classic motorcycle forum

Let's face it post-war British motorcycle electrics were never world leaders.

They were "of their time" but don't go telling my old girls that they weren't world leaders, as they all work fine even though they range from 90-70 years old.
Then again, they've shared shed space with Spanish, French, Italian and US bikes of a similar age, and their electrics were pretty much identical in operation and reliability.
There was a German TWN for a while, and that had more up-market electrics but cost a more up-market price when new.
They didn't last long..

These bikes were sold as cheapest-of-the-cheap commuter bikes, and if the battery went flat occasionally then just charge it up.
No-one expected anything else before the Honda C50 came along.

they originally gave but wangling a replacement in and out of that headlight clip every month or so would drive me nuts.

You and everyone else, so after the one BSA supplied (if they ever did) went up the swanee doubtless they were never replaced. Just park off-road or where a copper isn't going to visit.
If someone was poor enough to be riding a little two-stroke in the 1950s, wasting money on dry-cells would have been well down the list of necessary expenditures.

That old and no chewed screw heads. Can't have seen much use.

Sounds like the balls in the clutch release mechanism are over-ramping.

True enough. Both books and  even better still,  find on-line forums for more real world 70 years on solutions.

Or is it timed on the compression stroke?