[cyrusb]

Just wondering how many of you pre-unit bullet owners are still running old school. I personally have been running the same set of Volkswagen points that I converted to in 2006. Thats 10k miles and they still look good. And although it only gets a 1000 or so miles a year(other bikes)it's always just one or two kicks away from ready. The only offering to the gods of speed this bike gets is either cam 2 or 100ll avgas and it loves it. The good fuel allows it to produce the FULL 18 hp

[mrunderhill1975a]

I am still using the RE points set I purchased at CMW when I re-ringed in 2016.  I have about 2000 miles on them, and it starts after one priming kick.  I have recently been using alcohol free gas which was working great until yesterday when the fuel filter plugged up.  The filter had fibrous particles in it, looked like tobacco juice,  I think someone spit snoose in my tank!!!! Did I piss off one of you guys after the comment on gear oil, helicoil? Which one of you guys chew snoose?  Fortunately, I had a spare inline filter in the tool bag.

[Otto_Ing]

Like it or not the IB is also a piece of technology. 

Bit more transparent at least.

[cyrusb]

Whats an IB?

[Otto_Ing]

Whats an IB?

Iron Barrel. 

[cyrusb]

This is what did it for me..

[Dave1]

The points on my ASBO engine have done about 3000 miles and going strong.

[cyrusb]

The points on my ASBO engine have done about 3000 miles and going strong.

And they should last many thousands of miles past that, as long as you keep some lube on the rubbing block. Breaker points are the under the least amount of duty in one lungers. I have cut a window in the points plate to keep an eye (and a spot of oil) on that low budget advance unit, but it's still fine. That old tech was never as bad as the pundits claimed, it's really a matter of how involved you want to be with your motor.

[Dave1]

And they should last many thousands of miles past that, as long as you keep some lube on the rubbing block. Breaker points are the under the least amount of duty in one lungers. I have cut a window in the points plate to keep an eye (and a spot of oil) on that low budget advance unit, but it's still fine. That old tech was never as bad as the pundits claimed, it's really a matter of how involved you want to be with your motor.

I'm good with the maintenance of my bike, including the points.

[cyrusb]

Like it or not the IB is also a piece of technology. 

So are pneumatic tires. What year is your bullet?

[RE350]

Pushing close to 20,000 miles on my '99 350 and find no reason or benefit to replace the reliable proven conventional breaker point ignition. Consider this: back when 6 and 8 cylinder cars were using points they lasted at least 10, 000 miles with one set of points opening and closing 6 to 8 times more often than a 1 cylinder. I have only replaced the points once and frankly it didn't really need them. I would consider electronic ignition more prone to sudden failure without warning rather than the gradual degradation of efficiency over many miles as the rubbing block wears or the contacts erode in the points ignition

[cyrusb]

RE350, my thoughts exactly. Combine that with a  simple carb, air cooling, solid lifters and you are in charge of that mill. The cable brakes afford the same fixable benefit. The icing on the cake on my 05 is the kickstarter, with no electric start. Your 99 is kick only too, right?  Of course all this charm comes with a price. If your going to run the interstate you will need a second bike.

[RE350]

Kick only on the 350 Bullet. I have a 75 Norton MkIII Commando for the Interstates. The Norton has an electric starter that actually works and it needs it at over 50 cubic inches combined with "Anal" carburetors and Lucas "Prince of Darkness" electrics. Many have referred to the Norton electric starter as "kick assist". The secret to making it work as a real starter is a good AGM battery and also pulling in the clutch when starting even when in neutral. Works great. No problem at all with modern batteries. I still use points on the Commando as well, but the advance mechanisms are prone to wear and can contribute to erratic idling. 

[Kevin Mahoney]

I loved the "Untainted by technology" tag line. Also loved "Y2K Compliant" and the trailing edge of technology.

I am a fan of points. Nothing against an electronic ignition, but they are totally unnecessary on the engine. Easy to set, long lasting and reliable.

[ERC]

The guy I work with has about 14,000 on his points still going strong.

