OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Engines Questions on Other Engines Fifties / Sixties Pope Electronic Ignition

Hi all,

This is one way you can convert an earl Pope etc to pointless ignition..

1 Grind down the centre (just the 2 sides of the centre core) of the E core.

2 Dismantle the E core ,grind off the steel rivets holding the E core together then hit the pins out.( number all sheets or put in order )

3 Remove 2 metal laminated sheets of the core.( one top core and one bottom core) Discard these 2 metal core sheets.

4 Deburr the 14 E core sheets around all the edges ,especially where the centre core was ground down ,also be careful not to
bend any on the laminated core sheets, they must be flat.

The flat parts of the core sheets were deburred also especially where the rivet pins go through the sheets.


5 I painted the metal core sheets with etch primer both sides just to stop rust then I stuck 12 sheets of Polyimide Tape Adhesive
to 12 metal sheets and made a 1mm alloy C plate under the coil just to space it up 1mm because of the metal sheet that was removed.

6 I've used a Victa side pull full crank coil and turned it 180 degrees and used a Powertorque module ,the centre of the coil must
be filed out a little so it slides over the centre of the E core.

7 The alloy top round plate will need filing to clear the coil lead part of the coil.

8 My Flywheel magnets were weak so I've installed neodymium-iron-boron magnets behind the standard magnets ,I've
just got to glue them in.

9 The 2 coil mounting bolts are holding my coil together for testing but I will use brass rod and install the rivets.

That's about all you need to do ,the spark was tested and has a good blue spark but the flash on the camera may
have made the spark a little harder to see.


Cheers
Max.

Nice job Max, did you do it ,because you could not get a pope coil?
I'm lucky my both magnetos go..
I'm just waiting for two small welding jobs on my new Pope on Victa base project.
cheers
speedy

Thanks Speedy, the original coil was working ,it's just that a lot of my points mowers sit around for a while
not getting used and the next time I go to start them the points have a slightly dulled surface probably
from the cold air in the sheds and the mower won't start and then I have to dismantle the mower, clean the points
and reassemble, then the mower runs again but with the electronic ignition it has no maintenance to do and
will always start even if the mower wasn't started for decades.

Electronic ignition saves me time in the long run and costs less than replacing points and the condenser.

The old Victa full crank that I put the side start Victa coil on starts so easy you can tie the starter rope around
your little finger and slowly pull on the starter rope and it starts first go every time.I wouldn't advise anyone
try the little finger start because if the motor was to kick back you could loose your little finger.

Also my SupaSwift with a Villiers 2 stroke starts ridiculously easy with the Honda electronic coil.

The later Pope with the white 2 stroke motor should just take a Victa module to convert as I fitted
a module on a 1965 Villiers 2 stroke and it worked and that has the same coil. It's just that I find when
fitting a module to a coil that was designed for points you don't get as good spark as you do with
an electronic ignition coil.( I used a 1970 Villiers points coil on the 1965 Villiers with Powertorque module)

Cheers
Max.

The Pope was started today with the pointless ignition and ran great ,first off I started the engine with a new Champion L86C spark plug , the mower came with this plug but it was harder to start than it should have been so I switched to a Champion L10 and that was much better.

The opposite side to the magnets I installed some lead, the same weight as the magnet just to balance out the flywheel then used a small punch to squash the lead into the flywheel then glued the top of the 4 holes.

One C core that I made was cut out of an old car alloy number plate and was installed at the lowest side of the coil then I cut some brazing rod and used vice grips to squash the 2 longer ends so the coil is now riveted together.

Two other mowers I would use the same coil setup on is a Rotomo and a Hurricane.

Cheers
Max.

Very good effort there Max, a very good outcome for somebody wanting to restore an old points machine motor with a coil that has failed. Well done.

Thanks Norm, I gave the mower another run today ,I've converted all my old cars to electronic ignition since 1995 even if
I had to make a distributor fit from another model so I may as well convert all the old mowers .

The Pope starts first time every time, the only problem now is stopping the motor because I didn't put a kill
switch in and with the slide in the carby bottomed out it still takes about 10 seconds to stop.


Cheers
Max.

I've changed the L10 to a W95 T1 Bosch spark plug and the Pope is like a new mower , very little effort to start.