Chat 10

The answer to Chat 9 picture quiz:- It is an exploder. The key from the Chat 9 quiz fits in the top and turned to fire the explosive. Mick Dughan who supplied both photographs has give a comprehensive explanation below.

chat_images/quiz9.jpg The single shot referred to in the recent picture puzzle by definition was only capable of firing one shot at a time it was also known as “the little demon”.

Single shots were used to break large lumps of coal or rock to facilitate easier handling but this became less necessary with larger machines.

The spike on the key handle was to make a hole in the explosive cartridge (usually referred to as a bag of powder) so that a detonator could be inserted and be connected by a cable to the exploder.

Single shot devices were basically a magneto operated by a sharp turn of the key.

They were superseded by 6 and 12 shot devices which were battery operated and more useful where more than one shot was required, such as in rock tunneling.

Sometimes even more than 12 shots were required in large hard rock tunnels and devices such as the Beethoven 100 shot was used and believe me when you were in the vicinity of such an explosion in an underground tunnel it was awesome.

Alas this is now history. I hope you appreciate the explanation.

Mick Dughan

Eddy Grew posted:-

My Garmin GPS Isn’t Working!

Brian Slack organised “The Welsh Weekend for the Boys” for 25 years. I was lucky enough to be able to be included on the last few years. We always had a great time with good company, lots of bike riding and lots of interesting places to visit. As you can imagine when a group of “boys” are let loose for a long weekend away from home there is a lot of joking, ribbing and wind ups. Brian being a good sort was often the target. I'll tell you about one of my favourite wind ups that my brother John and I thought up to wind up Brian.
For most of the 25 years Brian wrote out the routes longhand, not just the Saturday route from Burton to Wales but also the wonderful scenic routes around Wales. For the trips in later years Brian moved from paper to using a Garmin Zumo 400 GPS. I had bought a later Garmin Zumo 660 and Brian also upgraded to a 660. I often helped Brian out when he had computer problem, so I automatically became his go to guru when he had GPS problems.
Shortly before this trip my brother John bought a 660. When you bought a new Zumo 660 it had a thin plastic film screen protector on the display. This had part of a map printed on it, so it looked just as if it was switched on. This is when we came up with our cunning plan. John carefully removed the screen protector and saved it in his wallet.

This is what a new Zumo 660 looked like out of the box and before it was switched on.

On Saturday morning “the boys” met up early at Brian’s house in Burton and set off for Prees Heath where we had our breakfast stop in one of the truck stop cafes. We arrived at the truck stop, parked our bikes in a line and went into the cafe for breakfast.

The bikes parked before we go in to the Café for breakfast.

John and I made sure we were the first to return to the bikes and before anyone else came out we put the screen saver film onto the screen of the Zumo on Brian’s bike.

Brian's bike with the Garmin just after we'd put the printed screen protector on.

When Brian got to his bike, he switched on his Zumo. Instead of seeing the expected map of our location at the truck stop, he saw the picture printed on the screen protector. In this case I think it was somewhere in San Francisco! Brian didn't know what was going on and was getting quite flustered. He called me over to try and sort out what was happening.

A close up of the Garmin with the old route roller below. I bet he wished he had been using the old route roller that day.��

Brian called me over, pointing at the Garmin screen, not knowing what is going on.

Brother John was secretly taking photographs while we played along, asking him if he had done this or done that, pressed this or pressed that.

In the meantime, the rest of the group were standing behind us watching with great amusement.
After a lot of “I wonder ifs” and “don’t know what is happening here” comments I grasped a corner of the screen protector and pulled it off at the same time saying, “the only other thing I can suggest is that some b*s*a*d has stuck this on your screen”.

Moments after I'd removed the screen protector Brian sees the correct map showing where we are and begins to put two and two together.

Brian then turn around to see a line of a dozen grinning faces. There was much hooting and laughing from the group and quite a few “choice” words from Brian.

Brian turns around and sees everyone laughing. Brian you've been caught again! Eddy

A few photographs from one of the Welsh Weekends to give you a flavour of these events.

Breakfast for "The Boys" at the wonderful "Biker's Retreat digs in Dolgellau. It even had its own bar J.

At the railway station in Aberystwyth.

Waiting for the train.

Should we have more tea?

On the train to Devil's Bridge.

At Brian's daughter Mary's farm. Tea and cake.

These long weekends can be quite exhausting.

John Renwick posted:-

Matchless G11 600cc Twin - Lucas E3L Dynamo 12v Conversion.

