Tim's Ammeter

This is Tim's CZU27 Lucas ammeter, from his Matchless single - the very common 8-0-8A instrument that's found on many of our bikes, and it doesn't work. The bike doesn't charge, and the ammeter is off centre. Tim has a repro replacement but this is the original one from his bike, and so it's important that it's repaired and goes back to the hole it's been living in for the last 60 years.

Here's Tim's bike - a G3LS that looks about 1957 to me, still has the pressed steel chain guard but has the new Girling shocks that replaced the jampots in that year:

Checking the ammeter with the multimeter shows that it's showing open circuit, so we are going to have to take it apart.

These meters are made with an acrylic plastic housing that forms the lens and the body, and the separate back is glued in. The glue goes quite hard and brittle and can be scraped out - but there is often some case damage around the edges:

I use a tool ground from a small screwdriver to scrape the glue away:

The dial usually gets caught up in the glue frenzy. It has four feet which clip to the base of the ammeter and these get glued down as well. Here are all the bits separated; notice how the dial has faded. There is a shadow of the needle on it:

Here's the whole thing dismantled (dial is not in this shot), and there is a couple of washers missing:

Closing in on the problem, we can see that the coil connection has broken - a fatigue failure, probably:

Here's the coil removed from the back plane:

The other eyelet:

Easily repaired, we can open the swage on the loose eyelet, clean the end of the coil and re-swage. We'll solder this joint and then re-lacquer the coil.

Soldered up:

On to the back. It's straightforward to repair the break with a suitable medium-viscosity cyanoacrylate, but using a technique I picked up while repairing guitars we can drop-fill the missing bits as well.

While I repaired the base, I noticed the part number stamped into the back plate:

So this ammeter was made in August 1966. Fifty-two years service is not too shabby!

For reassembly, start with the coil, the large Tufnol plate and the two domed screws. assemble them with the small Tufnol washers like so. Make sure the magnet is in its recess in the back plate:

The two large Tufnol washers isolate the terminal with their brass nuts from the backplate:

Remove this lot again and assemble the backplate to the repaired base:

Add the backplate, terminals and coil:

Assemble the Tufnol washers through the base and tighten the brass nuts:

Use a watch oiler to lightly lubricate the needle pivots

Assemble the dial onto the backplate assembly and add the needle. Screw down the needle pivot until it just moves freely, with no shake

Test the ammeter in both directions. This set up is just a 9V battery driving an H3 halogen bulb - which draws quite a lot of current and serves to show the ammeter deflecting:

Reverse the polarity to drive the ammeter in the opposite direction:

Make sure the dial has no damage to the legs. if the dial catches on the case, it will bend the needle when you remove the case.

Seal the dial legs to the case with a suitable weatherproof glue, preferably one you can easily remove:

Glue the top of the case in place and clean off the excess

Seal the needle pivot thread with nail varnish and you are done.

Brightspark have some useful information on these ammeters here:

http://www.brightsparkmagnetos.com/...Ammeters.pdf

As do the Vincent Owners Club:

https://www.voc.uk.com/net/docs/tl/lucasammeter.pdf

And I've rebuilt my Red Spot ammeter:

http://ariel-square-four.blogspot.com/search/label/Red%20Spot%20Ammeter

Leader & Arrow Tools

Continuing my increasingly curious habit of documenting Ariel toolkits, today we complete some kind of set by adding the Leader tool kit to the work I have done on the singles, FH and SQ4 tool kits.

Here's the Leader toolkit, relaxing at home with a pipe and slippers after a long day at the office:

Now, most of you probably know that I don't have a Leader, so this post is an investment for the future and a contribution or sharing of information for other enthusiasts. This list is from the 1958 Leader parts list, but the list was identical in 1961.

And the accompanying illustration:

Now we can show this splendid picture from Brian H of the AOMCC, who identified the tools and gave me permission to use his pictures:

Starting from the left -

• Possibly T3521 item 5, a small spanner of thinnish material, not used very much
• T3526 item 8, which fits the steering stem nuts on the big end and popular nut sizes on the other end
• T3500 item 11, the 'C' spanner for exhausts and rear spindle nut.
• 6625-26 item 12, a tyre lever and one of the only items hanging over from the old four stroke range
• T3501 item 13, Brian thinks this is the original allen key, it's quite worn.
• T3557, the peg for ignition timing
• An equivalent to T3523 item 3 - this is the same size as the original but is a replacement about 20 years ago, one end fits the rear sprocket.
• An equivalent to T3530 item 7 - same style as the original but also a replacement 20 years ago.

One more, missing from the previous picture:

• T3527 item 10, which  it fits the steering stem nut, so you have two to deal with the lock nut and the adjusting nut. The smaller end is 3/4 '' wide.

Here's another T3527:

Here's a bigger picture of a T3500 item 11, the 'C' spanner for exhausts and rear spindle nut:

And here's T3559, item 6 the screwdriver and feeler gauge:

Sheringham Vintage Transport Festival

The North Norfolk Railway's annual Vintage Transport Festival and Bus Weekend is one of the events that I always attend here in North Norfolk. There's something for every taste, and this year we did the vintage bus trip with my two Grandsons on the Saturday. On Sunday, the busses, and there were 17 of them this year, are joined by cars at Holt station, including Morris Minors at Weybourne, and motorcycles at Sheringham. The buses are free and take you from Sheringham to Holt town centre via Holt station. Here's a few of them:

1957 Dennis Lancet UF Bus

 There were single-deckers - we went to Holt on this one.

1966 Daimler CVG6LX/30 Bus

Double deckers like this one, and a couple of RouteMasters, with some coaches as well:

1948 AEC Regal Coach

Sunday dawned sunny and bright as it often seems to for this weekend. Norfolk is a dry county and the grass here on Sheringham station was plenty hard enough to support a few old two-wheelers:

This Dominator is a regular. It's owned by Mike from Brooke and is lovely.

I particularly like this Gold Flash:

Some of the older bikes in the display:

A common sight around here - 1951 Ariel Square Four:

Ariels always attract the ladies:

Another Ariel:

Unusual sight - a Honda CB450. I'm guessing 1970?

As usual, several Velocette's attended the event. Five this year:

Some scooters:

The ubiquitous Bantam:

And when I returned to collect the last of my bikes, all that was left was my lonely W/NG alongside this very original F-B Plover 78.

 I think I know where this one lives, so I'll have to see if I can make contact with the owner.