My New Plan

[AgentX]

Should I start a new thread with pics of the bike?  I think a lot of people might be more interested in the baby than in the 3-page mass of labor pains that is this thread.

Not that it's actually done, but still...

[GreenMachine]

AgentX - love the pics..Brings back lots of memories...So the color is like a gray/greenish military color...Its looking great being put to together on the sidewalk...Lots of assembly work done that way especially in old Delhi..Hey I thought I saw that old tire I threw out in that mishmash pile.....Looks like u having lots of fun...Keep up the pics and can't wait to see the finished running product...I'm assuming u going to bring it back with you or to your onward assignment or in storage?...

[AgentX]

That's the idea.  As a 1977 it should be importable to US without restriction.  Plan is to swap for clip-ons and fully rear-set the pegs, then Fireball it.  (Either modding the cases to accept a 500 barrel/head or just trading the 350 for a 500.)

Just started a new thread with pics of it built(ish).  Figured more people'd be interested in a "hey, look at the bike!" thread than this ramble...

[Okie Enfield]

Those pics are awesome!..........

[AgentX]

(Now an older pic but not much has changed except the shocks and some license plates...)



After a long battle, it's now set up with an alloy barrel and a 5-spd right-shift transmission, and working through the break-in.  Slapped adjustable Hagons on there, too.

And it got a few treats today...

-Got a proper linkage rigged up on my rearset to replace the flipped-backwards shifter I'd been running; was too short and not shifting well for a few reasons.  Looks more professional than anything else on the bike and shifts amazingly.  I lost the one-up-four-down pattern I wanted to run, but am just happy I can ride it without a problem now.

-Adjusted my points gap, which fixed a bunch of problems I was attributing to an overly rich pilot jet.  Still gotta re-jet but the bike is behaving much better in the meantime.

-Opened my primary to seek the source of a bit of occasional disconcerting noise and grinding sensation.  Found the chain adjuster had slipped, and the primary was running too slack.  Then noticed that the chain adjuster has a provision for an underside adjuster bolt...my previous "mechanic" had not used one and the adjuster was collapsed to the slackest position.  Got a bicycle chainring bolt from my parts box and voila, I'm no longer having nightmares about my alternator or clutch detonating.

-Sanded and hand-painted (ie, poorly) a chrome exhaust strut to match the green frame.

Still need to:

-Obtain new fork sliders and install my cartridge emulator valves

-Re-jet the pilot

-Seal up the reducers between my muffler and header, which allow some exhaust to puff out.

-Re-locate rearsets to a more mid-set position.  Could be difficult based in where I wanna have them.  Don't want to weld tabs on the frame so maybe I'll just leave as-is...this is why the guy who was supposed to mid-set them put them where they are in the first place!

-Change my contact breaker unit, as this one just seems to have seen better days.  All the fixing nuts are chewed up beyond usefulness and the points look a bit ground down.

-Rig up a shorter rear brake actuating arm to help scale it down to work better; the rearset "arm" isn't as tall as the stock brake lever.  Should be able to cut off the forked adjuster barrel end, drill a 6mm hole in the stub of the actuator, and run a rod with quick-disconnect clevis ends on both sides to tie it all together.

-Receive, paint, and install new swingarm...this one seems a bit twisted to the left, and the fork ends were seemingly partially ground out by someone at some point for some unknown reason.

-Try to find an inner chaincase that will let me mount my stator directly to it...the arrangement in the current one uses a sort of adapter ring which is torture to deal with.  When you bolt the stator to the ring, it precludes access to the cap screws that fix the adapter to the chaincase.  But if you fix the ring to the chaincase first, you can no longer access one of the bolt heads which attaches the stator to the ring!

-Go to a high-quality plug and coil

-Try in earnest to mount a plastic tire licker for use in the monsoon season.

-Eventually, re-wire this whole sucker.  Everything was set up by the "mechanic" in Indian fashion...wires twisted together, no solder or positive connections, everything in a real rat's nest.  I do have the deluxe package, though...lots of electrical tape covering it all!

