Hitchcocks Forum

Hi I have fitted the H one piece alloy barrels to my Mk 2 Interceptor. The engine sounds a lot more "tappety" than usual. Can the tappet clearance be reduced with these or is it just more resonance from the fins? Or am I imagining things?? Thanks Duffy

Duffy, A year or so back, I fitted an alloy barrel to my 1996 500 and also found it much louder, seeming to transmit more noise, I guess, from the top end. Even with correctly adjusted tappets there’s still a lot of noise to focus. As a result, I fitted the ‘toothed’ rubber strips on the finning, the ones that are common on the modern Enfields and found they did indeed reduce the noise.

Throughout my ride today of 150km I couldn’t understand why the bike was so ‘rattley’- until I read your post. Then I realised I had omitted to replace the strips after I removed them yesterday for cleaning - they’ll go back on immediately.
Note though, that some people have reported here that they found little effect from these rubbers, but not in my case. Cheers, ChrisD.

Those rubber plugs do make an engine quieter; or maybe I`m going deaf?