Hitchcocks Forum

Having just got a '55 B31 I now have the luxury of a manual advance/retard on the magneto. As long as I remember to use it, kickbacks are just non existent and the engine is just so easy to start.
Has anyone adapted a Bullet "distributer" for a manual advance? Worth a thought.
Incidentally, I now know what pinking sounds like as the mag is set up so it will advance just a tad to far. If I set it to full advance I get the "marbles rolling about in the head" noise.

Hi PETE F ----------- no, that'll be the after effects of too much TADCASTER brew last night I suspect !!--------- Good to have that control though, eh ??..........

The ultimate is to have both a manual advance and a bob weight. This allows you to dial bake the advance for long pulls up steep hills. The vacuum advance on cars works this way. That' said its nice to have another lever on the bars.

That's supposed to read 'dial back' rather than dial bake. I don't recommend cooking while riding whatever the equipment.

Possibly the best manual A/R conversion would be a Lucas N1 magneto, you would need a mounting plate to get the armature up to the right height for the drive gear to mesh properly with the idler gears (the pinion from the Indian contact breaker drive uses the same taper as a mag pinion), and a pair of straps to hold the mag down as on the Fury and other competition models. It would also need to be properly sealed where the back of the mag butts up against the back of the timing chest. Regards, A.

With the adjustable back plate on iron Enfield it should be easy enough to weld/braze on an arm to extent beyond housing: simple external bowden and spring return would have desired A/R providing that the two locking studs were a tad loosened..... one of those things I always intended to try- even if only to be able to set it up for optimum before locking - but never got round to! In fact, for setting up only there would be no need for cable, just a lever which one could reach down to whilst testing.... maybe I'll get around to it one day!
Incidentally, on subject of advance and retard, I found that enthusiastic regular greasing of the drive causes the advance weights to be running full of grease and therefore not advancing fully as the grease gun pressure soon pushes the seal out! I replaced the grease nipple with a cap, and now just add a few drops of oil regularly which seems to have worked over many thousands of miles without causing apparent wear. Bob weights now work freely.

I was quite taken with this idea so I got hold of another distributor and set about modifying it for a manual A/R. Turned out to be fairly easy following 'p's idea of having a cable moving the c/b back plate with slightly loosened locking studs.I drilled a slot in the distributor body under the edge of the backplate and attached a small rod which is moved to and fro by a cable to a handlebar lever. When I lay the bike [350 classic]up for the winter I'll try fitting it and report back whether it works or not.Regards John