-While I'm at that, obtain a tail light with brake light capacity and rig up the switch in the tool box.

-Decide, eventually, if I want to keep the cafe/tracker tail or go with a more vintage flat-tracker look using a fender and solo seat.  If I keep the tail section I'm gonna look at a more elegant mounting solution.

[Arizoni]

I've heard that owning a Royal Enfield Bullet can give the owner something to do with his spare time.

Rather than just sitting there on your butt, you really need to start thinking about some projects for you to do to the bike.
Something that might make the bike run a little better or perhaps, be a little more dependable.

I'm sure you could find something.


(Boo-ha-ha-ha-ha.  Hee-hee-hee.) 

[AgentX]

I've heard that owning a Royal Enfield Bullet can give the owner something to do with his spare time.

Rather than just sitting there on your butt, you really need to start thinking about some projects for you to do to the bike.
Something that might make the bike run a little better or perhaps, be a little more dependable.

I'm sure you could find something.


(Boo-ha-ha-ha-ha.  Hee-hee-hee.) 

yuup.  I forgot that I adjusted the valves yesterday too...

[AgentX]

Made the first long ride today.  Hit 70mph briefly, even.  (An optimistic speedo 70...should try with GPS.)

I am smitten with the bike now.  It's been agonizing, and still is, but truly fun and rewarding.  Miles to go, still, to get it perfect, but one step at a time.

Will put up something in ride reports when I get more pix from my buddy.

[ace.cafe]

Looks nice!
Glad that you got the mixture sorted better. 70mph is pretty good for a 350.

Once you get smitten by the Bullet, it never goes away. It's pretty much unique, even among Brit singles. It has a "certain something".

[boggy]

Hey, looks great AX!
Has a really great stance to it.  Like how open it looks.  Seems like you had to make some custom welds to get that straight seat over the electronics?  Fenderless rear looks awesome... makes it look tough.  Rear tool-boxes set it apart from any other tracker.  As I've mentioned before, love the sans-nacelle look.  Shiny pipe looks good too against all the drab.

Looks kick ass man.  Nice work.
Boggy

[AgentX]

Thanks, gents.

Ace, the mix is still a work in progress, but I am learning.

Boggy, the seat sub-frame is simply a piece of angle iron cut/bent/welded into a cross-brace of appropriate height that bolts onto the eyelets in the frame.  It has struts to the rear shock mounts to stabilize it, and a strip of bent metal at the top which engages the interior curve of the seat hump.  Seat has threaded mounting holes built in, so it's just bolted onto the frame.  Incredibly crude but seems effective.  Front of the seat has prongs (unit is designed for an old Yamaha) which engage a small metal "t" welded just aft of the tank.

I do like the stance of the bike--am using slightly longer shocks to tighten up the angles and raise it a bit.

Bike still has the interior fender in back which protects the engine et. al. from spray, but I am going to get a small alloy fender-tip thing made up to follow the curve of the back of the seat hump.  Really needs a bit more mud-catching ability; I have a permanent skunk-stripe of road gunk and mud on my jacket.   Just need a little more length on the back, and this should maintain and even improve the look.  Tail light will be a small lucas-style one just on the underside of the fender tip

Next step is a disc brake up front!  I really didn't want to go there, but I wanted to replace my fork sliders.  The oil seal threads are shot and I can't find a good way to repair them, and the only genuine RE option available new is the disc fork.  (Tired of mucking around with aftermarket and crapped-out used junk.)  Damned cheap here so I might as well do it.  I am almost tempted to buy some nice alloy rims to go along with the disc conversion, but don't know if I can bring myself to spend the cash right now.

Also have some electrical upgrades to do.  NField gear had an up-rated alternator for sale and I scored a Boyer Powerbox cheap.  Bosch coil also on its way.

