Well, about 20 meters anyway… Now I have finished reengineering the steering column (see post) I have repainted the steering tube and finished the installation. This has certainly made it easier driving the car in and out of the garage, as previously the steering column was not fully secured and had significant play.
A couple of other electrical gremlins have been diagnosed. Firstly, the idiot light from the dynamo was not illuminating at all. This should come on when cranking the engine, but go off when the dynamo is charging the battery. Whilst I suspect my dynamo is faulty, it should still illuminate. After some head scratching and thinking the electrics through a bit more, I connected the a switched positive to the bulb, instead of the negative. This then lit up straight away and stayed on – suggesting the next fault now sits with the dynamo.
The last issue solved, or at least diagnosed, in my recent splurge in the garage is the tachometer, which was reading way too high. No matter what the engine was doing, the rev counter showed 2-3 time what I was expecting. For example, on idle it was reading around 2,500 to 3,000 RPM. I proved that it was not the tachometer, as I have different brand spare, which was also making the same reading.
My assumption is that the coil is fried, as I also notice that it gets quite hot after only a couple of minutes. So that is a new coil and dynamo that needs to be ordered and fitted…