Tickling the tiddlers!
You may remember Dave Dixon’s article on the Hedgehogs Run in OBM439. Having had a good time on that adventure, his son John suggested that they undertake the Tiddlers Rally in Portugal later this year. “We’re far too busy,” said Dave…
Ashort while later I found that I had bought a BSA D7 Bantam specially for the adventure. Coming sight unseen from far away, it turned out to be quite a good little thing. First time starting, the lights worked and the slightly seized front forks had soon been dealt with. A bonus was the novelty factor of a distinctly oval front brake drum. Just the thing for cruising down precipitous mountainsides.
Around the same time that my Bantam proved to be up to the challenge, John’s identical D7 decided to ignore sparkability. Having more than six decades of fettling under my belt, surely putting a mere Wipac type 55 generator to rights would be the work of moments?
How is it that I can already hear distant laughter? We tried all the remedies known to man. Plug, HT lead, points, capacitor, wiring, rotor magnetism, internal shorting. Et cetera. I’m sure you will get the picture of those 10 angst-filled days which were spent muttering foul curses and throwing multimeters at the wall.
All to no avail. Pressure was building because we are booked to visit the Isle of Man for the classic racing in August. It’s only as spectators, but we’re taking a fistful of bikes and they all need to be fettled to a greater or lesser degree before we go. And if you don’t behave, I shall write about that, too!
Anyway, time to fix the D7 was rapidly running out and nerves (mine) were getting distinctly frayed. So wimping out, a trip was made to nearby Electrex World in Henley where I was relieved of a sensible amount of cash to buy a complete electronic ignition and lighting set.
The instructions within the box were excellent – surely even I couldn’t mess this up? It took a while, but once the CDI unit and rectifier/regulator unit had been securely bolted away beneath the seat and the wiring tidied up we had a first kick starter which ran really nicely.
No lights. NO LIGHTS!
However, no lights. NO LIGHTS? What was that expensive piece of kit supposed to achieve?
Returning to the wiring diagram, all the connections were checked for at least the fourth time. Eight brand new and vigorous volts were being discharged into the six-volt system so there was power aplenty, but where was it going? Alternative connections and creative solutions
were tried – to the accompaniment of incense. Actually, it was just a lot of blue smoke but I didn’t want to tell John that.
There were a couple of interesting brown/green wires within the central tinware which looked as though they could be important. Although live, the power therein was apparently not connected to anything. After a bit more blue smoke and equally blue muttering, focus moved to the headlamp. A fairly new wiring loom and switches were already in place and it looked as though nothing was amiss. After a bit more tentative poking about with the previously abused but amazingly still functional multimeter, defeat had to be admitted. A new brain clearly was essential.
A man who Knows Things
A call to Electrex World led me to the ever-helpful Paul Gough, supplier of all imaginable electrickery. As I had suspected, among his customers Paul knew a man who did “all sorts of things”. I followed this contact with a view to asking carefully how he would investigate our problem. While I was still mumbling my way through all that had been tried, Adrian (for that is his name) was busy ignoring me and poking at things with his own test meter. He had that look in his eye that discourages inane babble when one is addressing a man who Knows Things.
So, standing respectfully back, I watched while the headlamp unit and newish Wipac lighting switch were removed. See? I had been on the right track after all. The temperature that day was 40 degrees – ideal for concentrating on minutiae. Adrian produced a quite impressive array of sparks when about to reinsert the switch back into the headlamp housing. “Not supposed to do that, is it?” he said. So profound.
Pause for recovery and deep thought. Ah! We thought – a breakthrough! “Shall we have a cup of tea?” he suggested. Yes, that’ll fix it.
Leaving the just slightly smouldering electrics we adjourned to his shady kitchen where we could exchange wild theories. It then came to us that the metal can of the switch really shouldn’t short against the housing. It also dawned on us that the other switch on the Bantam (also newish and originally for the ignition) could be used as a replacement for the suspect lighting switch.
The perils of new parts
The swap was duly made and the light dawned – well, actually, it lit up. We were truly amazed and much gratified. The sun went in, the world cooled down, birds sang and I won the lottery. Or maybe that’s just how it felt. Who would have known that an almost new switch could be total rubbish? Indeed, how many of us have bought replacement parts only to find out that so often we have parted with hard earned dosh only to end up with a component which is completely useless?
Well, it seemed to be fixed; the lights still function and the machine needs to be used enough between now and the trip to prove reliability. John took the bike with his young daughter on a maiden run to nearby Wendover and was amazed that nothing smoked or caught fire. A few days later he and I made a heroic dash of a few more miles to a nearby place of safety so that we could further test reliability. And also to check the quality of the local brew. All is well so far.
In fact, John says that the Bantam now has the brightest lights of all the bikes in his shed! While on one of our test runs we had to stop for rehydration where the bikes were much admired by several people, including a young man who was enjoying a meal with his family. It is only fair to include a shot of his own two-wheeled transport. You’re never too young…
Well, here we are. We now have lights AND an engine which works. Clearly we’re on a roll – which we naïvely hope will take us to Portugal later this month. Watch this space.