Hitchcocks Forum

I'm a newbie to Enfields, and just had a go setting my points gap and timing.

It went badly wrong, and I thought others might like to learn from my mistake.

I made up a timing stick, to find top dead centre. It had to be quite short as the fuel tank was in the way. Then I turned the engine over a bit using the back wheel, and it went a bit stiff. Couldn't work out why, so I pushed on the kickstarter. Then I realised: DOH! Timing stick fallen into cylinder.

I took the tank off and fished the stick back out through the spark plug hole after 15 minutes of cursing.

Then I put her back together and tried to start her up. There was barely any compression. Sh*T. Managed to get her started anyway, took her for a spin, and mysteriously the compression has come back, although not quite as good as it was. I used to be able to stand on the kickstart lever. Whereas now it will only sometimes support my weight. But she seems to run OK so I'm not going to fiddle for the time being. Maybe there's a splinter of wood in the valve seat that will burn off in time....

Moral of the story - don't use a straight stick for timing, use something with a stopper on the end so it doesn't fall in!

Brave of you to put it in print Dave, Not laughing just got something in my eye.......

In truth most of us that fiddle with engines have done something daft when not thinking..

i've got the Hitchcocks centre finder and turned the rear wheel like you and the metal rod nearly punched a hole in the petrol tank, Doh!

Every days a school day, hopefully you haven't bent a valve or anything serious..

Incidentally its a good idea to time at 8mm btdc with the auto fixed in full advance, that way allows for any wear in the advance mechanism and drive..

I use a small instrument bulb with its two wires crocodile clipped to earth and curved tension spring, lights up as points open..

Not as accurate as a strobe but much quieter than a 4 stroke bellowing at 4000rpm..

best of luck..

Thanks for the warning. Once dropped the decompressor valve into the cylinder, right pig to get out. Couple of weeks back I dropped the hexagonal footrest bar into the inside of one of the forks as I was unscrewing the fork from the casquette. A neighbour walked into the garage and distracted me and I had forgotten they can fall straight in. I had to push a long bamboo cain up through the fork drain plug to push it up!

Well, Tornado has just been fitted with our host's sealed gearbox bearing kit, YAY!



Tornado is now pissing EP 80/90 out the kickstart shaft, Nay!



Going to have to ring them me thinks...

I cut off the bent end of a wire coat-hanger and marked the required measurements with a three-cornered file. Impossible for it to fall in and will only bend if a mistake is made.

Hello Daveh, Not so long ago, I topped the oil level of my Machismo using a funnel with a little piece of plastic pipe. What had to happen happened, the pipe felt in the oil tank.... 3 sweaty hours to put it out...

I have done worse things than that but you'd only laugh. Hey,Gwilly, re timing at full advance, that's a good idea as 8mm is easier to measure than .8mm. But with the locking tool in place and the cam held in the advance position (32 degrees BTDC)this is all well and good provided the backing plate for the bob weights is not worn as per one of Hitchcocks info sheets. If it is, you could be holding it at 36 degrees eg, as was the case on my bike which meant that at idle the timing would be 6 BTDC instead of 10 resulting maybe with a rough idle but more importantly too far advanced at high revs. It is easy to remove that worn plate and fill the offending wear with JB weld then file it to the correct size again. I did that successfully and it has not worn since. JB weld may be tougher than the original metal.