? Definitely use mineral 40 grade, he said, essential for these older engines.
The handbook I'd been using stipulated a range of 30 to 50 grades, depending on climate. But I'd been misled by successfully running my 350 Bullet on semi-synthetic 20/50. Hitchcocks sell this stuff and have a whole page in their catalogue, recommending various oils for this and that model of Enfield. They agreed that 20/50 would be fine in the Crusader - but now two old-school motorbike fettlers vehemently insisted that only 40 grade mineral oil would do for these older machines. I later learned that only single-grade oils were available when the Crusader was new and not the range of multigrades available today. And
many older engines really don't appreciate synthetic lubricants. Investigating the oiling prompted me to check the delivery to the struggling big end. Sure enough, the oil pump connections were compromised. Wear or distortion in the timing gears cover plate, which mates with the oil pump, meant pressure had been lost i nto the chaincase. Another mystery uncovered! This 'simple' engine was full of them. But I was still enjoying doing this. Spannering and fettling can be very meditative, out of the house, in the shed. This second engine rebuild had addressed the poor oil circulation. The crank was reground with new bearing shells fitted. I'd cured the bad oil leak on the gearbox output shaft with another felt seal, fitted more carefully. I'd understood the problem caused by the i nlet valve touching the piston and used a compression gasket to raise the barrel by 40 thou to sort that out. The problem had been skimming too much off the head initially. That increase of compression was the cause of the overheating and the difficulty setting the i gnition timing and carburation. All were now sorted.
With the engine wrestled back into the frame, I was looking forward to 30,000 miles or more on the Crusader. The engine was still whiny but perhaps that's how they always were? At this point I thought I'd seen the last of the engine internals, and someone else would be in control of its next refurbishment. Ah, optimism.
Frustratingly, the 250 was still reluctant to fire up from cold, and I still had reservations about the small end bearing. I wished I'd found someone to fit a bronze bearing, as suggested in 'The Book' (in fact'The Second Book Of The Royal Enfield, 1958-1966, Crusader Type 250 and 350 Singles'). 'Insert the gudgeon pin into the small-end and check for"rock" in the bearing; it says. 'No appreciable rock is permissible... If after a very big mileage considerable play develops in the small end bearing, the eye can be bored out to receive a bronze bush, but this is rarely necessary:
I wish I had followed the book's advice and my own inclination. This was, after all, the one j ob I anticipated would need doing when I stripped the engine after my initial rebuild.
I was convinced at the time that the tapping noise was caused by this. Later I kicked myself for listening to other people who said i t was fine. l fThe Book said that no appreciable ' rock'was permissible, why did I overlook this? Not once but twice? A l ot of conflict and distraction goes i nto these situations.
And then the engine simply refused to start, leading to three weeks of some seriously frustrating and bewildering fettling. Many very well i ntentioned replies on forums led nowhere, until. ..
.. .I had a breakthrough. Bad fuel! Simple, but the last thing I thought of. I drained the tank, removed the Monobloc carb, blew out all the orifices, put in the spark plug from my 350 Bullet (which I know works), and BANGO. It ran! So perhaps the fuel in the tank, three months old, had gone stale. Or reacted with the tank liner?
Initially, the Crusader went like the wind, with a lovely smooth tickover - which I've been told is a rare thing i n these feisty l i ttle 250s. I learned that reliable starting depended on a clean plug and no tickling; any over-fuelling, flooding or choke and she refused to bite and I could j ab away all morning and get nothing. But with the right routine she would start with two kicks.
I l ooked forward to last summer's riding season with elation. The Crusader was back on the road and l ooked great!
But the summer was marred by my continued angst and disappointment over the engine's poor running. A plethora of grumbles from inside of the engine grew. Oil leaks on a grand scale disgusted me, considering how much care and attention I thought I had put i nto achieving a dry engine. The piston rumbling and top- end tapping were more pronounced. A very bad oil leak from behind the clutch proved quite embarrassing. Then the Crusader suffered the ultimate disgrace of breaking down 170 miles from home on a Sunday afternoon with a blocked carburettor.
