Alton Sheer Plugs

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Lorenz said:
If I get you right and you meant the puks were inlayed to the double gear?

I bought a new one 6 weeks ago. Is that new? ;) As I do remember the pins / puks are not assembled.
Click to expand...
Mine came with 3 installed and 3 loose in a bag. Given the benefit of hindsight, I should have put in all 6 from the beginning....
 
Derek Wilson said:
Mine came with 3 installed and 3 loose in a bag. Given the benefit of hindsight, I should have put in all 6 from the beginning....
Click to expand...
I guess it was also with mine Alton. I was still belive all puks are in the bag, but I think my mind goes wrong! It seems there were three in the double gear and 3 in a bag!
Bike is now disassembled and I wait for spare parts to assemble also 4 or 6 of the puks.
Attached a letter from Alton regarding 3 or 6 Puks.
Here a Link to the PDF-File:

ALTON ESKN
 
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I think the real problem is using the number of pucks to guess the strength of the sprag clutch. Too few and you shear the pucks, too many and you ruin the sprag.
 
Today I had a very interesting conversation with my ALTON Dealer.

As I wrote: Pluks / dowel plastic pins in my ALTON were also sheered. I complained and asked him for replacemnet.

He aks directly which ignition is assembled. Told him a Tri-Spark.
My Dealer told me:
Big problem in my case seems: my new battery was weak due to not loaded by an electronic issue of rectifier.
So the Voltage of Starting the Motor break down to 8 -9 V when press start buttom.
The electronic ignition in this case doesn't work realable.
This issue create missfire or no fire so the torque load to the pins are very high and caused a damage of them.
I will reassembel my 3 dowel pins only today, and take care that the Batterie is loaded well.
Hopefulle I will have such issue never again.
By the way: i foregt to ask him about tolerance of ATF Oil and the dowel pins. I will ask ALTON.

Maybe this information I received is helpfully?
I guess better share information then no share!
 
I feel you may have been fed some bullshit here.

Although the Tri-Spark has it's own issues, it is one of the best on the market for working at low voltages.
It also has some goodies in there to help with idle stabilisation and antibackfire, which makes it one of the very kindest systems available for electric starters.

I have first hand experiance of this having switched from a Boyer, and the difference is like night and day.
 
gforce said:
I feel you may have been fed some bullshit here.
Click to expand...


May you are not agree, then it would be kind to be friendly and share your point if view.
However, some peolpe are friendly others doesn't.

If the battery break down in Voltage measured in my case 8-9 V, You will be sure that the Tri-Spark work well in case of lower Voltage?

When I measure ONLY 8 -9 Volt lets say the paek voltage was lower then 8 V. The tri spark will work realiable? I don't think so.
Bike starts perfekt while Batterie was laoded, and issue comes up when the Battery was low.
 
Lorenz said:
May you are not agree, then it would be kind to be friendly and share your point if view.
However, some peolpe are friendly others doesn't.

If the battery break down in Voltage measured in my case 8-9 V, You will be sure that the Tri-Spark work well in case of lower Voltage?

When I measure ONLY 8 -9 Volt lets say the paek voltage was lower then 8 V. The tri spark will work realiable? I don't think so.
Bike starts perfekt while Batterie was laoded, and issue comes up when the Battery was low.
Click to expand...
This is not a new phenomena. The situation that you had described to you is not a characteristic of a TriSpark. If the voltage gets too low with a TS EI, it simply stops firing. I have noticed the same thing with a MK 4 Boyer.

The MK3 Boyer, however, is very voltage sensitive - to the point that it is not compatible with an E-Start. I believe the wheels fall off at 10.7 volts and lower. Firing will become very erratic.

This is my experience with 20+ years working on different people's Commandos and my own bikes.

IMHO - 3 sheer plugs was not sufficient to provide reliable starting with my bike. As I am confident in the way my bike is tuned, I chose to fit all 6.

The answer for your bike may be something less - you will have to try and see.
 
Sorry if I was not clear Lorenz.

What I was trying to say is that I feel like the dealer has not been completely honest with you.
I am certainly very appreciative to you for sharing your progress!


As I said before, in my experience the Tri-Spark has worked fine with older, less capable batteries (compared to the Boyer which backfired badly)
In addition, I have experienced no kickbacks at all, which I used to get regularly.
I find the idle on a very cold engine to be much smoother too.

