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At Bob’s request I will try to upload a few more pictures of my engine with the Scintilla GN4 and the clamps etc. sometime after this week – at the moment I am not in England.
However, on the picture I provided you can see the spring-steel clamps and the single bolt on top which tightens the clamps perfectly around the body of the magneto. The width at the bottom is also exactly that of the magneto so there can be no lateral movement. The bottom plate is fixed on the engine with three large “sunken-head” bolts.
This fitting is both solid and simple; changing the magneto on my car is a matter of only a few minutes. (Don’t forget to mark the crown wheels and coupling individually for both magnetos though – using different colours paint is the most practical way).
Although, as I said, I carry a spare in the boot of my car I have never had to use it. My Scintilla GN4 always works fine – but Alan Fairbrother put a modern condenser inside which lasts forever, unlike the original ones.
I bought the spare GN4, completely restored, for 350 pounds three years ago – not very cheap, but today they cost 450 pounds from the same supplier. I bid on an unrestored (but very nice looking) one on Ebay last year but my offer of 155 pounds was not enough…..
Interestingly, I asked Alan Fairbrother about the “big Simms” and he says that they are actually designed for use on busses, and do not perform well above 3000 revs! That seems unlikely to me as one is fixed on a Lagonda which apparently runs fine. But Alan is a great magneto expert and the size of the thing certainly suggests that it is for use in larger vehicles.I have a Scintilla GN 4 on my 2 Litre and a spare one in the boot (from Alan Fairbrother whom I mentioned before), not only because the car came with it but also because there is a 2 page description and user guide for this very magneto printed as “addendum” in my copy of the Lagonda 2 Litre Owners Manual. That means that Lagonda recommended this magneto, and indeed, it is not a “large lump” at all but fits perfectly; the holding plate and clamps are exactly the correct size (see the picture in my previous posting). Certainly, there are smaller magnetos but these would not fit as well on MY car, I would have to change the holding clamps etc. Also, I have seen 2 Litres with magnetos larger than my GN 4. I add a picture, I do not know what marque magneto this is but it’s significantly “lumpier” than mine. Still, it seems to fit.
I presume that by “hood” you actually mean “bonnet”, but I still do not understand why the Scintilla GN 4 wouldn’t fit; it is not a particularly large magneto and, as I said, described in the original manual and fitted on many 2 Litres.
What kind of a body does your car have?I’m glad that you’re happy with the BTH magneto you installed in your 2 Litre – and I’m sure it’ll work well on the car.
However, the remark that a Scintilla GN 4 is “unsuitable, too big and impossible to fit under the hood” on a 2 Litre Lagonda is nonsense.
This particular magneto is actually recommended and described in the 2 Litre owners’ manual, my car has been fitted with one for 76 years and it fits and works perfectly. See picture.More to the point – here is the relevant web page:
http://www.osenat.fr/intro/intro2/anglais/preview3.htmlAlas there were no reactions my query; apparently it is not clear to anyone how the new 2 Litre camshaft bearings, supplied by the Club, should be installed. It may be that nobody has used them so far.
There exists a diatribe on this subject written by the eminent Phil Ridout but it deals with the old type camshaft bearings which are different in construction. However, the fact that the old type bearings do not have a groove but a single hole for the lock screw indicates that the groove on the new ones is indeed to secure the bearing with the lock screw – enabling it to be moved back and forth; depending on the position of the camshaft. Also the profile of the end of the lockscrew perfectly fits in the groove. Meanwhile I have installed it like this and have done another few hundred miles without any problems.
I do not know if anybody reads this but I hope it will not go unnoticed as I strongly believe that this is the correct way to fix the camshaft bearings. Finally, I found out how the bearings are lubricated; the oil level in the galleries is just above half way the camshafts. The surplus is thrown out through holes in the front and lubricates the timing chains before it trickles down into the sump.May I point out that when I said I received “conflicting information” it was not about the timing of the camshafts/valves itself (which can indeed vary and depend on the perferences of the driver of the car) but about the METHOD of doing it.
There are several ways of doing it, some simple, some complicated, some accurate, some less so, but there are also ways of doing it wrong.
That is what I meant when I wrote that I received conflicting advice and therefore I produced this manual which is simple, accurate and thoroughly tested.Very useful information indeed! I can recommend that you now use 100% pure coolant (special pink-coloured “alu-protect” which is also kind to the aluminium parts of the water pump) instead of water (even rainwater which is very acidic and just as oxidizing as tap water), and the radiator will never block or rust again. If your radiator is in good condition and you use proper coolant you’ll never have to look at your radiator again.
Coolant is not just water with anti-freeze; it is acid and calcium free, hardly evaporates (I fill up about a pint per year), it boils at 125 degrees and freezes at -25 degrees.
Interestingly, although it is available here and there (try Halfords), coolant is hardly used in the UK, while EVERY car on the continent has it; nobody uses water and coolant is available from every petrol station. However, it is the death-blow for radiator repairers….There might be something fishy about this car – it has been offered on Ebay several times; the first time about a year ago.
So there will be two – which is interesting of course. However, one can hardly call the manufacture of two cars a “revival of the Lagonda marque” nor can it be seriously qualified as “back in production”.
I am not “wrong” – at least not where my own car is concerned. I have no Ki gass system, but an electric SU fuel pump and a glass bowl filter with a fine mesh filter inside it. On my car the pump sucks the petrol through this filter and then pushes it into the carburetters. The filtered residue sinks to the bottom of the glass bowl and can be removed every now and then.
It remains to be seen if these plans will go through under the present economic circumstances……..
And I can recommend a chap in Holland who made a perfect new thermostat with arms to operate the slats on my radiator.
See: http://www.blaak.comI may not understand this correctly – if so please ignore what I write here, but a glass bowl petrol filter works just as wel with an electric SU pump as with a KI-gass pump.
The petrol is sucked by the pump through the mesh at the top of the bowl and the filtered-out dirt etc. sinks to the bottom of the glass where it can be seen and emptied every now and then.How anyone can hope to sell a car which is advertised as a Lagonda (which it isn’t), a minimal and confused description and with three illustrations of three different cars is beyond me.