[NewOne]

Hey Guys

I Just Bougth A 1985 Royal Enfield Bullet 500. It Has The Amal 389 Carb(Maybe They All Do?).

I Was Out Riding It, And Suddenly When Idling In Neutral In An Intersection, It Went "Bang". A Lot Of Smoke Came Out The Air Filter, And It Stopped.

I Opened Up The Carb(Since The Smoke Originated There), But I Could't Find Anything Wrong. No Carbon Deposits, Noting Out Of The Ordinary

I Tried Starting It Again, But It Will Not Run, With Kick Starter Or With A "Run And Go". When It Fires, Its Only Once Or Twice With A Loud "Bang", And It's Dead Again.

Could Anyone Help A New Royal Enfield Enthusiast?

[ace.cafe]

Hi,
Your bike is out of tune.
You should get a workshop manual, and go through the entire tune up process, so you know how to do it. You'll be doing a lot of it.
Then, we can discuss things with you in an intelligent manner, when you have some idea about how to go about doing things.

I cannot help you with the Amal carb. The stock bikes have Mikarb(Mikuni copy) carbs, and I mostly use real Mikuni carbs. I could tell you about them, but not about an Amal.

My guess is that the carb is too lean, causing that backfire. But it could be combined with other things such as ignition tune issues, so it is advised to start at the beginning of the tuning process and make sure that everything is set as it is supposed to. Then we can troubleshoot or help fine tune it with you on the forum.

Welcome to the forum!
And BTW, your bike is an Iron Barrel type, so you should post this in the Bullet Iron Barrel part of the forum, so that more people with your model Bullet will see it and respond.
 

[Ice]

 Hello NewOne, welcome aboard and congrats on your Bullet !

 If yours was made in 1985 then that would make it an Iron Barrel so lets start by directing you to the I.B. section.  And we can ask sight staff to RElocate this thread there too.
https://forum.classicmotorworks.com/index.php/board,2.0.html

 Then there will likely be a flurry of questions as folks try to help you trouble shoot you Bullet by long distance.

 Do you have a Work Shop / Factory Manual for the machine ?

Edit

NewOne, may I ask what country you and your Bullet reside in ?

[NewOne]

Hi and thanks for the answers. I'm a BSA person(the 40's bikes), but I wanted something I could use as an everyday bike(but still with charm). Therefore, the iron baroll/other name is new to me. If a forum moderator could move the thread, it would be appreciated.

I'm Norwegian, and the bullet was Indian from 85-95, and then imported to Norway. The plan is to fix it up(rescued from a barn) and get it trustworthy as the everyday bike.


I don't got a manual, but i'm not that bad of a googler, so i hope i will find something useful

[Ice]

 Norway, fantastic !
 That piece of information right there helps eliminate the US spec import bikes from the equation.

 Was the bike a dealer import or personal import ?

 Yes with a bit of work the Iron Barrel can be a wonderful everyday bike.

Mine likes to be ridden every day and gives no problems  .....unless
(a) I let it sit un ridden 
 or
(b) I push it beyond it's performance envelope 

 Besides Iron Barrel our engines are also sometimes called CI ( Cast Iron) and Three Box ( engine, primary chain case and transmission)

 Feel free to post pictures 

[pknopp]

 Have you pulled your plug yet and had a look? (Rule #2...always carry a new fresh plug). Rule #1 is as stated above....make sure everything is set up right.

[NewOne]

New spark plugs are bought today, even though the old one wasnt that bad.

I found a ok video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZsvKZM5oaY) that showes how too make my bike fire correctly, so i will try to do replicate the process shown. I't says that you should have the spark aprox with the piston clearing 0.8 mm to the top position, is this a logic number? The old BSA's is more try/fail fixing....

When I'm off work, I'm going to tune the ignition, hopefully its the source of problems.

[Mr.Mazza]

Yep, the plug should spark 0.8mm before TDC.

[NewOne]

Thanks for the quick answer!

Since I have an amal 389 carb, and this isn't stock, does anyone else have experience with this carb+engine combination?

[NewOne]

I'm sorry to say guys, I found the problem(attached picture)

let me cry for a couple of days

[dginfw]

might not be too bad...
it could just be the adjuster on the pushrod,  or maybe need a whole new pushrod,  but its definitely repairable

[pknopp]

 Yeah, could be far worse.

[NewOne]

Yeah, it could always be worse, but with the winter coming, it means that I woun't be able to ride it before march/april again.

But then again, I was planning to to a complete fix during the winter, and why not start with the engine

[dginfw]

That repair could be done in one session if you have all the parts/gasket ahead of time.
1-remove tank
2- remove rocker cover
3-remove rocker assembly
4-lift pushrod out
then reverse order with new part

[tooseevee]

That repair could be done in one session if you have all the parts/gasket ahead of time.
1-remove tank
2- remove rocker cover
3-remove rocker assembly
4-lift pushrod out
then reverse order with new part

           Not positive about Ironhead, but on the AVL you can slide a new pushrod in without removing the rocker.