A Good Day

[boghopper350]

I have owned my m49 for over 8 years and have always liked the way it looks and rides... When I could get it going! It has generally been a right pain. I put this down to the fact it was getting on a bit and one day I would give it a good going over. Well this week that day arrived. A heap of seals, bearings and gaskets beside me, I stripped the engine. I didn't think that there was much wrong with the bottom end apart from an annoying oil leak from between the crankcase's. After replacing all seals and bearings, it was rebuilt. It had a rebore a while back, but hasn't been used much, so I used the same piston, barrel etc. The amal was put in the cupboard and a 24mm oko was put on it. Gave it a try and after a while got it to fire up, but it was running badly. I put it down to jetting... After much messing about, I got it running quite well, so I asked my son if he wanted a go. I couldn't get him off the thing... Until he lost it climbing over a heap of sleepers and bit the dust. That was it, he wanted to ride it again, but it didn't want to know. It had a week spark that just faded as you kept kicking it over. After much checking, swapping of parts and head scatching, I found that the wire coming off the low tension coil had broken through, but was being held in place by a great dollop of silicone. Therefore causing an intermittent problem with the ignition. After replacing the offending coil the little bike hasn't missed a beat all day. :-) All that time the poor thing was being a pain and the problem was being masked by a blob of silicone. I know that I should have looked into it further before but I just didn't have the time, I just used the 199a instead.