No spark

[Piston_Broke]

I’ve rebuilt a 1966 Century Plus and am having trouble getting it to spark. I will give some relevant info and then ask some questions.

The old ignition coil (Villiers M1634E) was shorted internally, so I replaced it with an M1361 which seems to be a given substitution if you make up some spacers to allow for it’s shorter length.
The condenser was replaced with a new one, and the original points were cleaned up and re-used.
The magnets in the magneto rotor seem weak, a screwdriver will attach to them, but it’s not ‘snappy’.
When I pull start the motor with the spark plug out and grounded there is no spark, but if I hold it in my hand and keep the plug grounded I get a little kick(!). So it’s working, but not enough to make a spark that can jump the plug gap.

Question 1 - what is the easiest/cheapest/best way of making the magnets stronger.
Question 2 - what is an acceptable gap between the coil holders and the magnets (on a briggs and stratton it’s 0.02”)? As i have at least double that.
Question 3 - is it usual that the points are open for most of a crank rotation and close only for about 40 degrees? Normally (on a single cylinder engine) they would be closed for most of the rotation and only open for a bit.

Feedback and comments welcome, thank you, Paul

[Charles uk]

You could always clean & set the points twice & try again.

[Piston_Broke]

Good news, the motor is now running. I put the old ignition coil in and it fired up without any problem. I thought the old coil was duff but it has enough zap to run. I ran it in a barrel with the propellor removed. Sorry the pic is inverted, but if you click on it then it shows the right way up.