Scooterotica

Hello

After a faultless 1200 mile round trip into Germany on my Lamby the stator plate has packed up again....within 20 miles of returning home. Happily enough this happened at work and I borrowed a van to get the old girl home.
Have a low resistance reading (of about 320 ohms) on the LT coil.
The number of these coils I'm getting through is a fecking joke. I have been using standard SIL ones, some of which need modifying to use with an AF lightened flywheel.
I have modified the stator lighting circuit so I can use a Wassel DC rectifier so I don't want to replace the entire stator. The lighting circuits on these SIL stators do seem pretty good anyway.

What are people using?
BGM or Vespa ones, or is there something else to try? Need to fit ok with a lightened flywheel. Standard SIL ones are too tall and need a little mod so they don't short circuit on the flywheel.
I'm not convinced the pick-ups are brilliant on the SIL stators either but they do seem much better than the LT coils.

Any help much appreciated. If I get this sorted once and for all it will be top. Massive weak point on an otherwise reliable scoot.

Cheers.

Use the BGM ones and send all of your Vespa ones to me read into that what you will. The reliability of the BGM ones is a mile better than the Indian ones and I know that Vespa (Ducati) LT coil substitution is a blessing. Indeed, I made sure that we had a couple of spare stators for the 3 bikes that recently did Euro in my travelling group but none of us had any problem with ignition failure. I was running Ducati and the other 2 were running BGM stators.

NB: Both guys running BGM stators had repeated SIL/Indian aftermarket stator failures before deciding to spend the money on BGM. Neither one would look back to the Indian stators, incl. the genuine SIL items.

Adam

Hello

I took a spare stator, LT coil and gas soldering iron to Germany, amongst my mass of spares and tools. 'Kin ridiculous really.

So I need a Vespa LT coil (genuine Ducati)? From Beedy or somewhere you know?
Do you happen to know if they fit ok with the AF lightened flywheel? If necessary I'm not adverse to a little bit of fettling.
I had trouble with standard SIL ones shorting out on the flywheel as the position of the soldered joint is too high up. A kindly soul on this forum pointed out the error of my ways and they are easy enough to modify.

Thank you for your help.
Cheers

Unfortunately, when I've tried to order Ducati PX LT coils from a couple of places, I've been sent Indian PX replacements anyway As such, I've been lucky enough to use old original Vespa stators as donors. Readspeed sells a supposedly decent LT replacement coil and MB and a few other outlets sell the BGM replacement LT coil. Unfortunately, the decent replacement coils are very expensive for what they are and I and many others would be happy to find that the same quality items became available at a better price. Considering that these coils are mass produced and should work out to be about 10% of the cost of a new stator (if you consider that a stator has 5 coils, 1 pickup box, an alloy base, laminate core, sheathing, wires, terminals, solder, and a reasonable amount of labour then 10% is probably too much!!!) then WTF are these so expensive to buy individually????????? It appears to me that the failure rate of SIL/Indian LT coils results in a situation where demand is high and suppliers (and perhaps dealers) feel that they can bump up the price to cash in. Sadly, this results in people deciding to buy another SIL/Indian cheapo stator for the same price as a decent replacement LT coil.... and the cycle of failures continues

Adam

IMO - This really is an item that we should be able to source in good quality and as cheap as chips.

PM were selling some good ones à few years ago,not sure if any better than whats about or even if they still sell them.Ive been stranded à few times due to LT coils letting go.

Interestingly in all the years of repairing scooters I have never replaced a genuine Vespa LT coil and even the Vespa to Lamby conversions I used to do in the early 90's are all still going .Just yesterday I replaced a Reedspeed LT coil that had been on a TS1 for a few years and then decided to play dead,it smelled burnt out,gave a intermittent low Ohms reading and would only fire but not run.I think Reedspeed no longer do them but even so they are not infallible.

Hello

Does seem totally wrong that stator plates are sold where the LT coil is pretty well guaranteed to fail. Will every Lamby rider who has a SIL stator grind to a halt somewhere?And yet Veppo ones never pack up?
I checked out some aftermarket LT coils and one is being sold for over 70 nicker. I'd want it to take me out for a few scoops and then fit itself for that kind of price. But then I suppose if it's been manufactured with care and is bullet proof it ain't so bad.
Was going to get a BGM one as the Veppo ones available are likely to be of doubtful origin. But, as luck would have it, a mate has come up trumps with an old Veppo stator plate he has with a suspect pick-up. Sound.

Thanks for your help and comments. I now know my options for building a decent stator.
If it wasn't for the cak and unreliable lights I'd go back to points.

Cheers

Starwave wrote:Hello

Does seem totally wrong that stator plates are sold where the LT coil is pretty well guaranteed to fail. Will every Lamby rider who has a SIL stator grind to a halt somewhere?

Cheers

Probably. They're shite

No electronic kit is completely bullet proof.

Go strengthened varitronic or casa for better reliability and ditch the af flywheel in my opinion.

No one seems to mention the Electrix kit much, but it does look good although expensive.

Dumb qustion here, but just trying to learn a bit- but why do these coils fail? Is it ther gauge of wire, Heat, Vibration or current drawn/burning out and going on to a partial short? anyone ever unwound and counted the turns or indeed had one rewound?
hope not to take this thread off track just trying to get my head round this before mine will soon fail by the sound of it
Paul