After whinging to my club mates about some of the issues I was having with the bike, Wayne from Classic Gasoline (who worked on my Tatra and DKW at various times) said bring it around and we'll have a look at it. Wayne has Vape ignition on several of his bikes and he felt he would be able to quickly nut out the issue.
It's much easier to solve these problems quickly when you have adult supervision. Kim and Gavin get stuck into it.
After some fiddling around with the Vape, a good, strong spark was achieved. This highlighted there were problems with the carburetor.
The carburetor was removed and cleaned with an ultrasonic cleaner - note the underlying bronze content of the Amal carb is exposed. The needle jet was misplaced and needed to be refitted. This was undoubtedly caused when I was trying to refit the choke slide. The choke itself was revealed to be a problem as the cable works in the reverse direction you would expect. What looks like 'choke off' is actually 'choke on.' This would explain some of the hard starting and choking out issues. Additionally we noted that the choke always wants to go 'on', springing back into the 'on' position by itself. There is a spring issue there to resolve.
With the carb largely sorted out (the choke spring still to be fixed), the engine would fire up easily and run but after a few minutes the carb would silt up with rust and dirt from the tank. Kim took the tank back to his workshop to have it cleaned up.
Electrical engineer Gavin set to work on the bikes confusing electrics. The bike is currently set up with the electrics running off the Vape magneto (no battery), but we've decided to fit a battery and kill-switch and wire in the horn and brake light. We are using the new wiring harness from https://www.motorradmeistermilz.de/
Once those jobs are done, the bike should be able to run. Everything else is mainly cosmetic - is fitting the chain guard and the speedometer cables. This where it pays to be in a club where you have access to people with actual, practical skills. It would have taken me ages of hit-and-miss, trial-and-error, repairs, with no guarantee that I'd be on the right path. Wayne, Kim and Gavin each have their specific skills and experience and were able to quickly identify the issue and the best path forward. Thank you guys!
Step One of the restoration effort: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2024/08/1938-dkw-sb350-restoration-progress.html
Acquisition: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2024/07/1938-dkw-sb350.html
