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By Wheaters
#81182
"Wheaters, the 350 home market Electra of that vintage is basically the classic 350 Bullet with a mostly standard crankshaft, they just used a different drive side mainshaft for the TCI type alternator with a tapered mounting. The 350 Electra was a very popular model in India and the factory kept it going for a while longer in UCE form."

I'm afraid that's not totally clarified my understanding because my knowledge of RE manufacturing history isn't sufficient to know for certain what the terms "classic" and "standard" actually mean in this context. Do you mean my bike does have a potentially troublesome type of bottom end, or not? Folk here refer to an "improved" setup - does that mean improved from the troublesome type, or just a different spec. fitted only to the Electra-X 500 cc engine (and not really improved at all - in fact just the opposite)?

I hope my bike has an aluminium conrod with steel bearing inserts and a floating ring between them and is not of the later, more troublesome type - is this correct?
Thanks.
By bumpkin
#81183
Adrian it might not never go and the engine is sweet and goes very well but don't really want to keep spending money on it or thinking what's going to break next, plus i have other bikes to ride.
By Norm
#81184
bumpkin, you have a wonderful Electra there if it is running sweet, remember this is the best time to sell it while it is like this, unless you have bought it from a previous owner who has fitted a Hitchcocks bottom end in it, if not dump it.
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By Adrian
#81185
Wheaters,



what I mean by the classic Bullet engine is the original 350 (1956 type) 350 cc design which Enfield India built originally under licence from the British Royal Enfield company. As a 350 it was a perfectly good design. The bottom end is built up from a pair of steel flywheels and separate mainshafts, the big end has a floating (free to rotate) plain bush instead of a roller or needle roller bearing, this runs between the steel crank pin and a steel outer track pressed into the alloy con-rod.



This set-up was absolutely fine on most 350 Bullets for many years, the con-rods are usually OK until you get to the 500 version of the engine where they can get over-stressed with more enthusiastic use, this was a problem with Redditch as well as Indian 500 Bullets. As yours is a 350 roadster, in original trim, I suspect, and you're not racing the thing, you can relax, your engine will most likely not be wrecked by the con-rod letting go or a failing big end spraying bits of crankpin or needle roller bearing around. Also because of the sheer numbers of 350 Bullets still around you should be able to get spares indefinitely when the big-end finally does need replacing.



The AVL Bullet 350 and later 500 engines were a partial redesign with significant differences to the original Bullet engines. While they were intended to improve on the engines' strength in order to cope with lean burn running conditions, poor manufacturing of an otherwise good design meant that one of the major improvements actually became a source of further problems. None of this affects your 350 Electra.

bumpkin,



there you go, two conflicting bits of advice, choose one or neither!



A.
User avatar
By Wheaters
#81188
Adrian, you have confirmed what I originally thought about my 350 - Thank you.

I wanted to be sure because I have modified the top end slightly and obviously didn't want to be riding around on a bike with a hand grenade bottom end, especially as it's approaching the 8,000 mile mark.

It now has a hardened exhaust valve seat (the Indian original was about as hard as lead), causing the valve clearance to tighten right up to less than zero and lose compression every time I rode the bike. While the head was off I opened out and gas flowed the ports and advanced the inlet cam by one tooth. I also fitted a reverse cone megaphone and upjetted the carb. It is now perfectly rideable on the motorway as it will now easily overtake HGVs, which it had no chance of doing before. Latest mod is to replace the (very loud) megaphone with a Hitchcock's "Goldstar pattern" (slightly less loud) silencer.
By ric
#81191
Adrian, I think it may have been limited to the early bikes. The Indian factory wouldn't have made any assembly line changes until after they had started receiving all those damaged engine parts back.
I am aware of a late 2007 model which probably had its 50,000 mile service this winter, perhaps either a very lucky owner or his big end had been already subjected to the later hardening process which has kept it fault free so far, despite the fact the bike is usually ridden quite firmly. ric
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By Adrian
#81192
Yes bumpkin, I know the Electra-X is a 500, I was trying to clear up Wheaters' uncertainty over his Electra (non-X), which is a totally different bike, and that one IS a 350. The factory could have called the 500 something like The Grenade In Waiting to avoid confusion with the home market 350 Electra, but then it wouldn't have sold. Will you be advertising yours in the for sale section here, and if so for how much?



Wheaters, your 350 should be fine with that lot. If you don't get on with the Goldie loudener, I'd suggest our hosts' short Indian silencer catalogue no. 112162, and the longer exhaust pipe to suit, 144055, as a good compromise with a nice but not overpoweringly blatty exhaust note and reasonable performance.



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