2003 Royal Enfield 500 Deluxe

After playing with the old rings yesterday, spent much of this morning setting gaps on the new rings. Bit tedious filing them by hand but happy they're reasonably square n correct. Spec is quoted at .015 to .039 so I've set them all at .016 to .017, just to be sure they won't nip up. No photos coz there ain't much to show.

Then fun in the Sun making a base gasket

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And ended that day like this


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The piston circlips are those horrid wire ones - anybody know the trick for fitting 'em? I always struggle, scratch and scrape the piston, get annoyed with the circlip and meself in equal measure. And hope the effin thing gives up and pops into place before I give up. The humorous moment today - funny in hindsight - was second clip, being fitted in situ on the bike, made its bid to go into orbit. Found the little blighter under the table in the dark corner of the garage. Fitting the barrel quite easy, well, slightly easier than one-armed wallpaper-hanging, due to a generous lead-in in the cylinder base.

But from here on, it's onwards and upwards.
 
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Raymond said:
After playing with the old rings yesterday, spent much of this morning setting gaps on the new rings. Bit tedious filing them by hand but happy they're reasonably square n correct. Spec is quoted at .015 to .039 so I've set them all at .016 to .017, just to be sure they won't nip up. No photos coz there ain't much to show.

Then fun in the Sun making a base gasket

View attachment 329504View attachment 329505


And ended that day like this


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The piston circlips are those horrid wire ones - anybody know the trick for fitting 'em? I always struggle, scratch and scrape the piston, get annoyed with the circlip and meself in equal measure. And hope the effin thing gives up and pops into place before I give up. The humorous moment today - funny in hindsight - was second clip, being fitted in situ on the bike, made its bid to go into orbit. Found the little blighter under the table in the dark corner of the garage. Fitting the barrel quite easy, well, slightly easier than one-armed wallpaper-hanging, due to a generous lead-in in the cylinder base.

But from here on, it's onwards and upwards.
Click to expand...
I must say, that's an impressive use of ALL of the gasket material sheet. Waste not, want not... eh? :cheers:
Save that circle in the middle of the base gasket cutout, looks enough for the XS side filter cover.
 
Today, attention turns to the cylinder head, and in particular the new over-size exhaust valve. Is this old skool enough for ya?

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My workstation for this morning.

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Apparently, the OE exhaust valve is a weak point, Hitchcocks has done some research and supplies a 1mm wider valve, UK made, which they say has a better supported head and pretty much eliminates failures. The seat doesn't need to be recut but seems like a good idea to at least grind it in.

Must say, the seat looks like one of them photos of the far side of the moon. So I'll be sat here for a while until it's smooth or I get sick of it twiddlin' . . .
 
Plans change, huh? After writing the last, took another gander at Hitchcocks' website and found 'we recommend re cutting the valve seat to suit the new valve'.

Oh well, easiest way to get the bike back on the road is shove the old valve back in. Cleaned up the old exhaust and inlet valves, bit of lapping, the exhaust seat looks a lot less lunar landscape now. New valve? Will look into obtaining a valve seat cutter, job for the next time I'm in there.

Oh dear, sounding like a Bullet owner already . . .

 
Sun still shining in the Scottish Borders.

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Valves shoved back in. Big step forward, then a step backwards when I tried to anneal the copper head gasket. Which was not in fact copper but composite - two thin sheets of copper sandwiching sommat else which burned with a horrid stink.

So I might have to use the head gasket, looks to be a similar composite, from the suspiciously inexpensive complete gasket set bought from India.
 
So, decided to press on and use the gasket from the cheap set.


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Good progress? Well, yes, but slow. From time to time make miss-steps and have to retrace. Head is just sittin' there - torque it down tomorrow. But fitted the pushrods and rockers.

The plate that's removed below the cylinder is the tappet cover. Just think about that - complete ease of access to adjust the valves. An XS650 is not bad, at least the tappet covers can be accessed without dismantling too much but lots of modern bikes, you got to pull half the bike apart to get to the valve adjusters.

And the adjustment itself? I'm not that far on yet, but all you have to do is work a pair of spanners to loosen locknut & adjuster and fiddle wiv it till there's no perceptible up-down play but the pushrod is still free to turn. Simple.

Blimey, at this rate I'll be out on the Bullet this year.
 
Raymond said:
at least the tappet covers can be accessed without dismantling too much but lots of modern bikes, you got to pull half the bike apart to get to the valve adjusters.
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Tell me about it. And to think that one of the reasons I chose my new bike was because I could do my own valve adjustments. It’s a two day job for me! 😢
 
Raymond said:
And the adjustment itself? I'm not that far on yet, but all you have to do is work a pair of spanners to loosen locknut & adjuster and fiddle wiv it till there's no perceptible up-down play but the pushrod is still free to turn. Simple.
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Reminds me of the first time I did valves on an Iron Head Sportster, also adjustable pushrods, loosen lock nut, run it open till all play is removed and loosen till there is "noticeable shake" (from the factory manual) and tighten lock nut.
 