I have used my Matchless G11 quite a bit since I bought it in 2004, although much less recently. I have been on quite a few of Brian Slack’s “Welsh weekends”, all of John & Julie Grew’s “Posh Weekends”, and camping trips, fully loaded, to Holland, Ireland, Kent and Bishop Aukland attending Matchless & AJS Club Rallies. When I first owned the bike the 6v lights seemed adequate but over the years the lights appeared to become dimmer in parallel with my eyesight gradually diminishing with age. The dynamo the bike came with failed probably around 2010 and Brian got it repaired for me. Apparently the armature commutator had overheated. I was advised to use a lower wattage bulb which I did but I was never happy with the ammeter reading, but when checked the dynamo output was good. I did replace the electronic regulator, but no improvement. With the engine running, headlight on the ammeter indicated the charging system was struggling to balance the discharge. To get anywhere near a balance I was riding at 50mph which when travelling along unlit B roads and country lanes with less than efficient lights compounded with oncoming modern cars and trucks having super bright lights I felt compromised. Even daytime riding with no lights on and a known low charged battery the ammeter never showed much of a charge. I measured the dynamo output and it was delivering a healthy 7 to 8 volts without revving the engine much.
I then tried the usual things such as cleaning a few connections to the headlight including the separate earth the previous owner had fitted, cleaned the main earth connection to the frame but this did not deliver any noticeable improvement I then fitted a LED rear light. This made a bit of an improvement at night but the charge system was still inadequate. I even ran a separate earth directly from the dynamo to the headlight earth connection, which did not deliver any improvement but I felt worth a try.
I decided an LED headlight bulb together with a higher quality regulator was the way forward for me. As I was planning to go to Founders Day I decided to check out Paul Goff’s stand and I bought a V-Reg-2a voltage regulator and LED headlight bulb. Even though I toured round the rest of the auto jumble they were the only purchase I made that day, No heavy bag for me to carry home that day, my wallet was considerably lighter too.
Due to other DIY commitments around the house plus doing some work on the BMW I had not fitted either the regulator nor the LED bulb to the Matchless. I wanted to fit the new regulator first and try it with a conventional bulb to see if the charge rate improved. Before I could fit either I realised that suddenly there was no charge at all and further investigation was required.
I first measured the dynamo output on the bike and got about 0.3 volts. I removed the brushes, cleaned up the commutator retested and no improvement. With the dynamo on the bench I “flashed” the dynamo then tried to motor the dynamo but no response until I manually rotated the armature a few degrees. The armature suddenly started to rotate about 180+ degrees but stopped just as abruptly. The start and stop was always the same place. Continuity of the commutator was measured and revealed that 3 segments were down. I visibly checked the wiring but nothing was obvious. I also measured the resistance of the Field Coil and it was a healthy 0.3 ohms. I concluded a replacement armature was required.

Having listened to Andrew Guttman’s presentation on dynamos last year at VMCC Burton Section and remembered that he was happy to sell replacement parts rather than overhaul/repair customer dynamos I decided to have a look on his website to cost the parts and consider potential options.
At this stage although the dynamo had been removed from the bike I had not dismantled it. If I needed the bike before I could overhaul the dynamo I could refit it to the bike and use it. One of the few benefits of having magneto ignition. I decided not to dismantle the dynamo until I was in receipt of the replacement parts.
The easiest option was to renew the armature together with new moving parts, but selecting the higher quality items. However I decided to take the opportunity to convert the dynamo to 12v which meant replacing the current 6v coil with a new 12v coil. During Andrew’s talk he stated that the field coil retaining screws were often difficult to remove and care had to be taken not to distort the dynamo body. His solution was he just drilled out the old screws, so new screws were added to the shopping list.
One item I did not include on the list was a voltage regulator as my new unused V-Reg-2a fortunately this regulator can be used for either a 6 or 12 volt dynamo and for a 6v dynamo it can also be set the output to deliver 12 volts. What you have to specify upon purchase is whether you want positive or negative earth. What put me off rebuilding the dynamo as 6v and using the regulator to deliver the 12v was the cut in limit requires higher revs of the engine. I was concerned I would have to travel too fast to maintain an electrical balance at night on B roads. Because I already had the regulator I decided to keep the bike as positive earth.
With the decision made and the shopping list complied I had a couple of queries. A telephone call to Andrew proved very useful, he is a helpful chap. He does list a mechanical lip seal applicable for Triumphs and AMC twins. I was unsure if my G11 used this seal and it is hidden behind a housing which cannot be removed with the drive pinion gear in situ. Andrew did not think it was required so that item was removed. Wrong decision, upon dismantling the dynamo I found out AMC twins do need this mechanical seal. A quick email with a photo and dimensions to check if the seal listed was the correct item confirmed it was and one was in the post. Like all tasks, when you get into the detail you start to find out things, like I did not realise that there is a thin “O” ring under the steel/aluminium end cover. Another item added to the original list. John Renwick
Part 2 to follow.

Mick Leach posted:-

Early exposure to motorcycles.

A popular held belief is that we don't remember our lives before we are five years old, well I remember something very clearly from before. I was three, my brother had not yet been at that point, and he was barely three years the younger. Until I was around eight years old we lived at 88 Moor Street, Burton on Trent, opposite Briggs's foundry, in-between Tresises drip mat factory and Pam and Jerry Summers who lived on the corner of Moseley Street. Some of the details would have been learned some time later but apparently my father had his BSA M20 combination up for sale and mum had gone to the pictures with Pam. Dad was supposed to be looking after yours truly, apparently a prospective buyer wanted to have a test ride. I was put in the sidecar, Dad rode on the pillion. I remember it was a saloon type of sidecar, as we went under the Moor Street low bridge the sidecar wheel hit the bridge wall. Allegedly the buyer had no previous experience of sidecars, the impact caused my face to collide with the interior of the sidecar cutting under my eye. I remember my mother dabbing the cut with a handkerchief on the Shobnall side of the bridge, I can only assume that mum and Pam were on their way back home.

The M20 was not Dad's last motorcycle some time later he bought a Triumph speed twin apparently from Dawson's, a dealer in Derby. I think Dad and Jerry went out for a ride now and then. I remember Jerry was quite an enthusiast. There was a long garage which was a lean-to affair against the drip mat factory wall where dad had a saw bench driven by a long flat belt driven by a stationary petrol engine. I know it was petrol because I remember taking a can to get petrol from Woodcock's garage down the street. The garage was full of firewood, the speed twin was kept in there. Dad was small and used to start it up on the stand. One evening it backfired while being started and the garage was set alight. I remember watching from a bedroom window as two fire engines from New Street. fire station arrived and put the fire out. How bad the speed twin was damaged I don't know but Jerry sorted it and that was the end of my Dad's involvement with motorcycles except to pass the occasional comment "who does he think he is, Geoff Duke"? Mick Leach