LD Electronic Ignitions & Advice

[JLD1]

Hi All,

I have a number of LD’s and LC’s and hoping some people may help with some electronic ignition comments.

My LD 1 - I have one LD that I purchased an EVERGREEN Varitronic (Tino Sacchi) - Lambretta LD, D 125, for. They are not the cheapest of kits, but they seem to run great. All is working OK with this and the documentation recommendations are that you run lights on all the time, to avoid overheating of the coils, if you don’t have a battery installed. The image on the kit lists it to work on LI; TV; SX’ DL’ GP; D; LD; LUI J50; CENTO; J125 & TV175 Lambrettas.

My LD 2 - I purchased another LD some time back, that seems to have a (Beed Speed) Lambretta - Electronic Kit - Li, SX, GT, TV - Product Code: BD05688 at around £168. It starts up and runs fine, but I have not taken it out on the road yet. The person I purchased this LD from was completing a rebuild and had not finished it at the time that I purchased it. I emailed Beep Speed about if I could run their electronic kits on an LD and never got a reply.

Scootopia sell a Lambretta 12v Variable DL & GP Electronic kit - Product Code: TNCUEUGA at £200 and when I emailed them, they confirmed that I should not use it on an LD and that they do not sell them for LD’s.

Question One: Is anyone using anything other than the Evergreen Varitronic, such as a Beep Speed or Scootopia (Listed as DL / GP for example) or any other kit on their LD and if yes, which one and how long for and have you had any problems?

Question Two: Like the Evergreen kit states, their kit work on a LI; TV; SX’ DL’ GP; D; LD; LUI J50; CENTO; J125 & TV175. Does anyone know why I should NOT run a kit that is compatible with the Lambretta's above (and assuming take Evergreen advice of running lights on all the time, if I don’t have a battery, and maybe upgrade lights to 12V bulb!?)

Documentation on the Evergreen also states that the flywheel bearings and crankshaft need to be good quality and if revs of the engine are increased, replace these with better quality ones to avoid crankshaft twisting. It may therefore be that you can use other makes, but suppliers may not want to take the risk of you not having good quality bearings and your using an old crankshaft and thus risk damaging your Lambretta or twisting your crankshaft?

Question Three: Based on Evergreens comments, unless I have replaced the Crankshaft and Bearings, should I avoid using an electronic kit anyway?

Any comments gratefully received. Thanks for reading.

[jbcollier]

D/LD (bevel-drive) engines rotate the opposite direction and have different size crank taper to Li/DL (chain-drive) engines. So ignition kits for the later engines will not work on the earlier engines without significant modifications. The box lists all those different applications because the company sells different versions to suit the different applications, not one version to fit them all.

[JLD1]

Hi JBCollier,

Thanks for the reply and detailed explanation. Understood and much obliged.