Finally I ignored all the well-intentioned advice I'd received and followed my personal intuition and the instructions in The Book. I decided I wanted the small end re-bushed. Out came the conrod, again. I sent i t to SRM Engineering on the recommendation of Wayne at Hitchcocks Motorcycles. Meanwhile I had the barrel rebored (again!), at a different place this time, and to the correct size of 3.5 thou piston clearance to go with a new piston and rings at plus 60 thou .
The reassembled engine is now a completely different sounding and feeling motor. Finally - finally! - after more error than trial, I have a fantastic Crusader Sports 250. It is completely oil- tight and starts first kick from cold or warm. I absolutely love i t to bits. And am so proud to have persevered to make i t the best i t can be.
THE END?
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As
readers may have read in 'Tales From The Shed; Frank did get his defunct magneto off the G12CSR, and shipped to chez PUB. Now she had to come good on her offer to fix it. Fortunately for Frank i t was in good condition internally, so did not prove to be a big j ob, but i t did benefit from a limited strip down - the sort of thing that fairly competent RC fettlers could undertake. Clearly, from the fact that the official Lucas parts diagrams show the assembled armature as a single item, they did not consider i t a repairable item for most riders, although the associated parts listing does itemise bearings, slip-rings etc. for the braver community (and professionals). Taking things this extra bit further is illustrated later using other bits lying around.
On receipt the casing was cleaned up a bit with a wire brush before stripping - Frankland is rich in aluminium oxide (sea air induced corrosion). A look through the pick-up holes (empty, because Frank forgot to send the leads) revealed some dirt and grit, which was enough to warrant opening the device up for a l ook inside. Once that decision was made, the next move must always be to remove all the 'sticking-in' bits. These include the pick-ups (easy, still on Frank & Rowena's kitchen table), then the earth brush, and, in the case of a twin magneto, two 'safety gap' screws found at the body corners.
Earth brushes can be in various places, the K2F is under a brass screw at the drive end near the maker's plate. On some magnetos (eg. Lucas N series) i t is obscurely hidden underneath that plate. There should not be an earth brush in the back of the early brass points plate, even though a recess makes i t l ook as though there should. Magnetos with their earth brush in that position (favoured by BTH) have a polished brass face for i t to run on. Failure to remove all these projecting parts will lead to broken slip rings etc, as frequently seen at autojumbles.
Before progressing any further i t is i mportant to move to a clean bench with no filings around (kitchen tables are good), and use clean tools and rags also clear of filings, or the magnets pick them up, and they are the devil to get out again.
Getting inside proved slightly less easy than expected, because the cover, too was attached rather differently to the earlier models PUB has been used to - which either have a plastic cover retained by a spring clip, or a screw-on dome incorporating a cut- out brush. The G12CSR item has an integral cut
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The points retaining screw was very tight, and without a drive gear fitted holding the shaft still to undo i t required a slave gear/sprocket to hold i t (ugly, but inconsequential, marks on the taper suggest that PUB may not have been the first to experience the problem). Even when that was achieved, the points block itself proved to be very tight in place and resisted removal more than usual. It was also a late points block made out of'bent tin' ' rather than the substantial brass block of older versions, so i t required gentle handling, but eventually yielded. Even so, the magneto continued to resist dismantling and PUB began to regret her offer.
An additional screw appeared to be all that was still retaining the cam housing, but i t remained firm with that removed. It turned out that the two innocent looking studs were, as Lucas describe them, 'stud special end plate fixing; again not illustrated, but actually threaded both ends with a hexagon section midway, partly sunk i nto end plate counterbores. Fortunately a box of'tool relics'turned up a cheap stamped ring spanner that fitted well and removed the awkward studs (and eventually did them up again).
Most post-war magneto and flywheel magneto makers advised that dismantling did not automatically require remagnetising afterwards,
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but PUB still likes to do the best she can to ' keeper'them whilst knocking about on the bench (she has no re-magnetising facility). In the case of the K2F she has found out that a bit of'soft iron' (a term for the kind of iron that laminations are made of) can be cut and bent to slip i nto a gap under the armature even before i t is removed - so this she does.
