Having fixed the problem of the slipped timing I’ve had the old girl out two or three times now and have found a few of what may be called “teething problems”.

Number one was that the clutch action was very heavy.

To fix this I had a close look at the control cable run and have re-routed it. This means that the bends in it are gentler and the action, though still heavy, is now much improved although the look of the run is not as “neat and tidy” as it was.

The cable itself is not a “nylon lined” type and a further step will be to look to upgrading to the use of this type of cable.

The clutch was also found to be dragging.

When setting it up I had problems getting an even lift of the back-plate. Since this is done by adjusting the compression of the individual springs the clutch pressure springs are suspect because they are not evenly compressed.

While “tired” springs would seem to be more productive of a slipping clutch, in getting the plate to  lift evenly their adjustment can limit the amount of lift available, thus causing the drag, so a new set are going on order and the clutch will then be set up from scratch.

Other problems were found with the foot controls.

One of these is that the gear pedal is set as far down on its splines as possible, any further and it will foul on the exhaust when changing down. Even so, due to the fact that I am a long-legged beggar the angle my foot is at on the rest means I cannot bend my ankle far enough to change gear without taking my foot off  the rest.

By bending the lever outward enough to clear the exhaust I will be able to move it round by another spline on its shaft and so solve this problem.

The lever is an alloy casting and it will need to be heat treated first, then bent while hot, not only that but the angle of the toe-piece will also need to be adjusted afterwards.

Then we have the kickstart lever.

This has a folding foot-piece which pivots on a boss formed on the end of the vertical lever.

The “eye” in the foot-piece is worn oval and the boss is worn barrel-shaped so the boss will need to be built up and reshaped while the foot-piece “eye” needs to be bushed to match the new boss

Not only that but the “stops” on both the foot-piece and the lever need building up and re-shaped so that the foot-piece will stop at 90 degrees to the lever, rather than as it is where it stops some 20 degrees past this and your foot tends to slip off the foot-piece half-way down the stroke. This is not ideal when trying to start a big Panther!.

The last foot control is the rear brake.

At some time before I got her the lever has been broken and welded up. When this was done the lever was also re-shaped, bringing the toe-piece further down when in the “at rest” position.

The result of this is that the toe-pad is contacting the exhaust before it’s rear brake actuating arm reaches full stroke.

Seen from the side the lever at present is crescent shaped where in fact it should be straight so this lever is going to have to be brought back to its original form.

None of these can be said to be a major problem but all will need to be remedied before any serious riding can be undertaken.