It was several weeks before I had time to get down and play. I fitted a couple of leads and spun it over in the lathe as before. There were a train of beautiful sparks. What a relief!

It was fitted to the engine and after a bit of messing around I managed to lock it into position in what I thought was the correct timing position.

I had fitted a temporary bracket holding the dynostart which will do until I can see how the original ones were mounted

So now was the big moment! I had already checked all the oil levels etc so I put some petrol/oil mix in the tank and connected up the dynostart. After a few turns the engine fired and backfired. So obviously I had not got the timing right so a re-check soon put that right. Again after a few spins from the starter and off she went.

A fair amount of smoke and spluttering so I tried to re-do the timing. When discussing what to do with some people at the rally someone suggested that as the engine had been standing for so long that I double the amount of oil in the petrol/oil mix. It seems to me that the timing arrangement is a bit awkward. Even the slightest adjustment means undoing the timing gear on the tapered shaft of the magneto, which inevitably means a small adjustment can be difficult as the shaft tends to rotate when the nut is undone. Anyway I tweaked it a bit and tightened everything up again.

Then disaster!! See my OOPS page. My only excuse is that I must have got carried away with the excitement of it all and got careless. Fortunately, it was no more serious.

After cleaning up I carried on from where I left off using a new battery.

As a temporary measure I rigged up a water container and hose which would do for testing but I plan to build a better arrangement sometime.

Being a lot more careful this time I ran the dyna-start and off she went. Very smooth and sweet! When I spoke with the previous owner he had told me to his certain knowledge it had not been ran for 15-18 years and he thinks the person he bought them off had told him that he had had them for ten years and never fired them up. Considering the conditions they had been stored in it is amazing that it was not all three that had seized up.

I have tidied up the connections to the exhaust box as previously it was just flopping about and now plan to start making some water cooling arrangement, not sure whether that will be just a big water tank or some sort of radiator. When I can get to see one I will change the rather unsightly dyna-start arm for something more original.

After all the faffing about with the original magneto it was great to see it running. When it is all finished I will see if I can get a video of it running. My thanks to all on lists and off who have made suggestions and offered their support. The question of what the problems are on the original magnetos still remain a mystery and perhaps one day I will return to trying to solve it but in the meantime I am delighted to see this old engine chugging away.