Once inside, i t became clear that the magneto had been rebuilt as Frank had advised, and probably not too long ago (in miles at least). The points end bearing cup, although sound, did not look standard to PUB, and the capacitor was a replacement, heavily potted, together with its wiring, in epoxy. The items used looked very like those PUB has chosen in the past, ie. suitable and unlikely to be suffering age deterioration. Any change (eg. to try an EasyCap) would mean serious digging and possibly armature dismantling for apparently no good reason, so in line with the principle of'if i t ain't broke, don't fix it; the decision was made to do a good clean and lubricate, service the points, and see where that left things.
A slight indentation was noted on the armature where the earth brush ran, probably not bad enough to be a problem. However, mounted in the lathe, with a centre, i t ran true (shaft centres are not always so good after the attention of'hammer man'), so was given the lightest of skims. On old magnetos this indentation can get quite bad (mainly on one cylinder, due to the current direction), and may explain why occasionally someone finds that adding an earth brush behind the points block appears beneficial.
An email to Frank solicited the comment that a previous owner had pressure washed the bike, and that the pick-ups may not have
had their gaskets fitted. The latter items are there for a very good reason, and even with them fitted pressure washers should be kept well away from magnetos (and, as an aside, often from wheel bearings and brakes on older bikes).
After cleaning out the inside and regreasing, the armature could be refitted. Having done l i ttle apparent work no re-shimming proved necessary, but on magnetos that have done more work i t may be. Magneto bearings should run with no play when cold for two reasons. Firstly, with alloy bodies and armatures mostly of iron, clearances will grow when hot, and secondly, any'shake' results in variation of points gap and timing. So shimming should start with too many, and a l i ttle shake, then remove shims until all play j ust disappears.
The ' tin' points are not as nice to work with as older brass block devices. To do a proper j ob of cleaning the points requires at least one to be removed, and usually the moving point is best as the fixed one is also the adjustable item. A little screw has to be undone to free the spring (note exactly how i t is assembled; variations include double
springs, and usually a short ' helper' spring j ust at the screw end, and do not lose the screw). On the older type a springy blade is moved aside and the point can be slipped off (watch for the l i ttle plug engaging the dimpled blade - i t may fall out).
Frank's 'cheap and cheerful' points got a similar treatment, but use a nasty little retainer clip that would ideally be replaced after removal (which usually destroys it). In the absence of such a replacement PUB was very careful to ease i t off in a useable state. The pivot was lightly greased and checked to see that the fit was not sloppy. The points were then cleaned - PUB uses a little whetstone to polish the points faces until all crud and pits are gone. Refitting the reassembled points block is always done with care, as the pressed-out'key'is fragile, and the matching keyway shallow, so engagement should be felt before inserting and doing up the centre screw. After serious cleaning, the points are likely to need readjusting (12 to 15 thous is a usual figure).
Had the magneto not been in good internal condition, what would have come next? First and foremost, attention would have focussed on the capacitor, as an old and original Lucas item would very likely be'leaky'(BTH and Bosch used different constructions and fare better with age).
One side of the capacitor is connected to earth, and with i t one side of the primary winding. These would be left alone. The other side (dark Bakelite on original items) should have a pair of wires connected, and would be disconnected. They are usually crimped under tags as well as soldered, so this is tricky, but usually possible without dismantling the armature. An electronic testmeter will perform a crude check, and i f i t reads 1 megohm or less the capacitor is well defunct and hot starting probably badly suffered. Even 10 megohms is not good, and i f the armature is warmed up a bit i t will fall dramatically.
Once upon a time PUB would, however, reassemble a magneto with such a figure, but now that EasyCaps are available she would not contemplate i t on a Kl F / K2F / KVF. In fact, having gone this far on the PUB Vincent spare magneto, she l eft the internal item disconnected, and fitted an EasyCap to the points block instead.
To achieve this, the two wires to the capacitor terminal should be cut shorter and soldered together (which may require scraping the enamel insulation back a bit), but not back to the capacitor. This j oint connects the'live' end of the primary winding to a terminal at the other end of the armature, and the points screw. Bear in mind that in use the armature flies around at up to around 3000rpm, so the now unsupported wires need to be anchored one way or another (hence shortening them for less inertia). Invent a suitable anchorage, such as lying them flat and Aralditing to the winding, possibly using strong thread to tie them down first.
