Saving Old Seagulls

The spring is held in position by a slotted screw, gently remove the brass HT penis then insert a small screwdriver & unscrew it, the cable will then be released.

Just done as you said Hugz and made sure that the HT lead is fine. Still no spark so I connected a piece of wire in place of the HT lead and still definitely no spark. So I'm guessing now the fault is within the magneto / Wipac area. I don't at this stage want to take the flywheel off in case I misalign something / make matters worse, or should I just go for it? after I've done a thorough inspection through the flywheel apertures for any loose wires as mentioned earlier. I feel a breakthrough is very close.

There is a keyway on the shaft with a woodruff key so there is no chance of misaligning the flywheel. You may have an airgap on the seconday winding of the coil which will require coil to be replaced. I'm not up on the wipac and will let others take over from here ☺

Well the turbo has gone on the truck so I've been running around getting a replacement from the scrapyard.

But I have got the flywheel off so before I touch any of the internals what should I be testing and how? As always all help greatly appreciated.

Regards

Chris

This is what it looks like:

The red wire coming from the points to the coil, make sure the connection at the coil end is secure as i've known them to come loose and cause problems before now.
All in all it looks a bit rusty for something that's supposed to have run recently, or was this the other motor you picked up? What does the inside of the flywheel look like? Is it in similar condition?
I'd give everything a go over with some emery paper and remove as much of the corrosion on the coil to begin with, paying attention to all those laminations. It's worth a try.
While you've got the flywheel off, now is the time to have a closer look at those points as well.

Jon

Would be worth putting a meter on the secondary winding. Base of magneto connection (or end of lead if good) to earth. This fully functioning wipac returned a reading of .9 ohms. From the red wire to earth is a dead short as the primary windings are a lot less and bigger wires creating a very low resistance. I need a fluke!!

Left click to expand.

Hopefully almost got to the source of the problem. Have done a continuity check as suggested by Hugz and the lowest reading I get is 4600 ohms!!



So I'm guessing the fault is within the Wipac that I will be unable to repair. Seems strange that from picking up a running motor and a one and a half hour journey in the back of the car that it turns out like this. Or could I have done something that may have damaged it? So now not too sure what to do, do I get back to the seller and ask for a replacement Wipac ignition system? source one myself off somewhere like ebay? or does John at SOS do the parts?

Or is there something else I should try first?

Regards

Chris.

Back to the seller i would say if there a bunch of enthusiast's then I'd guess they'd have spares otherwise John's yer man..

If it's who we think it is that sold you the motor, i'd go back to them and ask for another ignition or your money back.

They're on ebay quite frequently so not likely to bow out of anything untoward.
Give it a try.

Replacement magnetos are no problem either.

Completed a bit of a stripdown and now have a spark fairly consistently (although the HT lead connection into the spark plug elbow may need a bit more work).

Still won't start. Although I get it to turn over if I put some fuel in the cylinder and then put the sparkplug back in. I get fuel from the tank to the carb so is there an easy way to check fuel flow from the carb to the cylinder.

Have emailed 'the enthusiasts' for assistance but no reply yet.

Chris

Sounds like the "enthusiasts" are more like bodge artists! Those points don't look like the have been cleaned and serviced. I would take it back and tell them it is not as described.

Why take it back? work on it and learn how the thing works!
By the sound of things if you now have a good spark and you can get it to fire when you pour fuel into the plug hole,then it is a carb problem. have you looked at the filter / cleaned the jets yet?

Would be worth putting a meter on the secondary winding. Base of magneto connection (or end of lead if good) to earth. This fully functioning wipac returned a reading of .9 ohms. From the red wire to earth is a dead short as the primary windings are a lot less and bigger wires creating a very low resistance. I need a fluke!!

Left click to expand.

wipac mag.JPG

Just looking back... I had an engine with a dud wipac magneto. I did the same test on the dud one then on a good one. The strange thing was I got the same reading with both??

The coil was ok then. Something else wrong with the maggy.

I think maybe an air gap in the secondary winding of Chris's one. How else can it splutter with such a high resistance?

That was the same thing with my one.
It went when I first got it, ran it in a tank fot 10 ~ 15 min.
The following day it wouldn't start .... The coil was bad. Went through all of the checks up to the point where the coil was the last thing to change.
Changed the coil and all was good.

I may have to see if I can disect the coil just to have a look, after all it is dead.