The Royal Enfield Bullet Blog
Monday, January 31, 2005
Drive Train
I'll be doing a bunch of work on the drive train in the coming weeks. I hope to document it with plenty of pics so I can finally add another section of maintenence info on the Bullet Blog.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
The Great Ride
I've been lax in updating this site, in particular from the technical perspective. However I do have some news relating the mechanical condition of my Bullet, some upcoming work I will do on it, and plans for an extensive riding adventure this coming summer.
General Mechanical State:
At 3800 miles or thereabouts my 2001 500 KS is doing pretty well. Some things are worn out that need to be fixed: the left hand shift linkage bushings wore (or fell) out causing a rather frustrating tendency for the foot shift lever to stay in a depressed condition when switching down through the gears. It leads to trickier shifting than is ideal.
One day after work my kickstart spring broke and during the replacement of it I dug deeper, opening up the inner gearcase and having a sludgefest with the 00 grease that they pack the transmission with; I also checked the kickstart pawl.
After putting everything back together I have had difficulty going from 2nd to 3rd gear. Sometimes it just won't go at all and I have to disengage and reengage the clutch multiple times before it'll pop into 3rd.
I'm hoping that it is only the worn out or missing bushings, since that can cause misshifts; when I replace them I will see if I have to go in and mess with the footstop and ratchet shift mechanism.
One other thing is that the stock electrical connectors on the Bullet aren't very good. Wires become disconnected suddenly and give rise to all sorts of bizarre electrical issues. I'm going to replace all of the connectors with some that my motorcycle maintenance teacher swears by. I can't remember what the part number is or the manufacturer at the moment, when I find out and after I verify their quality I'll recommend about them in a separate post.
I have also noted clutch slippage when rapidly increasing throttle when resistance is offered to forward momentum in higher gears (up a hill or strong headwind). This may have started because of not having had (or still not having) the clutch cable quite loose enough.
Upgrades:
I'm trying to rely on the Bullet to ride periodically to Fort Worth where my wife is attending medical school. It's a great ride (see Eastern Comanche Run for some notes on the route).
The only real problem is that the Bullet is not comfortable cruising at 70 mph stock. I feel that the rider has to push the RPM too high. There are people who push it that hard, but I think there is pretty substantial anecdotal evidence that running with a 17t sprocket at 70 mph often damages the motor (piston seizure, valve train failure, etc).
With that idea in mind I'm going to change the drive train such that the layshaft has a 19t sprocket on it. Because of the extra torque on the clutch (and because of the slippage mentioned above) I'm going to put in new friction and drive plates and heavy-duty springs. Then I will see ... it may be that additional gear tweaking is needed, perhaps lowering 1st gear some so I don't lug down taking off from full stops.
I hope to use a camera to document the work for a future post.
Summer Plans:
During summer 2005 I plan on riding my Bullet from Comanche lands to Crazy Horse country. I'm going to camp as much as possible and stick to the back roads. I will cover much of the Indian trails of the Penahterkuh (southern) Comanche areas (central Texas), cruise up through the northern Comanche areas of the Texas panhandle and Oklahoma; I will visit the Washita River battle site; cruise up through Colorado and then pick up the Bozeman trail near Cheyenne Wyoming where the Grattan massacre in 1859 began the famous Sioux indian wars which culminated in the battle of the Little Bighorn and the subsequent piecemeal defeat of the divided Sioux and Cheyenne tribes.
My goal on the northern plains is the Powder River country and then on up to the Yellowstone. I will carefully document all the routes I take and keep the Bullet Blog updated as often as I can along the way.
I hope to recount a tremendous amount of Amerindian history and hopefully have some adventures of my own to relate.
One the way back from the Missouri (if I make it that high up), I'll cut down through the Dakotas and Nebraska, Kansas, and then through Oklahoma on the way back to Texas. At the very least I'll be able to provide a really solid web guide to motorcycling the back roads of the a significant part of the great plains, with lots of pictures and hopefully good information on interesting places to see, good places to eat and drink, and maybe even discover some of the mystic places that the Amerindians called home.
General Mechanical State:
At 3800 miles or thereabouts my 2001 500 KS is doing pretty well. Some things are worn out that need to be fixed: the left hand shift linkage bushings wore (or fell) out causing a rather frustrating tendency for the foot shift lever to stay in a depressed condition when switching down through the gears. It leads to trickier shifting than is ideal.
One day after work my kickstart spring broke and during the replacement of it I dug deeper, opening up the inner gearcase and having a sludgefest with the 00 grease that they pack the transmission with; I also checked the kickstart pawl.
After putting everything back together I have had difficulty going from 2nd to 3rd gear. Sometimes it just won't go at all and I have to disengage and reengage the clutch multiple times before it'll pop into 3rd.
I'm hoping that it is only the worn out or missing bushings, since that can cause misshifts; when I replace them I will see if I have to go in and mess with the footstop and ratchet shift mechanism.
One other thing is that the stock electrical connectors on the Bullet aren't very good. Wires become disconnected suddenly and give rise to all sorts of bizarre electrical issues. I'm going to replace all of the connectors with some that my motorcycle maintenance teacher swears by. I can't remember what the part number is or the manufacturer at the moment, when I find out and after I verify their quality I'll recommend about them in a separate post.
I have also noted clutch slippage when rapidly increasing throttle when resistance is offered to forward momentum in higher gears (up a hill or strong headwind). This may have started because of not having had (or still not having) the clutch cable quite loose enough.
Upgrades:
I'm trying to rely on the Bullet to ride periodically to Fort Worth where my wife is attending medical school. It's a great ride (see Eastern Comanche Run for some notes on the route).
The only real problem is that the Bullet is not comfortable cruising at 70 mph stock. I feel that the rider has to push the RPM too high. There are people who push it that hard, but I think there is pretty substantial anecdotal evidence that running with a 17t sprocket at 70 mph often damages the motor (piston seizure, valve train failure, etc).
With that idea in mind I'm going to change the drive train such that the layshaft has a 19t sprocket on it. Because of the extra torque on the clutch (and because of the slippage mentioned above) I'm going to put in new friction and drive plates and heavy-duty springs. Then I will see ... it may be that additional gear tweaking is needed, perhaps lowering 1st gear some so I don't lug down taking off from full stops.
I hope to use a camera to document the work for a future post.
Summer Plans:
During summer 2005 I plan on riding my Bullet from Comanche lands to Crazy Horse country. I'm going to camp as much as possible and stick to the back roads. I will cover much of the Indian trails of the Penahterkuh (southern) Comanche areas (central Texas), cruise up through the northern Comanche areas of the Texas panhandle and Oklahoma; I will visit the Washita River battle site; cruise up through Colorado and then pick up the Bozeman trail near Cheyenne Wyoming where the Grattan massacre in 1859 began the famous Sioux indian wars which culminated in the battle of the Little Bighorn and the subsequent piecemeal defeat of the divided Sioux and Cheyenne tribes.
My goal on the northern plains is the Powder River country and then on up to the Yellowstone. I will carefully document all the routes I take and keep the Bullet Blog updated as often as I can along the way.
I hope to recount a tremendous amount of Amerindian history and hopefully have some adventures of my own to relate.
One the way back from the Missouri (if I make it that high up), I'll cut down through the Dakotas and Nebraska, Kansas, and then through Oklahoma on the way back to Texas. At the very least I'll be able to provide a really solid web guide to motorcycling the back roads of the a significant part of the great plains, with lots of pictures and hopefully good information on interesting places to see, good places to eat and drink, and maybe even discover some of the mystic places that the Amerindians called home.
