We have spark!

Working late on the Triumph paid off tonight!

As most of you already know by now I have been working on restoring an old Triumph dirt bike like the above photo. Throughout this project I have had numerous ups and downs including losing most of the parts to either the trash, or stolen (heartbreaking). I have even machined a missing part on my South bend lathe! Well tonight I stayed up to try and figure out why I wasn't getting any spark. I purchased a 5 wire Lucas alternator from ebay to replace the one that was stolen/tossed. I connected all but one wire because I didn't know what that wire went too. Looking online I found a great forum that talked about this specific problem. This is what I found out:

""The wires should be"... In the way my brain works this indicates what I am saying is different from what he is saying.

There are two basic ET stators used on late Cubs: 

3 wire black/white, red and brown
4 wire: black/white, red, brown/blue and brown

You can use one version of the 5 wire ET stator by grounding the black/yellow wire), but it is a 5 wire, not a 4 wire. 

5 wire used on single: Black/white (coil), black/yellow (grounded), red (grounded), brown (brake light) and brown/blue (lights).

Stamped on the stator is a part number - this will help."

(The above is from John Healy, Boston, Massachusetts).

With this information I went back out to the garage, connected my extra wire to ground and held the spark plug to the cylinder head. I kicked the engine over and...

OUCH!!!!!

Well something hurt. Wait.... that... means... I DID IT!

Yes thats right, I shocked myself on the first spark since the rebuild. I'm not even mad. Just to check everything out again I made sure to hold the insulated spark plug boot and kicked the engine over multiple times. Each time I saw a bright blue spark.This weekend will be packed between work, going to a car show in Oak Creek, building mini melting furnaces with Chad and Frankie, and getting this bike started!

Stay tuned!