While I was looking through the box of odds and sods that came with the bike I had seen a chunk of metal I had not recognised the purpose of. It was not till I went to make a new handlebar end plug that light dawned and I realised that it was in fact the missing plug so that saved me a job.

Having the plug “in hand” I now needed to fit the new grips.

First was the clutch side so I warmed the grip to soften it a bit and swilled a drop of petrol inside it to act as a lubricant. The grip was a tight fit on the handlebar but eventually submitted and was slid into place and the end plug fitted so attention was turned to the twistgrip side. To fit this one it was so tight I wound up removing the twistgrip sleeve from the handlebar before it also gave up the fight and was wrestled into place.

It was now time for another road test and I could feel that the little lass was not happy, felt like the ignition was badly retarded so it was back home and read up in the books.

Turns out that there is no figure posted for the ignition timing, you set the engine in position with tool LET 953, you can then check the flywheel is in the correct position with tool LET 952 and if that’s right you can set the ignition. There is an index mark on the flywheel that shows TDC and you set the ignition timing to that on full retard

I can hire the tools from the LE Club, but neither will be difficult to make. Snag is if the flywheel is in the wrong position, to remove it means another two special tools and you also have to remove the oil sump to block the crankshaft from twisting as you slacken off and re-tighten the flywheel securing nut. Why could Velo not have done it by making provision to block the flywheel the same way BMW did in their boxer twins?, easier for service, works just as well and you don’t have to drain the sump to do it, come to that their trick of marking the TDC and ignition advance points on the flywheel would be an improvement as well . It’s much easier to work on the big Velo singles!.