Piston melt

It has been quiet here lately as I was away at this Wheels and Waves event. It was really good I will post some pictures later. We rode back from france but the BSA gave up after about 1000km. The magneto fell to bits. Screws came off, strap loosened, timing got messed up and here's the result. Made it from London - Portsmouth - Santander - Biarritz - Calais.

Back in business.

The piston got torched previosly, I had trouble finding a replacement as it had a long rod high comp one in there, any b series owners may know that most stuff like that is for the short rod later versions. I managed to track down a +40 piston at a sane price from Petes classic bike parts in the Netherlands. The previous piston was a strange one as it was an actual BSA piston (not Hepolite or etc), and since getting this new one I now realise it was like 8:1 cr, wheras the one I got to replace it is 8.5:1. Hope thats not going to cause problems!.This one is a MC cast piston. It has a skirt seperation slot which the other one didn't so hopefully that will make it less likely to nip up.

I spent ages trying to fit the final circlip in, then I could not get it to seat, after ages I realised I was putting it in the side that already had a circlip!

I hate doing the timing, 7/16" btdc. It took ages to do, only to realise I made the mistake of setting it to 7/16" after tdc! 2'nd error of the day. Set it to the reccomended 7/16"btc fully advanced, but seems to me ike there's a lot of variables to simply set the pionts to .002 @ 7/16" btdc. What about mag pinion play and stuff.

Stagger the ring gaps, none on the thrust side bla bla.

Thing update

Clutch on, clutch off, clutch on, clutch off. It slips, then after adjustment it grinds, won't dissengage and also slips to boot ha ha. Need to find a Triumph clutch as this 6 spring one is pants. Anyway a great tip is to use the clutch lever (handlebar) with a larger pivot, so after swaping the front brake lever over and with the new upside down larger leverage lever the clutch has much more lift.
    A word of advice, If You have an inkling that the bike might be running in a "lean" state, sort it out! The jets are all sitting in the shed ready to tackle the carburation but it's too late. Maybe a hone and new rings will be ok but I doubt it. Re bore and piston probably. It's My fault! I ciesed the engine at speed boo hoo.