Contact breaker points

[florence]

Last week, my bike started to run a little irregularly.  I had a look at my ignition timing and found the thread on points for 1 and 4 had stripped and the points were able to float about.  Fortunately, I had a spare back plate and decided to fit it and while there, ordered new points from Dave Silver.

When I assembled everything, I found that the points for 2 and 3 were touching the nut on the end of the crankshaft causing a short circuit.

Looking at the points it seemed that the 2,3 set had a bigger spacer than the 1,4 set.  I suspect they had been assembled incorrectly at the factory so swapped over the points arm from 2,3 to 1,4 and vice versa.  They now fit correctly without fouling the crankshaft nut.

I don't know whether others have experienced problems like this and also whether there are better quality points available from somewhere else?

[Bryanj]

Did you buy the expensive Honda or the cheaper repop

[florence]

I didn't see the Honda ones on the website, will look again. 

[Bryanj]

Sit down before  you check price

[Oddjob]

He doesn’t list genuine ones but if you search the part number you can find 1-4 at £34.80 a set plus p&p of course. He has no stock of 2-3 points though. Pattern are around £7.50 a set, which I think indicates the quality of them.

Might regret this but I do have a few pairs of genuine TEC points, I was keeping them as a just in case thing. If you want a pair Florence I’d be willing to let a pair go for £50 inc P&P. Pair means both sets of course. Some are still in bags or blisters packs, most are loose but you can tell a TEC set very easily. Checkerboard backplate and stamped with TEC.

Might be an idea to invest in the Hondaman kit as it essentially means the points should last for many years, so long as you remember to oil the felt pad.

[Ken4004]

He doesn’t list genuine ones but if you search the part number you can find 1-4 at £34.80 a set plus p&p of course. He has no stock of 2-3 points though. Pattern are around £7.50 a set, which I think indicates the quality of them.

Might regret this but I do have a few pairs of genuine TEC points, I was keeping them as a just in case thing. If you want a pair Florence I’d be willing to let a pair go for £50 inc P&P. Pair means both sets of course. Some are still in bags or blisters packs, most are loose but you can tell a TEC set very easily. Checkerboard backplate and stamped with TEC.

Might be an idea to invest in the Hondaman kit as it essentially means the points should last for many years, so long as you remember to oil the felt pad.

Hi Ken , I have just seen your comments about TEC points and was wondering what parts of the points assembly are inferior and could you get a set of new pattern points and just fit them to the original TEC back plate ?

[Ken4004]

I have a set of old TEC points which I removed from the bike during the rebuild and fitted replacement points because I noticed pitting on the faces of the points.

I did however have a little difficulty setting up the new points which were bought from DS, I had no problem setting 1 and 4 but seem to have difficulty setting up 2 and 3 because there didn’t seem to be enough adjustments in the slot.
I therefore assume that I must have done something incorrectly do started the setup again from scratch and still had the same result, I then decided that the points plate on the new points was slightly different so compared on against the other and all looked the same so I ended up just increasing the length of the slot for 2 and 3 points plate to get the correct timing.

All in all a bit of a mystery, what I probably should have done is just use the original TEC base plate and just transfer the new points over.
Has anyone else had this issue with lack of adjustments in the on points 2 and 3 ?

[Oddjob]

It’s exactly as you found. Pattern points don’t like to time correctly on 2-3. The only solution is to reduce the points gap on both. That means less dwell angle that it should have. I think the heel on TEC points is longer, no problem with timing those. Plus the construction is far superior.

[Ken4004]

Hi Ken , I glad it’s not just me, what do you recommend to set the points gap to in this situation ?

[Oddjob]

Lowest permissible. 14 thou I think.

[Ken4004]

Ok thanks Ken

[Oddjob]

IIRC TEC points have welded contacts, a superior bushing system on the pivot point and some other things. There’s so info on the web about them. Daichi are well known for being bad, there symbol is a 3 bladed propeller. They used to have plain metal base plates but they started doing checkerboard plates like TEC so as to look like those.

[Bryanj]

The original Daichi were quite good then several years ago production moved to china, i think, and quality went total crap.
I have several sets of Union points, which were supposedly made in Japan, i asked Mark Paris if he had heard of them and he had but had no idea on quality although had not heard anything bad.
As a one off i would part with a pair for £15 plus p&p, Kens offer is a good one and worth it if you want long term reliability

[Oddjob]

I wonder if you just used the TEC 1-4 points if the pattern points would time up on 2-3?
I have 4 pairs of 1-4 in a bag on the coffee table right now. They weren’t cheap and came from American. Postage was very expensive.

[Ken4004]

Hi Ken I have the original set of 1-4 points I’ll swop those with the new points and see if they will set up correctly thanks, I’ll let you know how I get on.