Hitchcocks Forum

I put the head back on a 350 Bullet last week that has been off for quite some time and once I started it it had oil coming out of places you could not imagine. This is an early Bullet, one of the ones shipped to India for assembly there. It has had an Indian rebuild, (probably several) At first I just assumed it was wet sumped and after a while the smoke died down and all looked good. Piston kept at TDC overnight but next morning the same deal, wet sumped again. I haven't pulled the timing cover but I now assume that it doesn't have a seal on the timing side, just the bronze bush type seal. I guess there isn't any quick easy fix for this as the bike is for sale except pulling it down and machining the case to take a seal. This is todays plan

Good luck with it Norm.. I don't have machines to do machining on, so this sort of thing would stop me dead in my tracks...

I'd check the scavenge side of the pump if I were you Norm. I had an old Bullet and whilst it would wet sump badly if left for a week or more it was fine if used on a regular basis.

I have made half a dozen or so 'anti wet sumping valves' to help address this problem. Three of these are on our own Bullets - a Redditch 500, Redditch 350 and Indian 500, another local Indian 500 has also been fitted with one. They all work in stopping any seepage from the oil tank, through the oil pump and big end. They don't have any control over residual oil in the timing case getting into the crankcase, but this is usually a much smaller amount of oil in any case, compared to what might get in from the tank. Cheers, Paul.

Hi Norm, with any luck it will be just the cork seal in the worm nut gone for a burton.

That would allow the timing chest to drain into the sump overnight regardless of piston/crank position.

Test the pump return at the banjo's to reassure, but sounds like its doing its job if the smoke clears after a few minutes..

Crankcase pressure bubbling up through the timing chest oil may give rise to some interesting leak symptoms would have thought...

Hope its simple, good luck mate.. gwilly

Thanks for the advice and as it turned out was an easy fix, don't run the bike on the sidestand. Inexperienced owner lol He brought it back I started it up, no smoke and then just in conversation he said it was on the sidestand when he had it running. Hi Paul any tips on how you fitted the anti wet sumping valve. Not a lot of room in there to work with.

Here's a pic for starters, Norm [check out the quill bolt] Cheers, Paul.

http://i956.photobucket.com/albums/ae50 ... fitted.jpg

Still wet sumping, I'll pull the motor, split the cases and machine it for a seal, at least then I can eliminate that from the problem

I suppose it is wet sumping and not just a blocked breather system? I managed to obscure a whole street with smoke, and oil pumped from every join when my breather pipes became blocked.

Hi Frank, no chance there, this is an early one with only a duckbill straight of the bolt on under barrel breather. There was a bucket load of oil pumped out of that when I first got it started. It is always a problem with these bikes that are "rebuilt in India" you always have to expect the worst and you wont be dissapointed. Everywhere you look they are worn out or just plain butchered