Hitchcocks Forum

Good afternoon All
I am new to the site so please be gentle with me
I have not had a bike for a few years now and with midlife well and truly here I thought it was time to take the plunge, I have been looking at 500 Bullets for some time, and finally put a deposit on one last night and collect it Saturday, it is in very nice condition and apparently was part of someone's collection but not used just displayed it is a 1991 model, my question is it was drained of all fluids not sure why but when I start the servicing and recommisioning next week is there anything on the engine side I need to prep before start up, it will have all new oil filter and sump plugs ect, it turns over freely and has very good compression with the decompressor left
any advice would be a great help
many thanks Dave.

Kicking it over a few times with the ignition and petrol off with the sparking plug removed should circulate the oil. There are various methods of ensuring that which I dare say someone else will come along and explain.

Check the inside of the petrol tank for corrosion and loose bits of rust. If in doubt, I would remove it and give it a good old rinse and shake with some petrol and a few small stones just to make sure it's ok.

Thank you guys

I think my concern was more on the oil system to start with, if there is anything that might need priming or that tends to stick for long periods

Welcome to a very helpful and knowledgeable RE owners community (I've learned a great deal here)! The Bullet oil pump, being of the plunger type, doesn't pass a large volume of oil. The recommendation is to soak the new oil filter in clean engine oil before fitting it. Hitchcocks also sell a simple packing device (turned ally round bar and a round magnet which slide inside the filter assembly) which reduce the volume of oil needed to fill the filter chamber after an oil change. Wish I'd known about this earlier - I had to kick my bike over for ages after a top end rebuild until oil appeared up the top of the return pipe and I was happy to start it. You can also partly fill the timing case through the side aperture for adjusting the valve clearances. Then put the remainder of the measured amount of oil in the filler for the reservoir.

I would check the quill seal, and whilst it is removed you can prime the big end down through the centre of the quill with an oil can or syringe etc. at the same time turning the engine over will prime the oil pump and you will see the supply at the quill. Oil to the big end is the most important thing to ensure.

My concern would be is why buy a bike you have obviously not heard running?

You could ask if anyone with Knowledge from this forum, and there is plenty of them if they live near you, and you might get an offer of some guidance.

I like to prime the oilways before starting a rebuilt (and therefore dry) motor. To do this I loosen the quill bolt and the banjo bolts on the oilways going to the cylinder head. There are two options I take, one is to kick it over repeatedly. This will take a very long time to prime the oilways but you will develop huge quadriceps muscles.



The other is to remove the sparkplug, put it in gear and take it for a "walk", pushing it round a local housing estate. The higher the gear, the easier it will be to walk but the longer it will take to prime. I walk it round keeping an eye on the quill bolt until I see oil coming out then nip it up. That's the feed side primed. I then continue until I see oil at the rocker bolts and nip those up. That's the scavenge primed.



Then I'd think about starting it. It can take a surprisingly long time so stick at it. Our hosts often quote it can take 2 minutes at a fast idle to get oil to the rockers on a freshly rebuilt bike (so that's what, 5 or 6,000 revolutions or the engine). Idling is another way to do it but you'd have used a lot of assembly oil on a freshly rebuilt bike, yours could be quite dry.



A starter roller would be perfect for this job but unless you're racing bikes, I doubt you'll have access to one.

All thank you very much for all the very useful replies, I will go through it and take my time doing every thing, I want it to be right

Norm yes indeed what sort of idiot buys anything without hearing it run but I have kind of a warm fuzzy felling about the bike it is spotless apart from a scuff on the exhaust were the kick start has caught and small hole in the side of the seat, apart from that it looks like a show bike and also amongst the paperwork is the Enfield owners club paperwork, and looking at the scale of parts listed on the hosts site I wont have a problem with parts if I need to rebuild it I love tinkering with old stuff so more than happy, I have 2 Ford Corsairs a VW Beetle a 1929 Motobecane that I am building as a boardtrack replica and lots of rusty old bikes so to have something nice and shinny in my garage is going to be quite a change.

thanks again for all your Help Dave.