[Troy74]

Hi I have a 2001 bullet 350 Electra - I'm trying to work out exactly what type of model I have - I thought electra meant it had electric start but mine only has kick - is it an iron barrel my model or an AVL engine  ? Mine also has a front drum brake and right side 4 speed shifter. Any help would be greatly appreciated

[tooseevee]

Hi I have a 2001 bullet 350 Electra - I'm trying to work out exactly what type of model I have - I thought electra meant it had electric start but mine only has kick - is it an iron barrel my model or an AVL engine  ? Mine also has a front drum brake and right side 4 speed shifter. Any help would be greatly appreciated

    It is an Iron Head & It Is A Beauty!! 

   

[Adrian II]

Hi Troy,

what you have there is the very early model 4 speed 350 Electra. They were never marketed in Europe or the USA, but there are a few private imports around. The Electra model name was give for its crankshaft-driven CDI electronic ignition. It is definitely an iron barrel, though you can still buy after-market alloy barrels for them, just to confuse people.

Later versions replaced the CDI ignition with TCI ignition (Paul W who posts on the forum has one), later still the factory added the 5-speed gearbox and an electric start.

The 500 Electra-X is a different bike altogether, 500cc lean-burn engine, 5 speed gearbox with left-foot gear shift, disc front brake, and some controversial re-styling.

Mechanically your bike shares most of its components with the normal iron barrel 350, except that there are no ignition timing gears or distributor, and it has a different alternator with one of the charging coils replaced by a CDI coil. All the CDI parts are still available from India if replacements are needed.

Let us know (in the iron barrel section!) how you get on with it.

A.

[Paul W]

Yes, it looks like my bike, which was sold on the Indian home market. It appears that a small number were imported to U.K,  mine is a 2004 registered one.

I bought it with only 3,100 miles on the clock, but had seen four previous owners. My first surprise was that Hitchcock’s didn’t recognise it and tried to sell me an o ring seal for the primary chaincase instead of the “AVL” type gasket it needs. I had to show the salesperson a photo before he believed me.

It would initially lose all compression every 50-100 miles or so because it had a very soft exhaust valve seat, causing the valve to sink into the head and the tappet clearance was lost. I had a new hardened seat fitted, which cured it.

I then discovered that it would cut out and die after a few seconds, if I gave it full throttle. By the time I’d coasted to a halt it would start first kick. By turning off the fuel tap after it cut out I soon realised that it was emptying the carburettor float bowl faster than it could fill up. If I didn’t switch the fuel off it filled up again in a few seconds. Having spent many hours fault finding the entire fuel system and ultrasonic cleaning the carb three or four times I gave up on it and ordered a different one, only then to discover a hidden manufacturing quality fault with the original - a piece of casting metal stuck up inside the float chamber inlet, below the needle jet, where a thread had been cut. Once poked clear, it worked perfectly.

Since then it’s been very reliable and has always got me to my destination, even after suffering throttle cable breaks twice and a clutch cable on another occasion (riding a kickstart only bike for twenty miles in busy traffic with no clutch is interesting).

It’s always intrigued me that RE never bothered to change the timing cases after they got rid of the entire distributor and its drive cogs, leaving the case completely empty above the camshafts. It’s not possible to check the ignition base timing on these engines because there is no place to access the timing marks with the outer primary case fitted and because the alternator/magneto stator is bolted to it, the bike won’t run with the case taken off!

[Troy74]

Hi there
Well thanks for clearing that up for me folks, I was struggling to work out the exact model and knew this was a place to try! So someone asked how I'm getting on with it ? Well let's say it's not been a great start !

So firstly I'm an Englishman in Sweden and I bought this bike 3 weeks ago from a dealer who mostly sells Harleys - I bought it blind without seeing it as it was a good reviewed dealer, it looked in great condition with on 3500km on it - he said it came from a customer as a trade in and they supposedly went through it and gave a full service - so put a deposit and picked it up 3 weeks ago by trailer as it needed inspection and wasn't road legal.

When I got there I got is started on the second kick but it didn't have a stable idle - the dealer said it may have bad gas as it's 23 year old bike that's been sitting a few years in storage.

So let's just say I probably made a couple of mistakes trusting the guy as after a week of it simply struggle to idle and running lean I decided to go through it and found they certainly did not service it fully as the air filter must have been 20 years old - the spark plug too looked like the original.

So don't get me wrong I actually love this Bullet , it's the second one I've owned and when I can get it to idle a little and take it for a ride it's everything I love about riding. Great sound, great feel, great looks, feels like a riders bike.

But it is having running issues and I'm getting worried now I'm cooking the piston. It won't idle stable at all, feels like it's got a vacuum leak but cannot locate one. I've set the Mikuni 24 carb as per spec and it just runs super lean and splutters and coughs and idle is all over the place. Have tried different fuels, new spark plug, new fuel line, pulled the carb, cleaned it, jets all clean and looking knew, floats seem to be functioning as they should. Does feel like bike is either revving high or bogs down, not sure if air is leaning the mixture or it's starving of fuel. Seems to be ok on the throttle but just won't idle. I can be riding along steadily in top gear pull up to some traffic lights pull the clutch in and the engine is racing , the next time it bogs down and cuts out.

