W/E 16th November

Almost but not quite

So almost there…

On Saturday the bike was built but the starter solenoid just clicked and wouldn’t kick the starter into action. I needed some encouragement that I was moving in the right direction so got Mrs A to have a go at push starting me down the slight hill to the garage – it tried to catch but wouldn’t…frustrating.

Swopped the starter for one off the RGS – they fit except the feed wire is in a slightly different place which means you can’t put the plastic cover on which is no big deal. Got the bike to run on one cylinder and then pop went the fuse. Checked out the wiring diagram and took advice from Rick and Hande off the micapeak Laverda list. This lead me to try and fit the Kawasaki solenoid Hande had sent me but couldn’t get it to work so checked power was coming down from the handlebar switch and it was earthing. Anyways spent quite a bit of time with the ignition turned on.

The starter worked but the bike ran badly on just the primary side cylinder. When I turned off the engine I noticed that the coil was pretty hot – the beauty of a multi-cylinder motor being of course you can check it against its cousins, which was cold. I wondered if the right hand coil was broken so set about taking this off and bingo there is a power wire that had been caught been the coil and frame when I’d put the coils on, having had to remove them to install the cam chain tensioner blade.

Bike still ran poorly so I adjusted the ignition timing to how I’d had it set previously using a screwdriver down the plug hole to determine TDC (I had got absolute TDC so I thought when the head was off but seemingly cocked this up) and the bike started and ran perfectly on two.

At around 16.00 decided it was good to go for a shakedown – wanted to start it and get to check the charging rate but when the lights when on a fuse popped and there it was dead! In addition a small pool of oil was sitting on the floor – bugger back on the bench.

Oil leak was a simple fix – no bloody cam box gasket and as the main light and it’s associated spot went out after being turned on I figured the wiring to the lights was causing the short circuit. Went through it again making sure there are no bare wires and we’re back to having a runner.

Need to be in London for 7.00 tomorrow so the shakedown can wait for when I get home. Can’t really believe that after two months I might finally have my Atlas back in harness.

Fingers crossed

Nick 🙂

F