New Member

[Eddie Smith]

Back to working on Greeves after 55 years, now restoring two bikes 1961 Scottish and 1961 Sports Roadster and looking forward to some interesting discussions on the forums. Lived all my life in Lincolnshire, rode in Trials from 1959 to 1964 on Francis Barnett, BSA C15 and then had two Greeves, Scottish the one with the square everything and then a 1961 Scottish the same as my present project. Would welcome some info on ignition systems but not electronic, keeping the roadster bog standard as all electrics have tested out good .Looking at an external coil with lithium battery or energy transfer to an external coil on the Scottish so look forward to your recommendations and comments. I spent all my working life in the motor trade but retired a long while ago, recently restored a 1982 Honda ATC 200E Trike and now well on with a Honda ATC 110 Trike, also restored a couple of Yamaha TY80's. Been looking at the GRA for some time and found the site a lot better than most so thought I would join you - Regards` Eddie

[John Wakefield]

Welcome Eddie
As far as your bikes are concerned I would keep electrics standard unless you are contemplating some serious comp riding on the Scottish. The only mod worth doing on the Scottish is to fit a remote coil up under the tank, one off a Honda C90 will do, plenty on eBay. Dont worry about a battery you dont need it. As for the roadster keep it as built, in any case as yet no electronic ignitions (or 12 volt conversions) commercially available. You could use a sealed lead acid battery on that such as this http://www.mobilitypitstop.com/2/143...FdVAGwodhPcCrg (not recommending that particular supplier others are available), just Google 12v sealed lead acid battery
Ride & enjoy

[Eddie Smith]

scottish ignition

Thanks John, not contemplating serious riding on the Scottish (I'm 75 ) but all the ignition system is shot, all useable parts are in the Roadster engine. Could the ignition coil from the scottish be stripped and rewound to supply AC volts to the C90 coil assuming the C90 coil is AC. The villiers coil would then become an energy transfer system once the HT side is dispensed with, hope this is correct maybe you have more info on this e.g wire for windings and number of coils etc. - Thanks

[John Wakefield]

Thanks John, not contemplating serious riding on the Scottish (I'm 75 ) but all the ignition system is shot, all useable parts are in the Roadster engine. Could the ignition coil from the scottish be stripped and rewound to supply AC volts to the C90 coil assuming the C90 coil is AC. The villiers coil would then become an energy transfer system once the HT side is dispensed with, hope this is correct maybe you have more info on this e.g wire for windings and number of coils etc. - Thanks

Yes the Scottish HT coil needs to be rewound to give low tension AC volts to the remote coil. Sorry I have no info on wire size or number of turns etc. but I am sure someone on here will have done this mod & can post up full details.

Have found this thread about fitting remote coil http://www.greeves-riders.org.uk/for...ht=remote+coil it may help.

[PeteNev]

Scottish Ignition

If you are not using the lighting coils & can dispense with them Villiers Services
do a lighting coil specially wound for low tension supply to an external coil.Not expensive.Make sure you put it in the correct position 9 o/clock if I remember right

[John Wakefield]

If you are not using the lighting coils & can dispense with them Villiers Services
do a lighting coil specially wound for low tension supply to an external coil.Not expensive.Make sure you put it in the correct position 9 o/clock if I remember right

It must be in the position of the original HT coil or opposite where the stop light coil would be.

[Andy Briggs]

Hello, and welcome to the forum. Re ignition on your Scottish: I use a remote coil under the tank (with condenser next to it, to get it out of the engine) and this is triggered by a re-wound coil in the usual place. Very reliable source of sparks, used in pre-65 trials. Like you, I wanted a reliable solution that didn't cost a fortune and so I echo the advice of others here. Cheers Eddie.

[floydbassman]

I have the external coil and condenser under the tank, using the original ht coil as the source, on my TFS.. All I did was remove the ht winding from it carefully and used some Wurth bond and seal to seal the lt winding to stop it working loose. So far so good. I have a set of lighting coils in my engine too, and have experimented between using the lighting coil opposite the original ignition coil as a source coil which worked just as well. I have read somewhere online that some people use both wired in parallel to provide source current, I dont know if it works better or not though. I will find out for sure in a couple of weeks at my next trial I am entering. The last trial , I had to retire due to the original coil failing when hot. Done some garden and road riding on it ok but it works a lot harder under trials conditions. Watch this space.....

[Eddie Smith]

Thanks for all your replies and look forward to more, I have found some info on energy coil winding using the villiers ignition coil stripped of its HT and LT windings and will let you know how that goes when its tested. Some exterior coils will work on 6 to 12 volts so want to wind the energy coil to give the best starting possible. I haven't got so much kick in me as I used to have, my Honda Trike has a starter motor that works.

[floydbassman]

Looking forward to seeing how you get on. What I am after is a good spark at the very lowest rev range that the engine will run, most important in trials with tight sections. Ultimately I will probably end up biting the bullet when money allows, and getting an electronic system. These have a built in timing advance curve, giving you best of both worlds. Low speed plonk and snappy response higher up the rev range. They also have 12 volt lighting too.

[mikerwt]

Coil rewinds

just had my low tension coils rewound by west country rewinds look good and not a bad advert for the originals lasted 50+ years I thought very reasonable price £78.60 the pair, V/S do them but they were not answering the phone at the time?

[Eddie Smith]

Another possibility I am going to try which I have used before on Karts is total loss ignition, especially now with all the new battery technology. A DC 6/12 volt coil with a battery and using existing contact breaker gives a very good spark at low low revs. You mention electronic ignition, no better than coil at low revs as ignition advance facility only plays its part at higher revs which would be fine for a scrambler. A coil total loss system could be made for less than £25 but I still need to see how long a coil would work before the battery went flat - going to do some experiments with lithium cells as we know they maintain a constant power for longer. Solar cells on your helmet could be the next possibility - look forward to some comments I bet many riders will have tried these ideas before, so waiting to be shot down in a shower of sparks.

[John Wakefield]

Ignition systems

A 6volt ignition coil draws around 3 amps so if you use a 6 amp hour battery you would get theoretically 2 hours use. But in reality probably only an hour as the voltage will gradually tail off & thus be insufficient to give a decent spark as the battery becomes discharged. You could leave a charging coil in place to charge the battery but frankly with all the extra wiring & charging regulator/rectifier device is it worth it. The flywheel mag system with good components has over the years proved itself as being sufficient, & but if you really want to upgrade then the electronic route would be the one to take.

[floydbassman]

My update on how my lighting coil powered ignition fared. I did a trial yesterday. 4 laps of 8 sections in loads of power sapping mud. Last time I did this on the original setup I had to retire halfway round. Yesterday though, the ignition, and the rest of the bike performed faultlessly, started easily hot or cold and gave me revs without fluffing and stalling right down to engine kickstarting speeds. I was negotiating sections in second gear with no fear of stalling and finding that elusive grip. The bike is transformed for a minimum outlay.

[Eddie Smith]

scottish ignition

Pleased you are pleased with your setup, I have rewound the original coil to provide ac to a under the tank TY 80 coil, but it will be some time before I can test the bike.