[cyrusb]

I also liked the "Identity Theft Not A Problem" line . Got to thank Mahoney for the oportunity to grab the last of the living(albeit small) dinosaurs. In this era of cookie cutter, major appliance, type bikes there was nothing quite like them. Second Question; Any diesel guys left?

[scorpy]

sorry, posted on wrong thread.

[Paul W]

My 350 “Iron barrel” has no points and no distributor. It came out of the factory like that. Does that count?

[Paul W]

The only offering to the gods of speed this bike gets is either cam 2 or 100ll avgas and it loves it. The good fuel allows it to produce the FULL 18 hp

Do you run it on 100% AVGAS? Despite the ”LL” name, it still contains a whole lot of Lead. I used it mixed at a 1:5 ratio with pump unleaded to give about the same amount as what in U.K. was known as “4 Star” fuel and it worked very well on my little car with a 12:1 compression ratio. Any more lead than that is likely to cause spark plug fouling.

[Bilgemaster]

My '05 "Military" came with an electronic ignition of unknown type or origin care of a previous owner, and with a over 14,000 on it since then, I'm OK with that. That said, every other bike I've ever owned had points, and I was OK with them too.

[Karl Childers]

In my long illustrious two and one half month ownership of my 06 I have managed to reconfigure the bike but the heart remains the same with one surgery by a previous owner. Three other people have owned the bike since new, none of them had much luck at keeping it running  so in 15 years it had all of 1,800 miles on it. I believe the points to be the highly coveted Chennai originals and may go on my mantle in a display case when I change them out. The last of the previous owners, very nice guy but not big into mechanical work paid a shop a lot of money to get it running, new Amal carb, The head sent off to England where I'm not able to trace who but someone worked their magic on it.   I'm hoping some of that magic was hardened valve seats. After all that the bike barely ran for the test ride but it was all little tuning adjustments to get it to run properly again and it's been a nice runner since. My other past British bikes were all converted to Boyer Brandsen electronic ignition but I think I'll keep this one  points. So far fingers crossed, the stock coil is still doing what coils do but will get upgraded at some point. I have been lucky for years to have a gas source in my town that had no ethanol. That station just recently changed hands and the 0% ethanol gas is gone. I'm on my second tank of regular with corn squeezin's in the Enfield with no problems so far. I can't think of any rubber in the fuel system that would be effected but not the same for my beloved old 73 Ford F250 truck that surely has a number of non viton O rings in the carburetor. My other bikes are modern design fuel injection and should be OK.

[cyrusb]

Do you run it on 100% AVGAS? Despite the ”LL” name, it still contains a whole lot of Lead. I used it mixed at a 1:5 ratio with pump unleaded to give about the same amount as what in U.K. was known as “4 Star” fuel and it worked very well on my little car with a 12:1 compression ratio. Any more lead than that is likely to cause spark plug fouling.

The 100 LL turns my exhaust pipe white with lead, and that is mixed at about 50/50. If thats low lead I would hate to see Leaded! Haven't used it in the last 3 years and I sure miss that lovely aroma .

[AzCal Retred]

Anyone have experience with the 350's grease-type distributor? Any insight on how often they need a squirt?

[Paul W]

The 100 LL turns my exhaust pipe white with lead, and that is mixed at about 50/50. If thats low lead I would hate to see Leaded! Haven't used it in the last 3 years and I sure miss that lovely aroma .

The 1:5 mix I used still turned the inside of the tailpipe white! I’m surprised that the environmentalists haven’t latched onto this issue yet but AVGAS used to contain about five times as much lead as leaded gasoline did.

[Pierric]

"La Bullet" was fitted with an indian Eureca ignition system whan I got her.



I read that some export models were fitted with that system at the factory, but I guess it was not the case for mine since I also found a used points plate in the parts box left by the PO.

The bike was starting hard and I was not confident with that system, fitted by an unknown source at an unknown date. I didn't want to stay stranded on the roadside far from home due to that box failure.