The general opinion in this group is that the Tri-Spark is good on electric start bikes.



The Tri-Spark can cause havoc with delicate electronics (like digital instruments) and is well documented and discussed to have a flat spot at 3,000 - 4,000rpm when used with PODtronics (which I personally think is as much a fault with Tri-Spark as it is with PODtronics)

But I don't believe these particular issues are connected to yours in any way at all.
 
Thank you all for your suggestions.
gforce said:
Sorry if I was not clear Lorenz.

What I was trying to say is that I feel like the dealer has not been completely honest with you.
I am certainly very appreciative to you for sharing your progress!


As I said before, in my experience the Tri-Spark has worked fine with older, less capable batteries (compared to the Boyer which backfired badly)
In addition, I have experienced no kickbacks at all, which I used to get regularly.
I find the idle on a very cold engine to be much smoother too.

The general opinion in this group is that the Tri-Spark is good on electric start bikes.



The Tri-Spark can cause havoc with delicate electronics (like digital instruments) and is well documented and discussed to have a flat spot at 3,000 - 4,000rpm when used with PODtronics (which I personally think is as much a fault with Tri-Spark as it is with PODtronics)

But I don't believe these particular issues are connected to yours in any way at all.
Click to expand...

Hi gforce.

Yes, I'm 100% with you for TriSpark. I had a boyer fancy blue box in my Comando. The bike bite me so hard, that I was afraid to starte the bike again.
In this time I have learned by this great forum here that the Boyer hate low Voltage. Analog and digital!
I went back to TriSpark. NEVER bite me, never kicked back! Wonderful idle, perfect. I'm a big fan of TriSpark.
Maybe my english description was not good enough to give back the answer of my dealer.
Summarize of his assumoption was: To low voltage create problems.
Battery low, start the Alton motor no spark or wrong spark or whatever COULD create that issue!

So my intention is to fed this great forum with informations; to give a bit back to the friendly and nice peaople here who helped me so often.

To this point:
The Tri-Spark can cause havoc with delicate electronics (like digital instruments) and is well documented and discussed to have a flat spot at 3,000 - 4,000rpm when used with PODtronics (which I personally think is as much a fault with Tri-Spark as it is with PODtronics)

Could it be possible, that the position of assembling Podtronics have influence at realibillity of Tris Spark ingnition?
As I understood: some have other doesn't. My one is assembeld behind the arifilter, bit away form the main cable routing.
Unfortunately since I wait for the PUKS I cant test Podtronics.
It is so frustrating, sun is shining and I can't drive!
 
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Lorenz said:
If the battery break down in Voltage measured in my case 8-9 V, You will be sure that the Tri-Spark work well in case of lower Voltage?
Click to expand...
Yes. As I stated before, I have had my Tri Spark work down to 7.5 volts and never lose a beat. A healthy battery however should not dip below 10.5 volts while cranking the starter. We must be certain that the battery wires to the starter are of sufficient size to carry the current without losses. My CnW starter system uses 6 gauge wires.
 
@Lorenz I am not sure I can be much help – as I don't feel that I am technical enough to answer your questions.



I can share my experience to date though.

I bought a MK3 which came to me without the electric start working.

The bike had a PODtronics reg/rec and a Boyer MKIII electronic Ignition.

I reinstated the starter (there was no solenoid or heavy cables) and immediately I found that when I was starting the bike, it was back-firing really badly.



I fitted a Tri-Spark electronic ignition, and all those issues went away straight away.

However, I then found that I was getting the flatspot between 3,000 – 4,000rpm as described in the Tri-Spark document.

So, having read some of the recommendations and reviews and being told by a dealer that the Tri-Spark MOSFET reg/rec was the best thing on earth, I subsequently bought and fitted the shiny blue MOSFET reg/rec.



I fitted the same unit to my 750 a couple of months later, as I was really put off PODtronics at the time.

Earlier in the year I replaced the belt on the primary drive, and made the mistake of running it for a couple of weeks with the primary cover off, as I wanted to make sure the new belt was tensioned properly, and tracked true.

I say made the mistake, because by doing this I noticed that my alternator stator was getting too hot to touch, which got me panicking about the reliability of my alternator.



