Hitchcocks Forum

Evening chaps, can you help please? Over the winter i stripped the top end down and decoked, replaced a valve which had a bent stem, lh piston rings replaced as one was broken, new gaskets all round. Started her up yesterday and she ticked over wonderfully. Got the engine nice and hot then re-torqued cyclinder head bolts. From then on very difficult to start, lumpy running, and the lh plug is very sooty....do hope i dont have to strip her down again! Your comments most welcome, sitting here in my shed with laptop in anticipation!

Any smoke from the LH or does it have siamese pipes? Clean the plug and try again? Inlet manifold leak? I had one a couple of years ago that ran on one cylinder, believe it or not on a single carby with a manifold leak. Did my head for a couple of days

Have you checked tappet clearances? Enfield Twins run very tight tappet gaps as standard and torquing the heads down might have tightened them up?

Regards, Mark

Mark/Norm, a big thank you! Checked the tappets today(first time I have done this on the connie) and they were all pretty tight so i backed them off to the smallest gap my feeler gauge would go (2 thou) and started her up and purrs like an overweight kitten!I know the manual says nil clearance but I figured introducing a very small gap would at least tell me if that was the problem. Am I ok to leave it on those clearances? It sounds fine.

Good news! 2 thou is fine, there is an old saying that a rattly tappet is a happy tappet. See what the noise is like when seriously hot and decide then, quite a few folk run a little clearance,

REgards, Mark

On my Inter I just tuck my knees in tight against the tank and then I can't hear them

Hiya. i have been watching this thread hoping to see your fix. As my super meteor starts and runs beautifully at idle but when setting off with it. it misses on one cylinder for the first mile or 2. Then she is fine. i think i will check my tappets again. Cheers ed