Such a low mileage bike was not expecting such issues - don't mind trying to solve them, that's part of owning vintage technology but this is starting to stump me. I suspected bad ignition timing because of the hot white spark plug but would that cause this erratic over revving and bogging down idle ? Another thing the enricher choke plunger doesn't go down completely - in the pic I'll attach is supposed to be closed -(arrow 1) it clicks up and clicks back down to this position - I thought it maybe it was supposed to close flush to the base - maybe not ? Also the little brass protrusion in the pic (arrow 2) (there's one on the other side of the carb) are these supposed to be sealed or exposed like this ? And lastly the pollution hose thing (arrow 3) doesn't have any fastening where it attaches to the pipe on the intake it's just loosely slipped on  - is that right ?

Now I'm scratching my head

[Troy74]

Here's the phot of my carb

[tooseevee]

Here's the phot of my carb

           I don't know what that fitting is for on the manifold spacer. Is it an extra adjustable air intake point from that clear tube?

      That's a real beauty of a bike. You gotta get it running good 

[Adrian II]

That's part of the anti-pollution kit tooseevee, there is quite possibly a pulse air valve lurking in one of the toolboxes and a hose to an air feed into the top end of the exhaust pipe, not sure exactly when that lot was introduced, but it can all be junked, MAKING SURE that any holes in the inlet and exhaust tracts are securely plugged. That extra spacer can just be removed, make sure there's a good seal on the carbuettor flange. If that thing HAS been leaking air in, it most certainly will not help with the mixture.

It's also worth checking that the c'r*p Indian fuel tap is letting enough petrol through, and that the vent hole in the fuel tank filler cap isn't blocked by dirt, or the little maze for the air to get in isn't lined up with the vents incorrectly.

Ignition timing is fixed on these.

It’s always intrigued me that RE never bothered to change the timing cases after they got rid of the entire distributor and its drive cogs, leaving the case completely empty above the camshafts.

That would have meant new crankcase and timing cover castings, Paul. Easler just to keep them with a bit less machining required. Also the timing cover was a bit of a style icon, which is presumably why Nortons kept the crankcase and timing cover shape on the Commando, long after magnetos and distributors were replaced by side-points.

A.

[Troy74]

Ok I was wondering if that pesky anti-pollution gismo was messing up all the gubbins - it wouldn't surprise me if that was the culprit - I might delete it and see what happens next. Thanks so much for the input here guys - it's been very helpful. I'll check back in in the iron barrel side when I've tried and tested your suggestions ! 

[Paul W]

The valve 3) is the auxiliary air valve. It doesn’t have an emissions purpose and the tube is open ended. It’s for allowing more air into the engine at idle presumably for tuning the idle at very high altitudes (this is a home market bike so might be useful if you live in the Himalayan mountains…). Either screw it right in tight, so there’s no air leak, or just remove the entire thing. If you do remove it you’ll need shorter studs because the threaded part on the originals doesn’t extend far enough down their length.

Been there!

[Paul W]

By the way, I thought the original air intake setup was awful and like yours, needed work. The connecting hose to the carb was completely rotten and the air filter collapsed with age. I simply fitted a cone type filter directly on the carb instead. More money in Mr Hitchcock’s kitty, bigger jets etc then needed due to better airflow…

Btw, once you get them sorted, these bikes can be made to go quickly!

Here’s mine..

https://youtu.be/If47Pnkgfrs?si=NwWQwO4QUaGYmTBj

[Troy74]

The valve 3) is the auxiliary air valve. It doesn’t have an emissions purpose and the tube is open ended. It’s for allowing more air into the engine at idle presumably for tuning the idle at very high altitudes (this is a home market bike so might be useful if you live in the Himalayan mountains…). Either screw it right in tight, so there’s no air leak, or just remove the entire thing. If you do remove it you’ll need shorter studs because the threaded part on the originals doesn’t extend far enough down their length.

Been there!

Ok I thought this was something to do with this anti-pollution system ? So that valve just lets in more air ? That could explain a lot !

[Paul W]

No, on other models it may have an emissions function, but if you look in the air box you’ll see it’s open ended. Presumably they led a pipe into the air box so that it doesn’t pull in road dirt. Pointless keeping it, tbh. Mine lives in a box (along with the Mikcarb).

I’ve since gas flowed my cylinder head and fitted a Wassell 26R concentric carb, which gives more performance. The cylinder head inlet port is almost at 26mm anyway, rather than the 24mm of the factory fitted carb.

[Troy74]

Ok - so hears my concern ! It looks like this extra pollution / air valve modification on my bike has obviously been there since manufacture and so it looks like the previous owner has been running this bike from new very lean - in fact I remembered the dealer said the previous owner brought it regularly complaining about poor idle etc and they tried to reset the carb to factory specs to get an idle ( not aware that the pollution / e yea intake air valve has been messing with the settings)  and so the idle has been set to a very lean mixture. Its been running like this since knew for 3672 km. so I'm to assume running lean for this amount of time has done some long term damage to the engine internals right ?

[Paul W]

It would only affect the idle mixture, or at worst low speed running, simply because the amount of “extra” air the valve allows isn’t significant once the throttle is opened.

It’s very doubtful that any damage has been caused, only inconvenience to the previous owner!