I spent a couple of months watching eBay, and bought a couple of New Old Stock zener diodes at a very good price, so have now fitted one of these to my 750.

This has been a revelation, as the alternator is now warm when running, but is not hot at all, so I am very happy with what I’ve ended up with.



My friend has an Alton Starter, and we had a lot of trouble with the woodruff keys shearing.

Over quite some time, we narrowed this down to the spacer not allowing the sprag clutch rotor assembly and triplex sprocket from clamping together tightly. So, all the starter torque was going through the woodruff key.

Now we have found the problem, and fixed it, I have a nasty feeling that the little plastic pins will be the next problem. I think he has fitted six now, but I get the feeling it will come back to bite, and we will end up doing the “Yves fix”
 
gforce said:
I spent a couple of months watching eBay, and bought a couple of New Old Stock zener diodes at a very good price, so have now fitted one of these to my 750.

This has been a revelation, as the alternator is now warm when running, but is not hot at all, so I am very happy with what I’ve ended up with.
Click to expand...
I thoroughly agree - an old school rectifier and Zener diode work very well. That is what I am running with my Alton E-start, TriSpark, and a Shorai battery. All my problems ended when I went back to the rectifier/Zener.

My $0.02 - FWIW
 
gforce said:
@Lorenz I am not sure I can be much help – as I don't feel that I am technical enough to answer your questions.



I can share my experience to date though.

I bought a MK3 which came to me without the electric start working.

The bike had a PODtronics reg/rec and a Boyer MKIII electronic Ignition.

I reinstated the starter (there was no solenoid or heavy cables) and immediately I found that when I was starting the bike, it was back-firing really badly.



I fitted a Tri-Spark electronic ignition, and all those issues went away straight away.

However, I then found that I was getting the flatspot between 3,000 – 4,000rpm as described in the Tri-Spark document.

So, having read some of the recommendations and reviews and being told by a dealer that the Tri-Spark MOSFET reg/rec was the best thing on earth, I subsequently bought and fitted the shiny blue MOSFET reg/rec.



I fitted the same unit to my 750 a couple of months later, as I was really put off PODtronics at the time.

Earlier in the year I replaced the belt on the primary drive, and made the mistake of running it for a couple of weeks with the primary cover off, as I wanted to make sure the new belt was tensioned properly, and tracked true.

I say made the mistake, because by doing this I noticed that my alternator stator was getting too hot to touch, which got me panicking about the reliability of my alternator.



I spent a couple of months watching eBay, and bought a couple of New Old Stock zener diodes at a very good price, so have now fitted one of these to my 750.

This has been a revelation, as the alternator is now warm when running, but is not hot at all, so I am very happy with what I’ve ended up with.



My friend has an Alton Starter, and we had a lot of trouble with the woodruff keys shearing.

Over quite some time, we narrowed this down to the spacer not allowing the sprag clutch rotor assembly and triplex sprocket from clamping together tightly. So, all the starter torque was going through the woodruff key.

Now we have found the problem, and fixed it, I have a nasty feeling that the little plastic pins will be the next problem. I think he has fitted six now, but I get the feeling it will come back to bite, and we will end up doing the “Yves fix”
Click to expand...
"Over quite some time, we narrowed this down to the spacer not allowing the sprag clutch rotor assembly and triplex sprocket from clamping together tightly. So, all the starter torque was going through the woodruff key."

gforce, how did you overcome that issue?
 
@cliffa two changes, both made by a local engineering shop:
1) we got the thickness of the spacer reduced very slightly
2) we had the small lip on the crankshaft nut machined off - in hindsight, we could have just put the nut on backwards, but we were worried that it might interfere with the primary cover.
 
gforce said:
@cliffa two changes, both made by a local engineering shop:
1) we got the thickness of the spacer reduced very slightly
2) we had the small lip on the crankshaft nut machined off - in hindsight, we could have just put the nut on backwards, but we were worried that it might interfere with the primary cover.
Click to expand...
I'm sure you've read about other similar failures on here, so I wonder If that spacer is the problem when combined with chain drive primary?

BTW, I'm running a Norvil belt drive, and when I installed mine I did reverse the nut.
 
Hi All.
today I've got the reply from Alton:

Hello
Fit 6 inserts.
Paul

Unfortunately I haven't; even my dealer have spare puks. So weekend will come without my Bike. :confused:
 
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