After the Fire

The Clubs electrical specialist, Alan Osborn is your best source. Ha runs http://www.aoservices.co.uk/ and can both advice you and supply needed parts.

In my personal opinion both the Zener and rectifier should be replaced with a combined regulator/rectifier. The Zeners are not available now. The assimilator should be discarded and a Battery status monitor fitted instead. With a limited budget I'd stick to keeping the points ignition instead of fitting an electronic ignition.

Best advice is to avoid ethanol, there is plenty of E0 petrol out there.

Ethanol proof fuel lines might help against a repeat, if that was the case? But always best to eliminate the root cause.

... unnecessary. And I note the fire was 10 years ago before widespread use of ethanol (in the UK at least). Fuel pipes have always degraded especially those horrible reinforced plastic things.

However I would fit fuel lines guaranteed to work with modern petrol.

Rubbish. Three of my bikes suffered extensive ethanol damage in 2006 (Going on 16 years ago) when this solvent was rolled out by stealth.

Talking of fires, my Commando almost set alight after I could smell fuel that was spraying out of the left hose. I was lucky to switch off and turn off the fuel in time.

My 16H still has the original Petseal I applied in 1997, why? Because I never put any of this dangerous E stuff in that tank and I refuse to use it.

.. well you think what you like and I'll follow the evidence.

Les has asked for advice mainly on electrical issues. I scrapped the zenor diodes twenty years ago. I wish that I had kept them in my shed but I would never have fitted them again. A good voltage regulator wired to the alternator is the best way forward. I also fitted a Boyer electronic ignition and have since improved on this with a Pazon. Points are fine if you maintain them properly and the advance and retard is working well, but an electronic ignition package will do everything you need with little or no maintenance. I have kept the warning light assimilator, they are known to occasionally fail but are not expensive to replace after  few years use. One of AO's battery status monitors are inexpensive and will give you peace of mind. Its probably a good isdea to retain the capacitor but not essential

Ballast resistor is to allow 6V coils to be used instead of 12V by dropping the voltage to 6V, this was in preparation for the planned 72 electric starter where on pressing the starter button the ballast resistors would be taken out of circuit and the 6V coils fed the reduced 12v. This failed and it took until 75 before a second starter scheme was used but the 6V coils carried on. Condensers are for the points to eliminate sparking at the points, they are a capacitor but nothing to do with the 2MC capacitor fitted for battery less running which has a much bigger capacity.  

Having come into this discussion part way through I must add a few 'points' (NO I won't apologise for the pun'. The original 'tin can' assimilitor is known to be faulty from new and later, AND more to the point when it fails it can damage the regulator/rectifier (as well as causing an apparent failure in charging).

If as in this case you are considering replacing the resistor and the condenser pack then, put this cost to electronic ignition.

The 2MC is to assist for emergency starting and running without a battery (if you must). Finally the Zener is a perfectly able system to regulate the battery voltage, provided its voltage is within specification. They do tend to drift high in voltage after many years, which in most cases is tolerable (gives a better charged battery). I can test these.

Reg/Rects are expensive and they do fail. But there is no more Lucas Zener diodes that we can rely on. (there is something similar from China but no specification!)