Hi Gang, I am bereft of charge and after following the checking procedure from Priory Magnetos to no avail I decided to remove the dynamo and delve deeper into the works.
While I have some limited access to the timing chest I am wondering what the recommended general checks would be from the men who know, in a stitch in time kind of way?
I'm thinking along these lines:
1) Gently try to ease up the crankshaft end looking for any movement and check end float / main bearing wear
2) Run the engine briefly just to view the amount of oil emerging from the bush itself and whether excess oil may be appearing from around the pump / view ATD bobweight function (they seem to be fully closed at rest, fully retarded?)
3) End float on mag drive gear and dynamo drive (can't feel any)
4) Check torque on oil pump mounting nuts
5) Mag drive gear backlash ( this feels considerable to me but may well be normal, I have noticed a fair amount of knocky noise coming from this area on tick over, not deep seated heavy knock like a main or big end but when I rattle the gear back and forth now by hand it seems to cause a similar noise so I wonder if there might be excessive wear on one or both timing gears in the mag drive train and what the limits are?) Hot or cold makes little difference but noise seems to go away off tickover.
6) Check on function of ATD throw-out unit, not sure how but the bob weights seem to be free to move and return, full advance at around 2000 revs?
So what have I missed?
As always any comments, pearls of wisdom, sage advice from you guys always welcome.
Cheers Bagga