I looked for the manufacturer site and instructions, and well, it is quite laconic...

https://sites.google.com/site/kbhide4/

I wrote to them to get some more info and get a price offer for a spare one, but never got an answer.

And I was even less confident when I opened the left toolbox where all the electronics has been thrown in, as if to compete with the spaghetti mix of the fork casquette...



So I decided to ged rid of the system and revert to a standard points plate.

When I dismantled the unit, I saw that it was not really in good shape. The distributor captor was peeling away and the unit looked like it had overheated (the mounter obviously didn't understand the principle of cooling fins when he decided to put it in the overpacked closed environment of the toolbox...)



After resetting the advance timing from zero, it now starts first kick and I've put 225 miles on the bike without any issue but I'm still running in the new piston, so I'll maybe still have to check my main jet choice when I can get her running faster.

(Even if the parts were still working, I decided that the 20 years old indian coil and rectifier/regulator have earned a retirement, and fitted La Bullet with a Bosch coil ref.0221119027, and a Lucas reg/rec, associated with a 6800µF/50V capacitor, following Pete Snidal advice, so to have a fully restored ignition, and the ability to start the bike with a dead battery).

[AzCal Retred]

Well done, Pierric! The main reason for having the Bullet is to enjoy the simplicity. Points are fairly idiot-proof, you can see the advance mechanism work and the points open. I had to replace my ignition advance springs on one machine as they were "soft", but they were still working. The only "I Believe" part is the condenser, and that can be tested with a multimeter or simply replaced. A handful of tools and a few component spares, you are unlikely to get stranded anywhere. Any pictures to share?

[Adrian II]

It was a sad day when Redditch stopped fitting these after the '59 season.



Here's Bullet Whisperer righting that historic wrong on my '61 350 engine.



Most Indian iron barrel Bullets will let you retro-fit the SR1, (CDI/TCI models excepted) and some of our Indian Bulleteer friends have done just that.

A.

[Pierric]

Any pictures to share?

Hello AzCal,

For some reason my original pics posting didn't show up...

So here is attached the original Eureca system, fitted then removed.

[Pierric]

And the Bosch coil, Lucas regulator and capacitor that were fitted.

[AzCal Retred]

Pierric - looks like that Eureka took some real heat damage! Nice job retrofitting the points, they are plenty good enough for the operating parameters of the Bullet engine, much more user friendly as well. Thanks for the pics - ACR -

[Pierric]

You're welcome. 

Yes, I think the overheating was the reason of an erratic behavior. When I got the bike, I soon found out that the PO was running her withour any air filter in the air box and when I resetted the ignition timing, I found out that it was originally wrongly set with too much advance (despite the timing having been done by a professional bike shop less than 300 miles ago, with a carb cleaning...).

My second guess is that they didn't diagnosed/suspected the Eureka system and, like often, confused ignition issues with carb issues, trying to mess around with the carb and air filter to correct the errand revving of the engine.

(NB : that bike shop was run by a RE distributor and a supposedly "RE specialist mechanic..."  )

An I was unhappy from the start to get a bike with an aftermarket Eureka ignition on it. I agree with you that it is a bit of an overkill accessory on such a low revving single cylinder and I prefer my Bullet still "untainted by technology" on this issue. Points are perfect for that kind of engine and their accessibility on the Enfield is just a matter of seconds. Great design.

But the capacitor is a great (and cheap) improvement. You can even kick start the bike without any battery connected. Associated with a good Rec/Reg, you got a "Powerbox" equivalent for a third of the price. And you can even argue that it is not really a technological improvement since capacitors were widely used on all 50's motorcycles.

[AzCal Retred]

The "Old Skool" 1940's Bullet tech is way too arcane & labor intensive for the 2021 mechanics. When I got my 1999 red 500 deluxe from a dealer, there was a huge list of things either misadjusted or just ignored/broken. The good news is we have some good manuals, good parts resources and a lot of "tribal knowledge" to draw on. Largely the "highly skilled Enfield mechanic" is the guy looking back at us in the mirror. The Bullet responds well to that guy if he is mechanically sympathetic.

