What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[Chris KC]

I got the dynamo backlash down to 3 thou and also machined up some slotted bolts to hold it on. Am going to make up a pointer and make a TDC mark on the front of the engine since I realised it will be impossible to look down on the flywheel when the engine is in the car to see what the timing is doing. Am more interested to see what the timing jitter is like at idle when everything is running.

Simon

Simon, what did you do to limit the backlash? New gears?
I had a go at plotting my ignition advance curve before Christmas; I made a cardboard 'protractor' with the angles marked off and stuck it to the back of the block behind the flywheel, then observed the movement of the TDC mark with a strobe light. Of course you can do the same at the front of the engine but angles will be /2 so a little harder to read. I got a cheap rev counter off eBay, the sort which winds around a plug lead and costs about a fiver. This enables advance to be plotted against rpm.
It was pretty steady around idle, but by the time I got to 5000rpm the mark was jumping around within a band of about 5 degrees... I'll be interested to hear how you get on. I'm using essentially standard (well worn) A7 bits by the way - DK4A.