Saving Old Seagulls

They do die - just spent a day and a half trying to get a spark on a wspcl - new plug, leads, good points etc - nothing. Swapped out the wipac unit and big fat spark ! The duff one was reading fine on ohms - about 4k - and in very good conition to look at - inc the earth tag. Odd ?
So don't trust that multimeter too much !

The condenser must be dead. I had faced a similar situation.

Something has gone -
I've checked it further - with an alalogue meter finely set to zero.
The others I can detect 1 ohm - from secondary to earth tag. This one seems to be a dead short ?

Have you ever had a dig into one of these ? Is there a condensor in there somewhere ?

Not really a problem as I have several.

One ohm is a suitable reading for the primary, certainly not for the secondary, which should be several thousand ohms (k ohms) is the coil still connected to the points?
Yes there is a condenser in thre somewhere.

I recently bought on e bay a mid 70s vintage silver century which appeared to be in original condition and never used in salt water.
The bore was slightly ceased so as well as plug points and clean carb which usually leaves me with a fire up second pull I freed and cleaned the bore.
Pull the cord -nothing
No spark so checked and swopped plug and lead.
Still no spark so assumed that it was the wipac coil and swopped it for a spare picked up on e bay and still nothing so assuming spare was also a dud so I sent origional to John who tested it as ok.
Finally I swopped flywheels for an earlier wipac and off she went.
I am sure both flywheels are wipac ones and both appear to be fully magnetised.
Could the polarity have reversed?
Certainly I suspect the engine may have been stood for perhaps 30 plus years as my featherweight despite being left for 20 years was not seized?

Sorry for the delay - fiddling with bigger engine !

I only had the one wipac flywheel to test it with. What intrigued me was the wipac unit has Wipac 111 on the casing - my others say Wipac 11
I just take this to be a seagull oddity ! - its identical to the others, a normal wipac type unit.

I have had a dig into it - as I suspected a dodgy connection at the ht lead pin. With a bit of heat, the 'gunge' will soften and prise out. I managed to clean out the ht lug part - in there was a heavy plated single wire which broke away with little effort from the solder tag ( back of the HT plug ) I repaired that - still no joy.
The gunge seems to be a modified bitumen - it will soften but not melt. Stelios reckoned the condensor was behind the points wire connector screw ? I may have a go at that.
I am thinking it may be easier to 'skin the cat' - ie take the outer shell off - then disect the innards. Just to see whats there.

Maybe it would spark with a separate mounted condensor - but at the moment I do not have a wipac flywheel to mess about with.



Geoff

Very interesting findings! I haven't opened a wipac! I think it's easy to find a flywheel to test it. Someone near you should have one.

Happy experimenting!

Some more surgery !

There is not much chance of releasing the main colis - but the condensor unit sits in a separate chamber of the outer moulding.
The surface gunge prods away esasily with a little heat from a paint strip gun on low - the outer will melt easily if you are not careful.

I could then see the layout - and there were three sleeved wires running into the condensor chamber, near the surface of the filling.

Two to earth and the earth tag wire - one to points wire screw, rear solder lug.

I realised the end casing culd be cut off leaving an intact main unit containing the primary and secondary coils. So I did that by heating around the brass screw lug and basically cutting it off. The outer will cut with a knife - its quite soft.

The condensor is a simple wrapped thing with no obvious sign of how it was connected but the erath end had a thin ribbon of tinned something attached - which fell off. No sign fo how the other end attached to the point wire + terninal. The ends of the condensor seem to be alluminium foil. I have a continuity across the condensor ends. All the main coils still read ok for ohms.

The fat thing by the ht lead pickup is a soldered sleeve/copper wire bridge to repair the HT connection.

It is now a easy thing to add a condensor - I have a pair of wires to earth, plus the earth tag - then one wire and point + in on the other end ? It can mount on the end here - and if you want with a suitable small casing could be potted back in with black silicone or similar ?

Would a standard small round car type do the job - it would have to be small enough to mount between the casing and the rotor bars.

I can see why they do not go wrong that often - prising one apart !

Below - the windings are in the main burial chamber - and the condensor sits in a separate room ! The wires leading to it are quite thick and sleeved with fabric. They also sit just at the top of the filling.



Below - two wires in sleeves, bottom are the two ends of the primary and sec to earth - and in the previous image you can just see the tag that was onto the condensor end. The condensor casing has been cut away, leaving the inner wall.
A wipac condensor - a rare sight !



The cicuit is basically laid out like this -



The odd markings on wipac coils - wipac 11 - wipac 111

LIVE wipac - it sparks !
Realised I my 40 plus had a wipac - so had the flywheel off that.
Jury rigged it all up with new wires to condensor ends - and bingo - big fat spark !
I then re-strapped the condensor with tinned wire ends - and a thread winding between the tape.
Re-soldered the wire ends and the earth tag - and the screw thread shank.
Fiddly and much swearing - but rather satisfying to actually get this thing to go !

I can now pot it back in with black mastic maybe - or just gloss black paint all the exposed wires and tape it up well.

Great job and very informative!! Thank you for letting us know!