The bits arrived from Peter Forbes on Saturday - thanks Peter! - and having decided that as Burbage was actually further east than Marlborough, I didn't really fancy driving quite so far for a crank up, I'd get a round tuit.
I'm not easy about holding a big end together with cheese headed screws, but that's what they use, so I did them up tight having wiped the big end eye with a little moly grease. There are no gudgeon pin circlips, there being little home made aluminium pads that cover the ends, lightly driven into the pin bosses. The pin itself is a light drive fit in the small end eye. For light duty only, as they say ..........
The pistons came with rings on them, plus a brand new set carefully wrapped in bubbles. I decided I'd use the rings it came with - it's hardly a lot of work to change them later, after all. The rings are not pinned, unusual in a two stroke, and the top ring groove has two slim rings in it. Lightly greased, they slipped easily enough into their bores and blew off the exploratory finger over the plug 'ole.
It took about an hour all together, then into the garden to try it out. After fiddling around with the air & petrol mixture, it started easily enough & ran cheerfully for an hour or so. I'd deliberately overdone the oil & it slowly got smoky, but there were no nasty clanking noises & the rings appeared to be doing their job OK.
Back in the workshop, I dug out the bag of bits that originally came with it & assembled a kickstart mechanism from much better bits. I actually started it with my hand on the bench - cough, cough. Various bits were painted & I'm hoping to get in a longer run this afternoon. Photos later.
Like most two strokes, it doesn't really like being off load, so I've found it an old 12volt car dynamo to drive, more of which anon ;o))
Regards,
J. Kim Siddorn,