It will never be necessary to dismantle the device to check or replace a capacitor ever again. Indeed, even an armature rough and ready test can be done externally and on the bike with that testmeter - points screw to earth around ½ ohm, and HT lead to earth around 5 kohms (noting that only one pick-up brush connects to the slipring segment at a time on twins).
Close examination of the points block will reveal that the fixed point is retained as the top of a l i ttle stack attached to the baseplate by a screw. One of these layers is an insulating plate. The EasyCap comes soldered onto a tiny board that replaces that insulator. All that is required is to undo the screw, swap over the EasyCap
board for the insulator, and reassemble the stack. If ever the EasyCap is suspected of failure i t is easily accessible for test and/ or replacement (hence the name).
Note for ordering, that the correct EasyCap depends on the contact breaker type (brass CW, brass ACW, pressed steel). They are also different for other magneto types, and the conversion to an EasyCap is not so easy on Magdynos, or the ones on AJS / Matchless singles for example, which require armature dismantling.
Other items that might need attention within a magneto are the bearings and the oil seal. Bearings are readily available, but not so easily extracted. The outer rings are in semi-blind holes, so are hard to lever out - specially bent and tapered tools to try and get behind can help. A little warming may also help, but beware, for magnets do not respond well to heat. PUB has been reduced to drilling through from behind, using a small pin punch to get an outer ring out, and then filling the hole with epoxy.
New bearings are seated in paper washers. This too is a tricky business, best done with a mandrel to suit, and often results in the paper washer ears all shearing off - so buy a spare or two. Loose bearings are occasionally a problem, but rarely is there enough slack to accept two standard washers. At the points end an alternative is to open up the bearing housing, and turn a cup from nylon or the like - in fact Frank's magneto appears to have had that treatment (although there are other possible reasons for it). The bearing inners are also hard to change, as they are fitted very stiffly, and require extractors (which can be made at home). On the Kl F / K2F / KVF an extractor will also need some sort of button for its centre screw to press on at the points end (a shortened bolt can work). After fitting new bearings i t is very likely that significantly more shims will be required to set the end-float to j ust zero.
Replacing a broken or badly worn slipring
- is another tricky job, requiring removal of the bearing inner for a start. Even then i t is likely to be quite stiffly fitted (with shellac or the like). Of course, i f i t is a broken one, more force can be risked, but some gentle heat may also help. If however, the purpose is to have the armature rewound, and then re-use it, more care is required. Note that originally there was a thin linen washer between slipring and oil/ grease thrower.
For most people i t is not really worth the aggro of attempting to break an armature all the way down, but once the slipring ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ... ~\ is off i t is only a matter of undoing two through- bolts ( dot mark the various j oints for reassembly, and take pies). Rewinding is a seriously specialised task. PUB only tried once and failed miserably (around 10,000 turns of hair-like wire, interleaved with paper insulation of similar fineness, and all wrapped tightly and shellac doused). Never again - the professionals are worth their fee. Rebuilding is, as handbooks fondly advise, simply a reversal of dismantling.
And with that, B44 Clive brought round a non-sparking Wipac flywheel magneto from a cyclemotor. Rather weak sparks were restored, but i t was a struggle and probably re-magnetising will be needed to improve on that - but that is enough wrestling with sparks for one month! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------/
JUNE 2020 I 87
The motorcycle version of the Top Trumps card game was a permanent addition to my schoolbag. The card everybody wanted was the TTS 1200, best known as the Mammut or, to us Brits, the Mammoth. Its only competitor in the deck was the Van Veen Wankel. In later life, finding motorcycles in unusual places is always fun, although I didn't expect to find quite so many Munches while gliding majestically up the Rhine.
It was a family thing. I'd been taken on this Rhine cruise, which included going up an Alp on a cog railway and looking at watches with prices bigger than my pension pot. I'd walked round a few cathedrals, had a coach tour through the Black Forest where I saw the only motorcycle of the trip so far, and I'd eaten vast quantities of cake. Five days in and we moored at a town called Speyer, which unbeknownst to me is Germany's biggest tourist resort. I expected more cathedrals and cake.
