Well the big day has come for me to kick over the engine and hope that it starts first time. Unfortunately, the only thing that it wanted to do was backfire through the carb. But after adjusting the points it did start but was running a bit rough. After talking to a friend of mine at one of our club nights he offered to come round and look at the timing for me - I jumped at the offer. This man has not one Gold Star, but three! plus numerous other bikes so he knows what he is talking about. So a week later my friend, John, came around to help. I say help, but actually he gave me a lesson on setting the ignition timing. He set the points to 12thou’ then placed a cigarette paper between the points. He then set the advance/retard lever to fully advanced then turned the points on the cam until the cigarette paper was just being gripped by the points. He held it steadily in place while I went around the other side and put on the timing gear and tightened up the nut. When that was done we replaced everything e.g. timing cover, mag cap. refitted the plugs and plug leads, turned on the fuel and tickled the carb and after a few kicks it fired up. A temporary adjustment to the tick-over screw the engine was running very smoothly. Everything seems to be working OK. So decided to give the brain a rest a take a short holiday in the sun for my 40th wedding anniversary. When I get back in mid-March hopefully the sun will be shining and I will be able to take it out for a test run and I’ll then set up the carburettor properly.
