As with all important milestones, one needs evidence to officially sign it off as complete. I’d managed to fry the new electronic ignition supplied with the replacement distributor as I had not specified the vehicle was “positive earth”. Most vehicles and negative earth.

AccuSpark did me a good deal on a replacement ignition module and it was fitted this morning. The electronic ignition replaces the old mechanical “contact breaker points” eliminating need to ever adjust the internals of the distributor. Having spent more than enough hours of my life on the side of the road (normally in inclement weather) trying to set the correct contact breaker gap on a BSA A10 magneto, I’m more that happy to eliminate further hassles.

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New negative earth electronic ignition module installed
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An new +ive earth cable from the coil to the body work had to be made up (2.5mm dia cable was used) All connections, crimped, soldered and wrapped 🙂
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Extensions to the two wires from the module were added

I’ve since tidied the wiring up with some spiral wrap. I hate cables just dangling about.

Next task was to turn the engine over. It turned over and with some adjustment of the distributor it actually fired up….. albeit only on one cylinder. Rotating the distributor on its bezel will either advance or retard the ignition (the point at which the spark plug fires).

The timing was way off but with some trial and error, I managed to tease some life out off the engine. The spark plug should fire 6 degrees below to dead centre (BTDC). A timing light will be needed to get things that exact.

After making some small adjustments to the throttle assembly, the engine finally found a steady idling pace.

I need to re set the tappet clearance as there is quite a “tapping” sound from the top end of the engine… hopefully this is a quickly resolved.

Milestone closure evidence below:

Note: After publishing this update, I note the embedded video doesn’t actually work. Trust me though, its a video of the engine running.