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Post war British hard tail goodness


Flauski

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Apparently 1965 is not satisfying enough for me. No point having two 650cc bikes abd I always wanted an old hard tail.

Enter 1947 Royal Enfield model G

 

20140701_174814.jpg

First thing I did was remove Lycett b1tch seat and pegs and HUMUNGUS front guard.

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This old girl just thumps along, anyone who has ridden an old single knows they are not fast! Has something like 6:1 compression ratio and a top speed of 67mph but that seems far fetched. I doubt it could keep up with a Honda cb100.

Starting procedure in manual cracks me up;

Turn on petrol

Depress tickler on carb

Close the air lever (choke)

Slightly retard the ignition (mag/dyno lever)

Open throttle about 1/8th

And smartly Depress Kickstart lever

Same bike was used during WWII although telescopic forks came our after the war. A lot of surplus bikes were repainted and sold to public so this bike could have seen services to the war at some point

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There was an old NZ trick with the 350cc BSA B31 witch was to use a 750cc Triumph Bonneville piston witch increased the compression and took the engine out to a 409cc

 

Maby you could shove some domed top piston in this bike?

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...

Carb woes.

 

 

It had a Amal 276, presumed the right one - wrong.

 

Carb fitted was a Amal 276AU/1BE , apparently for some old Norton ES2? It is 1 + 1/16th in size for a 500cc.

 

By absolute fluke whilst trawling Ebay, I stumbled across the correct carb - Amal 276BL/1A , which is 15/16ths in size. Got it for $10 USD!

 

No wonder the previous owner said it ran rich.

 

Turns out jet blocks are completely different. Bike should start a lot easier hopefully.

 

Photos for comparison (old = top, correct/new = bottom;

 

20141031_205126.jpg

 

Jet block differences;

 

20141031_205156.jpg

 

And I just love the look of these old things with the remote floats;

 

20141031_205652.jpg

 

Now to get the correct jets and replace the hard as fibre gaskets.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Spend a good few hours using a tank sealing kit from POR15, awesome but time consuming!

 

Got plenty of new bits on there way from Hitchcocks in UK.

 

Had to remove primary chain cover to get re powder coated anyway and glad I did.

 

Primary engine sprocket is average, chips out of teeth and the sprocket itself has a large crack in it  :(

Lucky it is one of the new bits I was able to get out of UK.

 

20141125_163612.jpg

 

 

Then clutch in all its basic goodness , needs new plates + linings. I am also going to adapt a Royal Enfield bullet clutch (which has 6 springs) to replace the 3 spring setup.

 

 

20141125_164010.jpg

 

AND THEN, took off the primary inner cover to find the GEARBOX sprocket rooted as well  :(

 

20141125_163724.jpg

 

I would say when the bike was restored the old owner did not realise you could get new bits for these still so has used the best bits he had.

 

Got so many bike projects I am thinking of doing a multi post on all of them. In about three weeks, after the last exam of my life, I will finally be able to spend more of my own time on them (well between family and house repairs.)

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  • 4 months later...

Finally this has seen some action.

 

New clutch plates / friction liner;

 

20150420_160659.jpg

 

Replaced the mismatched / sized studs holding down the rocker gear. Cleaned up all the stud threads in the head.

 

I thought one stud was snapped in the hole, no, just a poor attempt at solving a problem.

 

This thing is so agricultural they didn't even drill the stud holes to the same length.. but problem solved.

 

20150420_123857.jpg

 

Then I tore my hair out once I finished fitting up the chain case / clutch / new gearbox/engine sprockets.

 

When kicked over, there was an oil leak around the crank. Some time in a manual (useless) and a search on the internet of specific part numbers led me to discover there was a rubber seal missing that fits around the engine sprocket duh!

 

Ultimately that meant I had to pull everything off again - sprocket, clutch, chain, inner chain case (which means to slacken chain I first had to slacken chain to rear wheel so gearbox could be moved blah blah blah.) I also noticed that the inner chain case cover was out of alignment with chain so used some washers to space accordingly.

 

Sometimes the most basic things can still be complicated. Doesn't help that there are some backwards friggin nut/thread sizes, if you think switching between metric and imperial is a pain in the ass, try adding British standard fine (BSF), whitworth  and British standard cycle (BSC) !!!!!!!!!!

 

Yay no leak!

 

20150423_114326.jpg

 

 

Also fitted up an Amal 626 carb which is more reliable and should make bike easier to start than the pre-monoblock (which I will still keep as it needs work to slide.)

 

 20150423_114358.jpg

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Even the manual doesn't mention that it is a better idea to kick it over until you feel compression at TDC, then use exhaust valve decompression lever under clutch lever to kick it just past TDC. Gotta be the same amount of steps as starting a plane!

I didn't replace primary chain, it was in really good condition. It doesn't have the pitch stamped on it but I will try find out.

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aw yep chur. no stress, just wondering how people go finding old-british-shit equivalents these days. ariel has had decomp and timing adjust removed, makes for the odd starting mishap. yeah fishing around for some good compression to start on haha! starting time is indicated by gas hosing out where any two parts of the carb meet. not that it's started recently, or will any time soon.

those old photos are so sweet.

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