Installed a new swingarm today, but it doesn't seem to have fixed the bike's alignment problem.  Maybe it lies in the QD drive unit I am using (retro-fitted to the 1977) or the whole frame is misaligned.  If so I guess I'll live with it until I'm back in the States and the bike gets a full tear-down...then maybe a specialist could re-align it, right?

Am guessing it's the QD, though, since it seems to be a problem with the axle itself being not square to the rest of the frame.  Didn't notice anything which seemed to be off in the framewhen swapping the swingarm itself.

Got a minor primary leak now which is annoying me.  Cleaned the rubber ring seal but it's still seeping.  Maybe from the back, I am guessing.

[Ducati Scotty]

X, I'm thinking about mounting the same rearsets to my UCE C5, and I'm shooting for a middle position as well.  Could you post some close up pics of what you have now just so I can see?  I'm gathering/fabricating parts to mount them.  I'll be sure to share whatever I put together with you.  I think it will actually be a pretty simple thing to copy once it's all done.

Scotte

[AgentX]

Closest thing I have to a decent pic at the moment is this:



1) mount is a cylinder (slightly cone-shaped, I surmise, to wedge in solidly as the bolt tightens) bolted through the passenger peg mount.  Welded to the cylinder is a tab coming forward, which gives adequate clearance from the frame and gets them forward of the toolboxes.  This was fabbed by the mechanic who did the original assembly on the bike and I haven't messed with it, so I'm not really sure exactly how it looks when disassembled from the frame.  The method seems kinda sketchy in theory but has been rock-solid so far.  You can see he drilled out an adjustable positive stop for the actuator, as well.  I'm no longer using this.

2) The brake rod shown here came off a small Japanese or Indian bike.  It incorporates a spring arrangement to deal with rearward motion of the actuator arm when the bike bounces.  I'm not using it anymore; switched to the standard threaded-rod-inside-aluminum-tube actuator that most oldschool-style rearsets are using, but am having real trouble with the clearance of the brake arm around the mounting bolt.  (see how it's bent here?)  Might order a bent linkage rod from fastfromthepast or something.

3)  leverage: you get a lot less leverage from the shorter lever-end actuator compared to the standard brake.  And if you leave the drum actuator at its stock length, you have decent power but have to push the lever way too far to get it, IMHO.  So I shortened the brake drum actuator as well, to preserve similar ratios to stock...will have to show a pic to explain exactly what I did.  Now my power is kind of pathetic but the travel is short and feel is firm.  Still working on getting this right.

4)  Folding:  You really want folding pegs for purposes of kickstarter clearance

There's a company in India selling rearsets with mounting brackets (and a whole cafe body kit, kinda aesthetically clumsy IMHO) ready-made. Know nothing about them but you could try them--  Sans classic, inc.

All in all, this peg positioning is further back than I wanted for a street-tracker but less aggressive than I'd want for a cafe racer.  Does the job, though, and I have enough other stuff to mess with right now.

Ideally, for a mid-set, I'd want the peg to be concentric with the brake arm mounting boss on the frame, just under the swingarm pivot on the left-hand side.  Right side has nothing on there, though.

Welding tabs on would be the simplest mounting method, welding aside, but there are enough tabs on there already that you could get someone to cut a sheet-steel bracket out somehow that would bolt to some existing bosses on the frame and give you a peg mounting surface exactly where you want.

[Ducati Scotty]

Thanks for the pic.  I have the same concerns about the leverage on the rear brake.  I figure I'll need to move the mount point on the rear lever like you did.  My brake is on the right so I need to worry about clearance above the exhaust pipe for the pedal too.

I'm hoping to be able to position mounting plates for the rearsets between the swingarm pivot and the rear lower engine mount bolts.  I'm guessing you have similar mount points on your frame so you ma be able to do the same.

Scott

[ace.cafe]

That rearset control looks like a Tarozzi two-piece.
Can you just move that chrome lever part to the outer face of the rearset foot control, for more clearance from the frame.
Does it have to be on the inside face of the foot lever?