Hitchcocks Forum

Hello,

Used to love these sites when I had my land rovers. So much knowledge.

I've just inherited a 1997 Bullet 500 in a rather sorry state and its my summer project to get it going again. Its had a random history. Exported from india to Saudi Arabia and then to the UK in 1999. Unfortunately, it fell over in the shipping container and hasn't been started since. Only 227km on the clock.

First things first, see if it will run, so getting a full service, new tyres and brake lever etc before the fun of registering it etc.

Let the fun begin...

Hi sounds like an interesting project some pictures will be nice

I think this will work...

Jul 6, 2015

Oh, that's very pretty it deserves, NO...NEEDS to be got running and cared for again

Looking good for a bike in a sorry state, does not look rusty and appears to be all there, if it runs ok a good clean up and you have a nice bike

Apart from whatever falling over in the container damage needs rectifying, it looks like a polish of the chrome and paintwork and some WD40 soaked steel wool on the alloy bits will be enough! Hopefully you can get it registered OK. Having ALL the original paperwork will be a big help.



If the worst comes to the worst, find a UK reg Bullet with a blown engine and a V5C, and swap the good bits over.



A.

Cheers,

Yes, im hoping the registration process will be reasonably painless.

Spent a couple of hours tinkering, fixing and giving it a bit of a service today. Found one of the hoses leading to the airbox had perished but other than that it seems in pretty good nick. We have compression and would have got it started...possibly. One slight problem...we have lost the keys! Worst case have to drill the two locks on the boxes and replace the ignition i think. More searching first though.

A

Hello again.

I've got the bike to a stage I thought I could try starting it but alas not quite yet. Big thanks to Hitchcocks for all the bits though.

So, I've got compression and everything seems mechanically sound but we failed to kickstart it or bump start it for the first time in 17 years. Although old it has only done 228km so nothing is obviously worn.

There is no spark when we checked (by withdrawing it and earthing it against the block).

There is fuel to the cyclinder.
Points look okay.
New spark plug and gap set to 0.48
New battery
Ignition has been replaced and double checked wired correctly.

Does anyone have an idea what to check next?

On this model how do you stop the engine is it with an ignition switch or a stop button, if it is a button has it been damaged in the fall or is it faulty

There's no kill switch Les, just the ignition switch and decompressor. If it started before it fell over then there should be some obvious damage. I'm rubbish at finding gremlins, but if there's no spark with a charged battery check the connections under the light switch , the screws can vibrate out and the wires fall away here. Another thing worth checking is the fuse, I once had a dead bike from corrosion around the fuse area, even though the fuse was ok.