I agree with side valve be careful and have it apart, things to lookout for on some mags is the spark gap protecter, if not removed will break a bit out of the insulation of the pickup ring and the odd carbon earthing brush so just ask but don’t touch any part if you are a bodger with poor tools it will only cost you lots. I would say multi metre is a waist of time, unless someone is paying you to use it. A known good condenser and magnet with clean points and give it a spin and if it works. I will make most things on the mechanical side and get the coils rewound and magnets re-magnetised. However we have lost most of the really good re-wind boys, I had two coils done a few years back, one lasted 300 miles and the other about a thousand, and the magnetiser was nowhere near powerful enough, magnetising is like staining surface of wood with a brush and not done properly will very soon loose its strength, and unbeknown to me they had both coils fail they done first time and never told me they then glued and baked the two fibre boards on that hold the pickup, so to get them done again would need new parts making, there are some supposedly experts out there but idiots in not looking to understand how things are made or put together and work. I am now back on dated 1916 coils that are still going and they have had almost constant use for 108 years. Bit on the Splitdorf, there early system used a engine driven dynamo, dash mounted coil, started on battery and then changed over, so no problems starting the early large car engines like the aircraft engines, the later Splitdorf Dixie is extremely superior away ahead to any mag made back then as the coil units do not rotate and can if need be changed in minutes, with coil and points moving as one unit they can run on full retard ignition all day without doing damage to the coil and still produce a very good spark as they had to back then as most were hand started and the self starters were size of a small car engine today turning very slow, so mag is turning at 50rpm at idle. The down fall of the Splitdorf and many early mags today parts are made of Zinc die-cast so you just have to make parts. someone said they are Poler induction? that’s why they are better, to me parts are turned through 90% but inside work no differently and just make and break the magnetic field.