However, Speyer is the home of the Technik Museum. You could spot the museum easily from the boat, as there's an entire Lufthansa Boeing 747 on a pole in the middle, like a 1:1 scale Airfix kit. There were a couple of U-Boats and a selection of Lockheed F104G Starfighters dotted about among other exhibits to get the petrol head and technology fan salivating. An entire Soviet Buran space shuttle, anyone?
The Technik Museum also contains a huge collection of motorcycles. There were preand post-war Horexes, Opels, TWN Triumphs, a BSA Gold Star ( complete with drip tray, unlike the German machines) and a Ducati or two. For some reason i t held a stack of Kawasaki fours and curiously there were very
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few BMWs. Presumably the curators decided there were enough of those about elsewhere.
But the main attraction for me was the world's biggest collection of Mi.inch motorcycles; 26 of them. Mi.inch made fewer than 500, so 26 is a sizeable proportion of all the Mi.inch machines ever built.
Friedel Mi.inch was one of those odd geniuses in the world of motorcycles. He first repaired motorcycles in his father's workshop, which is also preserved in the museum, and in the mid-1960s started to build his own bikes. He'd been working for Horex in the race shop when a wealthy French sidecar racer approached him, offering to finance the construction of the fastest production motorcycle in the world.
This turned out to be the Top Trumpswinning Mammut. Technically i t wasn't a Mammut at first, because someone else had already trademarked the name. But it's what everyone called them.
Rather than build his own engine, and with nobody making anything suitable in the motorbike market, he settled on the aircooled four from the NSU Prinz car - a curious machine which was a bit like a Hillman Imp to l ook at and had the benefit of not being a Hillman Imp.
The Mi.inch was designed to outdo the biggest bike of the day, the Norton Atlas. Despite being a one- litre package, the NSU engine was actually less powerful than the 750 Atlas, knocking out 55bhp to the Norton's 58bhp. This worried Mi.inch not a lot, as he tuned the heck out of the NSU motor, getting i t to 88bhp and a top whack of 136mph. He also nicked the featherbed frame of the Atlas and beefed i t up to take the NSU engine.
And there i t was, the biggest, most powerful, fastest and in all probability, ugliest production motorcycle in the world. The twin headlight nacelle was particularly hideous. Mi.inch had some dealings with Floyd Clymer in the late 60s which resulted in a 1200 designed to win the one-hour speed record at Daytona Beach. Later on the Mammut grew to 1400cc and 106bhp and retained a look only a mother or a fanatic could love. There were other MUnch machines made with the NSU motor, including one in a Rickman frame which had a very odd front drum brake with exposed shoes.
JUNE 2020 I 89
Old Friedel didn't j ust build bikes with car engines, either. He had a racing pedigree, building a GP-winning bike with a Fath dohc four- cylinder 500 in 1970. The museum also has his rather more l i ghtweight threecylinder two- stroke with a 650 Fichtel and Sachs engine which was designed and built in 1975 and looks like someone carved a Kawasaki triple engine out of solid billet. Whether i t ran or not isn't disclosed.
Friedel then sold the company to the food wholesaler Heinz W Henke, who rather foolishly tried to get i t to turn a profit, but only made a handful of bikes before giving up. Meanwhile, Munch kept making oneoffs to order. In 1997 he started work on a special order for a new Munch Mammut 2000, with an 1800cc NSU engine and an Opel 16v head. It cost £170,000 at the time and would be close to double that today.
Then in 2001 he decided once more to build the fastest, most powerful roadgoing motorcycle in the world, confusingly also called the Munch Mammut 2000. He used a Cosworth 16v cylinder head on a two- litre version of the NSU engine, with a fuel injected turbocharger, obviously. It produced 260bhp. You could plug i t into a computer to tune i t and i t could top 175mph, but in order to make i t legal in the EU i t was restricted to 156mph on the road. It weighs a third of a tonne, 60kg more than a new Triumph Rocket Three. The front brakes have eight piston calipers. Munch planned to make 250 of them but only managed to build 15, one of which lives in Speyer.
Which means presumably that there are 14 of these creations waiting in garages for their owners to muster the strength and courage to take them on the road. Or indeed to get them off the centrestand. If they have centrestands, which isn't entirely clear. Perhaps i t was reasoned that i f you could afford a £170,000 motorcycle, you could afford to pay someone to park i t...