Personally I enjoy "fettling" these old beasts, lots of big slow moving pieces, all fairly obvious in their operation, many looking like you could duplicate them with a drill press & set of files. The arcanery comes in the set up, like the timing covers, where you need to use plastigage to determine the end shim requirements for the cams & idler gears, as the timing cover gasket thicknesses have changed over the years. It's all good fun. - ACR -

[Paul W]

Retro fitting points to my iron barrel would be tricky….

[Adrian II]

Nothing a good machine shop couldn't fix. 

A.

[cyrusb]

Retro fitting points to my iron barrel would be tricky….

I find it amazing that a company that would polish some parts to perfection and leave some to look like crash damage. The inside of my lifter box looks like it was machined with an ax, but the cases are finished nicely. Just a minute more with the right grit wheel would have made all the difference in the world on that casting mod.

[AzCal Retred]

The laissez faire grind/file work was on the inside, away from the casual observers gaze. 99% of folks would never see that, and the rest are standing in line, rupees in hand in India to buy one. Like Axman88 often says, we're not the market.

[Paul W]

Nothing a good machine shop couldn't fix. 

A.

It doesn’t need fixing!

As far as the rough finish to the rear face of the inner case goes, I agree it’s very poor - but the top part of the timing case is completely empty and redundant, there were never any idler pinions or shafts fitted above the two cam wheels and the inner casing hasn’t been machined to take them. Ideally, the casings could have been redesigned above the cam wheels and truncated and rounded off and it would have looked so much nicer. I did think about sawing the casings and welding a new top plate across, but it would be time consuming and tricky to get it accurate enough to prevent leaks, especially as the standard timing cover gasket would no longer fit.

However, I think these home market 350 Bullet Electras were test beds for the then new TCI ignition setup and as the bikes were approaching the end of their production run they never took the trouble to tidy up the design of the casings.

[Adrian II]

Somewhere in Gordon May's book Made in India there's a picture of a factory prototype iron barrel engine without the timing chest extension.

I have seen a regular Bullet engine where the back of the timing chest HAS been hacked off and sealed, presumably where some after-market crank mounted ignition has been fitted. Looked really UGLY! The Bullet timing cover is iconic, I like to think that's why the factory left it on there, even for the CDI and TCI Bullets, same as Norton did with the Commando, long after side points replaced K2F magnetos on the very early models. Also, with the "distributor" Bullets still in production at that time, a common set of crankcases and timing cover probably made more sense from a production point of view.

You could always fit an empty-bodied magneto for decoration, the gaps in the crankcase casting for the magneto strap will still be there.

A.

[cyrusb]

Regardless of who the buyers are, it's the dichotomy of quality that I find odd.
Paul W, Whats up with that extra spring on your shifter?

[Paul W]

You could always fit an empty-bodied magneto for decoration, the gaps in the crankcase casting for the magneto strap will still be there.
A.

I don’t suffer from magnetophilia 

Cyrusb,

The extra spring was fitted because the gearbox was very new and tight when I bought it. I suspect it might have come from a brand new bike and possibly removed under warranty, because of a fault. On down-changes, despite my later efforts to ease everything off and four or five reassemblies, the pedal wouldn’t reliably come up far enough to reset the spring loaded finger which engages the cam plate, so it wouldn’t change down below third. I changed the existing return spring but it made no difference. It was irritating to have to play the soft shoe shuffle to avoid finding myself trying to pull out from junctions in third or second. I’ve put about twelve thousand miles on it now and it might have eased off, making the helper spring redundant but it’s OK as is. It’s easy to remove it and the only clue it was ever there would be the M5 tapped hole in the pedal.

