classic motorcycle forum

Hello JFerg,
I had a chat with Bosch (Australia) about this very thing when looking for Villiers replacement capacitors.

They advised that,
All Lucas capacitors are .25 microfarad,
All Bosch capacitors are .22 microfarad as are all Japanese ignition systems. Bosch stuff is built to the same standards as the Japanese.

They further advised that condensers and coils are designed to complement one another but they would expect a mix'n'match of the different makes to work okay although not as trustworthy as it could be.

The shape and dimensions of capacitors varied to suit engine makers demands but the electrical capacity always remained the same regardless. In short, any Lucas capacitor you can fit inside the end cover will be electrically correct.

To finish off, my original concern was about the Villiers capacitor. This is a .18 microfarad jobbie of which Bosch looked down their nose and advised was "rather marginal" (as if we didn't know that) but any of their capacitors could replace it. They particularly suggested their type GD9 as it had a useful mounting tag and a long pigtail wire so was easy to mount on the Villiers backplate and then run the wire through to the points. This is what I now have mounted on my Excelsior.

Cheers,   

Not Royal Enfield, not Levis. The Royal Enfield had its flywheel on the opposite side and the Levis had a neatly bifurcated down tube through which the exhaust pipe passed.
Would happily have either of them in my garage though.
Cheers,

Sorry to be gloomy but its quite possible the kickstart is blanked off because the box was built for an industrial application.
Have you thought of checking the internal ratios to see what you have? A racing box would probably have close ratio internals whereas an industrial box will either be standard or wide ratio or could possibly be even 3 speed & reverse.
Cheers,

Buy another one for yourself. There's no fun in your wife riding her Bantam and you riding your Yamahaki 1200 or whatever. She can't keep up and you can't ride at her pace.
You need to have two bikes with an equivalent natural rythm so riding together is easy. One bike is lonely, two are fun.
What part of Oz are you from?

The safest way for you is to get an owners handbook from the VMCC Library and follow the makers instructions. They are on line at www.vmcc.net You should also get a spare parts list for it as well so you can check that everything is as it left the factory. It is important to be sure no one has altered or removed parts of the pumping system so that the system works as the maker intended. It's amazing what can happen to a bike that has been around for 80 years or so.

Assuming all is as it left the factory the general advice for all total loss systems is to adjust the drip feed until the exhaust gives off a smoky haze with a distinct little puff when you blip the throttle. This is fine for an engine built to original standards but if it has been rebored since new the chances are it has had a modern oil control ring fitted to the piston so it won't puff smoke no matter how much you increase the oil.  In this case all you can do is count the drips in the oil feed. Start off with a generous 50 or so drips a minute and cut down a little at a time if the road behind you disappears in the smoke. Just remember over oiling causes less problems than under oiling and is cheaper in the long run.
 
You don't need to prime the engine with several pumps of the handle before you start, and how often you operate the pump can depend on how much oil is in the tank. Any straight 40 or 50 grade oil will do. Multigrade oils are pointless as the oil is pumped in, gets used and is thrown out. Personally I use a plain two-stroke oil as it is a straight 50 base with various additives to keep the internals clean. Stick to the same grade as every time you change the oiling rate will change with it so you have to start afresh.

Have fun, 

Lord knows what bodges a previous owner has got up to but washers made from Heinz bean tins are not a good sign. Burman did say a temporary repair could be made using a hardened shim on the end of the gear change camshaft to maintain correct endfloat  but thats about it for shims in your type of Burman box.
I think you probably have a very tired gearbox that needs some loving care.
Obviously I have no idea on what you have to hand to do a full gearbox overhaul but Ariels did make it easy as they used only the CP and BA Burman box between 1936-51 so information is plentiful and good spares can still be found.
For full information I would get myself a copy of 'Ariel Motorcycles' written by C W Waller and published by C Arthur Pearson Limited in their Motor Cycle Maintenance and Repair Series. It  fully covers your gearbox. The old weekly magazine "Motor Cycling" also printed a useful article on servicing your type of Burman gear box in their February 13th, 1941 issue and the VMCC Library will cheerfully supply a copy of that.
It might interest you to know that in the early years of WWII, "Motor Cycling" ran an ongoing series of articles covering the maintenance and repair of most WD motorcycles. The Burman gearbox article is but one of a couple of dozen in the same series.
Just remember a good overhaul of the gearbox will outlast several engines so do it properly now and you'll be an old man before you need to do it again.
Best of luck, 
 

Crunching/grinding going into first is more likely to be a clutch issue with the clutch not freeing completely before you oick the the gear lever up with your number 9 boot.

There can be several reasons for this ranging from a very simple lack of rider technique to clutch wear to mainshaft end clearance.
Proper technique is to kick the bike over with the clutch lever pulled in thus freeing off sticky plates before every cold start. Simple but often overlooked by many.
Secondly general wear and tear on the clutch or the clutch lifting mechanism. If it doesn't free properly it will always crunch. this is just a matter of checking everything over and getting it spot on. A little bit of wear in every separate part adds up and causes problems. Near enough isn't good enough.
Thirdly, and the sneaky one, is the mainshaft end clearance. If there is excessive clearance then instead of the clutch freeing properly when you pull in the clutch lever the whole mainshaft complete with clutch moves outwards so the clutch doesn't completely free up.

As the vast majority of English gearboxes are built on the same principles it doesn't matter what make or model of gearbox you are working on the same things happen in all of them. These are standard gearbox maintenance issues. Learn on one and you understand the basics of them all.
Best of luck, I think Ariels are one of the British industries better efforts and quite underrated.

1928-32 BSA 'Sloper'. Slopers were made with 350 ohv, 500 ohv and sidevalve engines but I believe the forged frame top frame member (the backbone) as shown in your photo was common to them all.
Cheers,