Fired my '78 up and she was running OK but I had done this on the spur of the moment and I knew that I needed to check and set the points gap and timing. Excellent articles and videos here for that job and I assumed, with it running so sweetly, it would all be a cinch. Doesn't quite appear to be the case. Got all set to go with AJS drivers and feeler gauges and rotated the motor anti-clockwise......... no gap opens in the points!? Attempted the same thing in a clockwise direction and still no gap. After 10 mins of this I decided to seek advice in the manual. The book says that new points, (these are), still have to be cleaned and adjusted. I assume this means that you have to find the rotational point where the points themselves open up in response to the lobe on the cam and then set the gap at this. I loosened the set screw and opened up a random gap, tightened the screw down, rotated the motor and, yes, the gap opens and closes around this spot. They seem to stay open for a long while but I have never done this before so I don't know what to expect. Did the same with the left hand set. I checked with my circuit tester just to see if there was power to the points when the gap was open and there was. I now intend to go back and set the gap to 14 thou. then set the timing.
Is this approach OK? I am worried that there was originally no gap but my bike was running beautifully. I am also worried about the random establishment of the initial gap and whether this will interfere, in some way, with the timing. The old girl was running well but, I am keeping the points so I have to familiarise myself with the set up or buy a bike trailer.
Is this approach OK? I am worried that there was originally no gap but my bike was running beautifully. I am also worried about the random establishment of the initial gap and whether this will interfere, in some way, with the timing. The old girl was running well but, I am keeping the points so I have to familiarise myself with the set up or buy a bike trailer.