[cyrusb]

I don’t suffer from magnetophilia 

Cyrusb,

The extra spring was fitted because the gearbox was very new and tight when I bought it. I suspect it might have come from a brand new bike and possibly removed under warranty, because of a fault. On down-changes, despite my later efforts to ease everything off and four or five reassemblies, the pedal wouldn’t reliably come up far enough to reset the spring loaded finger which engages the cam plate, so it wouldn’t change down below third. I changed the existing return spring but it made no difference. It was irritating to have to play the soft shoe shuffle to avoid finding myself trying to pull out from junctions in third or second. I’ve put about twelve thousand miles on it now and it might have eased off, making the helper spring redundant but it’s OK as is. It’s easy to remove it and the only clue it was ever there would be the M5 tapped hole in the pedal.

Ah! I feel your pain. I had a stiff shifter and kicker arm after I did the right hand conversion. I had to leave one of the two "locating?" dowels out and it works fine. Still kicking myself for not just boring and bushing my stock cover. In fact after I received the kit it was obvious all the parts were already there with just a little lathe and drill work.

[Paul W]

Ah! I feel your pain. I had a stiff shifter and kicker arm after I did the right hand conversion. I had to leave one of the two "locating?" dowels out and it works fine. Still kicking myself for not just boring and bushing my stock cover. In fact after I received the kit it was obvious all the parts were already there with just a little lathe and drill work.

I did my own conversion because the commercially available one (!) was far too expensive for my liking. It cost me about £50, half of that for parts, which were very easy to source and £25 to have the outer cover bored out to suit a top hat bush. The most difficult part was shortening and remaking the gear change shaft from the original. Had RE not turned down the diameter of the original and left it a constant diameter right along its length it would have been far easier. As it was I had to cut off the little lever and braze it back on in a different place. Since my conversion I’ve discovered that Hitchcock’s actually list a right hand change shaft, but it’s expensive.

[cyrusb]

Heres a blast from the Iron Barrel Only past. I don't remember his handle but I stole his avatar. Back then there was even a couple of ladies on the site!! I believe Bugcatcher was one of them.

[cyrusb]

Hate to be running on, but when I put the Scotch down I remembered a caution I have announced years before. Have all you "untainted " riders out there checked your comp release valve retention pin lately? My '05 was half way gone in 2010. It's an easy check just follow it out with another similar diameter rod. Or, you can rope the cylinder. I ended up using a tractor spring pin, it was temporary but is still there 10 years later. Anyway, its something to look at. I was surprised how lousy the metallurgy is with these bikes, but hey, if it was easy any moron would have one, right?

[Adrian II]

Untainted by quality? Now there's another topic. 

I'll just retreat to a safe distance. Tierra del Fuego ought to do.

A.

[cyrusb]

Untainted by quality? Now there's another topic. 

I'll just retreat to a safe distance. Tierra del Fuego ought to do.

A.

Yes, Tierra del Fuego will do. But check that comp release pin just for the hell of it.
  I don't know what causes the wear, perhaps the oscillation of the cylinder pressures but mine was half wore out at 9k miles.

[AzCal Retred]

To CyrusB @ 43: +100....
" but hey, if it was easy any moron would have one, right? " Amen, brother! 

[Pierric]

But it looks easy...
... And that's how you inherit a Bullet that has been messed around by a sunday DIY...

[Paul W]

I bought a boxful of assorted split pins some years ago and have bought a spare TCI box, pickup sensor and wiring harness, so I suppose I cater for a possible lack of quality with quantity.

The only other parts that might fail are the coil and the magneto rotor and the chance of those failing would be about the same as on a points equipped bike.

[cyrusb]

The sometimes dodgy metallurgy aside, I would guess that the jigs, fixtures and patterns used to manufacture Bullet Originals were getting long in the tooth and loose in the tolerance. With the UCE on the near horizon there would be no reason to replace them. The alloy bits were sand cast, the fuel tank was torch welded. I have wondered why my tank DOESN'T leak! So many pieces. No other commercially available bike is made this way and thats why I like it.

[ddavidv]

But it looks easy...
... And that's how you inherit a Bullet that has been messed around by a sunday DIY...

(raises hand)
Mine came with the head in a box and a lot of PO DIY deletes to set it right.