As it says really...

what's a magneto? why don;t you need a battery? are there any advantages? can you forgive the dumb questions?

How Stuff Works

Old Brit bikes had Lucas or BTH magnetos like this.....



that had a set of points and an advance/retard system built in. They were driven off a gear off the cranckshaft so they whizzed round with the engine and produced the sparks. You could adjust the advance/retard via a cable, like a choke cable, on the bars for easier starting and low speed running.

To test one, remove the HT lead and stick your finger in the hole. The spin the mag by hand

Ahh, the same method as used in testing a meat grinder then

that a flywheel magneto , that one is off a kawasaki 2 stroke single, the points are at the top in between the two coils, the condenser is the cylinder type thing at the bottom of the plate, on a honda the points and condenser could be elsewhere, ie points are mounted on a plate using a cam , the condensers mounted near the coils, the honda idea was better because you have to remove the flywheel to change the points....flywheel need a puller to remove it! some ppl try using hammers and levers, this smashes the magnets in the flywheel
little tip, SOMETIMES the rear wheel spindle fits the threads where a flywheel extractor goes

would you say that they are preferable to batteries then?

thing with bikes that will run without batteries is they can be easier to steal, it often only needs one wire isolating to get them running so battery is much better, most modern bikes use batteries, they have rev limiter, engine management, electric fuel pumps, a lot of imported bikes have electronic restricters in the rev counters for different countries laws

Whats a Magneto?


This answer your question?




















Sorry- couldn't resist