Ducati ignition, 888

Well I thought I would site the ignition box on the mudguard next to the battery, so I extended some of the wires and got it looking rather nice, however when I put the seat unit on, it just touched the unit so I had to move it down nearer the rear cylinder air box, not so nice, but I really can't see another place to site it.

Anyway, it started up well, although I didn't leave it running long as was in the garage with doors closed! Anyway that's pretty much finished, although I need to road test it!

The horn button on the 888 doesn't work, so I took it apart and it's a simple contact between the push switch and connectors, however the metal insert in the push button was missing along with the spring. I turned up a small insert and glued it in, and then bent a small spring into the right shape and put it all back together, the battery is on charge, so will test later.

Ducati ignition

So I am replacing the ignition system on the Darmah, because the pickups weren't working correctly on the old system, the new system replaces the pickups, the magnetic rotor, and the ignition boxes. It has LEDs to show you where the pickups are in relation to the crank position, which are then removable so you don't have flashing lights going all the time, it also has multiple ignition curves which can be selected by a rotary switch. The components that I removed were :-
The pickups and wiring loom
The Bosch boxes
The resistances
I am trying to wire up the new ignition box using the 12v feed to the coils and the return from each coil, plus the four wires coming from the new pickups.

I wanted to position the ignition box between the coils, but on checking with the supplier he suggested I keep the box well away from the HT side of the circuit. I think I have enough wiring to be able to site the box nearer the battery.

Triumph Swinging arm bushes

So as you may remember I made a little tool to  insert the bushes into the swinging arm of the Triumph, which worked very well, and was used loads of times as you will see below. The thick part of the tool is a bit smaller than the inside diameter of the swinging arm tubes, the thin part is a bit thinner than the compressed bushes. The threaded bar, is used to pull the bushes in (or out).

Unfortunately, with the bushes in, it was impossible to insert the hardened steel spacers, I forced a bit but it would wreck the bushing copper to insert completely. After much cogitating, and contacting the guys that sold me the bushes (LP Williams) I decided the only way forward was to remove material from somewhere! Using emery cloth I first cleaned up the inside of the swinging arm tubes, then working slowly I sanded some material off the inside of the bushes, trying every few minutes by inserting the bushes and then trying to fit the spacers, it took me about 10 attempts as I didn't want to have play in the swinging arm!

Eventually managed to get a tight fit and using my tool on the second spacer to pull it in, the spacers have a tendency to displace the bushes and can cover the grease nipple hole so I screwed a screw (metric) into the hole to prevent the bush from moving over the hole, this worked fine although need to make sure it is not proud of the bush otherwise there will be contact with the spacer!