Re: Flywheel Magnets (six of them)
The splined hub part of the flywheel. It separates from the outer flywheel on some with a flexplate. On most of the 40 amp flywheels, it's solidly built in. There is a smooth cover over the magnets.
The trigger is under the stator. It isn't any where near the flywheel magnets that run the stator.
hope it helps
John
The center hub of the flywheel houses two sets of magnets in layers. The lower set is oriented with opposite polarity of the upper. This why with 3 trigger coils you get six trigger pulses in a single rotation.
The magnets attached to the outer portion of the flywheel either by glue or screws have a dual function in that they serve both the stator charging coils for the battery and the stator ignition coils, (not to be confused with the coils connected directly to the spark plug wires).
There are two sets of ignition coils. One set is for low speed operation and the other for high speed operation and some point around 2000 RPM both are functional but only as the transition from low to high is occuring.
When a magnet passes over the ignition coil it creates a voltage of a certain amount that charges the capacitor in the switchbox. The desire is that the switch box capacitor be at full charge when the trigger voltage is produced that causes the switch in the switch box to close and allows the voltage from the capacitor to flow to the spark plug coil.
If the magnets are improperly adjusted there is the possibility that the trigger will fire before the capacitor is fully charged and the result would be a reduced spark or possibly no spark at all. This would be most common in the 9 amp stators but can also occur in the 16's and 40's.
40 amp flywheels have removable center hubs that can be adjusted to compensate for magnet placement problems. The 16 amp flywheels may or may not have them so the 16 and 9 amp stators are adjusted by moving them one screw hole in either direction. The 40 amp stators are fixed position when installed correctly and cannot be adjusted so you would move the center hub instead.
Newer 40 amp flywheels are sometimes marked with a white dot to indicate where the stator should be in relation to the flywheel.
Late additon edit: Forgot to mention this but if you have a timing light with an advance feature, you can set your max timing (WOT) then adjust the advance feature to that number and try to hit "0". If your stator or your magnets are off, it won't hold steady because you'll be misfiring and possibly double firing the spark plug coils. Just to add another wild and crazy merc ignition problem to the list..