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Not like a Lycoming IO-360 wide deck....
You install the pushrod, measure your clearance, look on a chart.... and get on the phone to order the part number pushrod the chart sez you need. Wait a week or two for it to arrive and hope to hell you measured correctly. Yeah.... much fun. :banghead:
 
The Bullet lives.


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Nailed all the bits on - rocker box covers, external oil lines, exhaust, etc. Had almost no fun putting the tank back - I really must have a think, buy new hardware, endeavor to make fitting it less of a schlep. Likewise the seat, though I'm so used to that particular rigmarole.

But then there really was nothing else to do except start 'er up. Took a good few kicks, but didn't mind coz it was hopefully pushing oil around. Then it was the familiar chuff-chuff-chuff. Ran it for a minute, killed it with the decomp, started up again, ran it a couple of minutes, killed it again.

Loosened one of the oil feed banjos at the head and it leaked so that's alright then.

Next will be running in. Oh, and fixing the horn's little problem - comes on with the ignition switch so had to pull one of its wires off. Need to fix it - bike is nearly due for its MOT.

But a brilliant day.
 
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Raymond said:
The Bullet lives.


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Nailed all the bits on - rocker box covers, external oil lines, exhaust, etc. Had almost no fun putting the tank back - I really must have a think, buy new hardware, endeavor to make fitting it less of a schlep. Likewise the seat, though I'm so used to that particular rigmarole.

But then there really was nothing else to do except start 'er up. Took a good few kicks, but didn't mind coz it was hopefully pushing oil around. Then it was the familiar chuff-chuff-chuff. Ran it for a minute, killed it with the decomp, started up again, ran it a couple of minutes, killed it again.

Loosened one of the oil feed banjos at the head and it leaked so that's alright then.

Next will be running in. Oh, and fixing the horn's little problem - comes on with the ignition switch so had to pull one of its wires off. Need to fix it - bike is nearly due for its MOT.

But a brilliant day.
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Job well done Raymond. Good to see it up and running again.
 
What a beauty, Raymond! I was in Chennai in '99 and a Dutch guy in our guesthouse had just picked up a brand new 500 straight from the factory and was doing some final assembly. He planned a trip across India with it and then wanted to ship it home partially disassembled in a box . Maybe it was also a smart move to reduce the import duty .. in any case, it was a real bargain. I was totally thrilled to see such a gorgeous time capsule in untouched condition. Unfortunately I didn't have room for it at the time, otherwise I would have done the same thing. But we had a lot of fun sharing our enthusiasm for this kind of motorcycles 🤩
 
Gentlemen, thank you all!

@eidemaddin, you are so right - the wee Bullet is a time capsule. Looks like a museum piece, and although it was manufactured in 2002 it delivers the authentic 1940s riding experience. Complete with right-foot, one-up and three-down gear change. Very civilised, bouncing up-and-down in the sprung saddle, chuffing along, nodding to onlookers.

To me it's a an old-fashioned toy but one you can actually get on and ride. I've said it before but riding the 500 is laugh out loud ridiculous.

But a long list of things that still need sorting. Horn is top priority, bike is due for MOT inspection by 11th July and will need to fix before the bike is submitted.

Then there's the tank mounting - holes in frame and tank don't fully line up, so the bolts have to be tapped through with a mallet, leading to chewed threads. And much cussing. New hardware and perhaps judicious use of file to open holes in the tank slightly?

But will get on with running-in. After posting the above, started the engine again and on a whim rode up through the village to the car park then home again. Less than a mile. Plan is to use the bike for lots of short runs, let the engine work fairly hard but shut down before it can over-heat.
 
Yes, the tolerances in Indian manufacturing may not necessarily match Japanese standards 😇 But this mainly concerns body parts and you can get beautiful old vehicles from this country whose technology has been carefully adapted to current requirements.

My wife is a great fan of the old Vespa PX, but doesn't like the loud and smoking engine that much. What could be more obvious than the Indian LML, which is identical to the PX, but with a four-stroke engine specially developed by the manufacturer. These scooters are quiet long-strokes and consume virtually nothing. The tolerances here are also as you describe, but they are good-natured and reliable beauties. Unfortunately, the company perished during the "Arab Spring" due to strong currency fluctuations (Egypt was the main export country).

I think a carefully used round file should solve your tank problem. By the way, my '69 Guzzi is shifted and braked in the same way as your Bullet and to be honest I was a bit scared of it at first, but I was surprised at how quickly you can get used to it - and vice versa : )
 
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