Later still (about 54 ish) we start to see the first of the 'HALF ROUND RIMMED' baseplates, but this time the flywheels have been left 'rough' in the spoked area. Some of these ignitions still have the 'better finished flywheels', same numbering sequence too.

Later flywheels seem to be left 'rough' with a more rounded appearance to the spokes, but still FLAT where it needs to be for the flywheel cover.įrom the earlier (post war) baseplates with NO RIM on the bottom, to the second generation 'rimless', flywheels follow a similar set of changes.Īt around 50-51 the baseplate changes from the 'flat top' to what i term as the 'second generation rimless' type. If you have one to hand, take a look and you'll see it's almost as if someone has spent time actually grinding away the casting flash from the spokes. There are other ways of identifying how old a flywheel is, or from which time period it belongs to.Įarly villiers flywheels from around 46 up to about 50-51 seem to be finished much better on the 'spoked' area compared to later flywheels. it fits in very well with the rest of my research) (i tend to work on a 3 month variable for this to allow for the BS workers to fill the order books. There probably would have been a slight delay of a month or so from the magneto being completed by Villiers, and the magneto actually being fitted to a seagull at the BS works. The last 3 or 4 numbers are what gives you the actual build date of that particular magneto.īear in mind that BS were probably ordering 100's of magnetos at a time direct from Villiers, so the numbers on the flywheels don't necessarily mean they correspond to the ENGINE SERIAL NUMBER as well.

The 'R63-A61M' part of the number is a generic numbering system used by villiers.

Villiers engine serial numbers