Tag: stator

Morini Ignition Magneto Rebuild

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After installing my new spark plugs and pipe, I discovered that I was no longer getting a spark, probably due to some creative tweaking of the starter coil.  Oops.  So I decided that I might as well replace my points and condenser while it was all taken apart.  This should be useful to anyone rebuilding an M01 or M02 ignition- as far as I know there is not a clear guide on how to do this elsewhere.  It may also be useful if you have another moped, especially so if you have a Dansi ignition.

Get all your parts together on your workbench/cardboard box. Don’t forget snacks!

As you can see, the first step is to acquire a large cardboard box (or if you are lucky and have a table, use that), and put all your parts on it.  The part in the center is the stator plate, which is what the points (in the box with the Italian flag) and the condenser (round thing next to the screw driver) bolt on to.

The condenser should slide right into the stator plate. Mine was an 18 mm wide X 25 mm tall condenser

The first thing to do is to bolt the condenser onto the stator plate.  Not all stators use bolts, some are held in by friction- but this one has a convenient hole that you can bolt down.  The important part is that there is a good connection from the outside of the condenser to chassis ground (which is easy, considering how big the outside of the condenser is).

Here it is, all soldered up.

I skipped a few steps here, but the next thing to do is to screw the points in and attach the coil.  The points have a post that comes out of the bottom, that goes into a hole in the stator plate, and a slot for a screw.  The slot is very important because it allows you to adjust your point gap by changing where and how much the rubbing block engages the flywheel.  The coil is attached by two bolts, and should have only one end that comes out of it (the other goes to chassis ground).  The end that comes out of the coil should be soldered to a wire going to the condenser, and to a wire going to the high tension coil that feeds the spark plug.  Make sure to route all your wires AWAY from the outside of the plate!  Getting your wires chewed up by the flywheel is not cool.  In fact, it is so not cool that the engineers put a little hole in the stator plate, just so your wires can avoid the flywheel.  Clever.

Here it is on the bike. The red wire goes to the ignition.

Here it is on the bike!  The red wire goes through a little hole in the left hand side engine cover, and the flywheel is attached to the crankshaft by the woodruff key.

Now you may be wondering…did it work?  That is still to e determined, because the woodruff key needs to be “adjusted” with a file.

Woodruff Key Removal And Replacement

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old key, new key!

A woodruff key is a semi-circular key that is very irritating to remove if it s sheared off, because the slot cut for it is round- you cant just push or pull the key out like you would with a square keyway.  Shearing, of course, something that would happen to a 50 year old moped.  I started noticing wear on the key, and in a flash it was totally gone!  Completely sheared off to the level of the crankshaft, where it is supposed to engage the flywheel to create sparks/power lights.  So of course the solution was to order a new one from treats, who shipped really fast (and is not the company who took forever to ship).

If you look closely, you can see the key that is totally sheared off in the shaft.

Once the key was in my hot little hands,  I was stuck with the task of removing the old key.  This was a daunting task- I don’t know how much abuse the bearings on the crankshaft can take, and the solution to stuck/sheared keys involves a hammer, a punch, and a steady hand.  The trick is to smack one side of the key and use it as a fulcrum to get the semicircle to rotate in its seat.  Once one side is sticking out, the key can be further loosened by smacking it so that it rotates back and forth, until it can be grasped by pliers or vice grips and yanked out.  Unfortunately, the key tends to be small- mine was 2.4 mm across, which meant that beefy punches were out of the question.  You definitely want something beefy like a center punch for this, because a pin punch of such a small diameter will bend.

After some judicious smacking, the key came loose

Once mine got a little looser, I  managed to grip it with pliers and pull it out.  It was surprisingly not that hard.  The last step was to install the new key in the slot.  True to form (for this project) it was a little small in the width department, and a little tall in the height department, so some loctite and filing may be in order.  Despite that, the new key is pretty good as far as rotating the piston/chain/magneto so I am optimistic that this will solve my no-spark issues.

Happily installed in the flywheel.