Forum

[barry.amon]

Agree with that but what about the base gasket oil leaks and occasional head gasket chuff all experianced with my 700 meteor!! that lovely smell of gunk and red hermatite, not quite as good as castrol R but memerable never the less !!!

[barry.amon]

Barry i think the new unit engine seems a good 'un although there have been a few well documented disasters and i am delighted to see royal enfield producing better and better bikes, yes some Enfields of the 60's suffered with oil leaks due mainly to bad and ham fisted maintenance by their owners, if looked after they were as good if not better than most of the motorcycle industry of the time,
i have been riding Royal Enfields for over 50 years and can tell you that they have always had a strong following, the demise of the company was not caused by bad sales they could not make enough 750's to satisfy the market and all the younger riders lusted after the continental gt which also had good sales, Royal Enfield were a family run company with everyone taking great pride in their work but when they were taken over by E & H P Smith who were asset strippers, the company was broken up and sold of in bits, Anyone interested should read one of the excellent books on the Redditch factory.

Well I couldnt sell them at motorcycle city apart from the 250 GT continental and a couple of intercepters, so I avoided them where possible, as we had a stock in excess of 300 second hand bikes year in and year out I think I am a fair judge of what people were looking for in the 60s and 70s and Enfields were not on the menue nor were AJS in the second hand market, matchless yes especially the G15 and all the Triumph range were very good sellers and the BSA spitfire, along with all the Norton Range, these bikes I couldnt buy enough of!!

[Presto]

Maybe we’ll be told which British 250s were of vastly superior quality to Royal Enfield Crusaders, Continental, and Continental GTs in the 1960s? I’m another who was selling bikes at that time. And I remember when we wheeled the Honda C92 and CB92, the Suzuki T20 and the Yamaha YDS2 into the show room all the British lightweights melted away in shame – James, FB, Norton, AJS, even Ariel Arrows blushed – to say nothing of BSA Bantams and Beagles, Triumph Tina, Ariel Pixie and BSA/Ariel 3! Then we put the Black Bomber next to the BSA Spitfire!

Nothing works so well with memory as rose-tinted specs.

[barry.amon]

The BSA C15 in answer to your question, never got one back under warranty, the starfire was a different kettle of fish though as was the Barracuda, the 250 Gold star was an improvement.
Barry

[barry.amon]

At motorcycle city at the start for the first 3 years we only sold used machines so i would be unable to give fair credit to any new bikes as we were not a franchise at that time although I did manage to get the mars ural bikes on site new, the 650 ural based on the bmw R50 was a good seller and gave few problems however they made a real crappy 175 called the voskod, it was a bonus if the things left our site without problems and after selling the first order of six I was very happy not to order a new stock of either!!
all the jap bikes of the late 60s early 70s were excellent, I experienced very few come backs, the same could be said for the norton commando 750 fastback and standard 750 commando these were good secondhand bikes and sold well, we also sold several new ones which we got from mike and clew hughes of couburn and hughes in london, we worked closely with them in the early days, the main selling 250s of the day were BSA and Triumph, matchless,ajs,enfield all declined in sales quite early in the 70s mostly due to the influx of jap bikes but the 250 bsa and triumphs were still good sellers even the bantam D14/4 carried on selling god only knows why they were crap, villiers were the only people that could make reliable two stroke engines in the uk but compared to jap two strokes they were ten years out dated but never the less reliable, never sold one but didnt the royal enfield clipper have a villiers 2t twin engine in it ?
barry

[barry.amon]

sorry not the clipper it was the Turbo twin which used the Villiers 2T engine for the 250 enfileld.

Barry

[Duke of Wybourne.]

I've owned three Indian bullets long term, two 350's and a 500. I got the first 350 round about 1979 for nothing. The engine was wrecked because the crank pin was running slack, causing the oil pump drive to fail etc etc. It got "blueprinted" and I ran it without much trouble until about 1996, when I got a 500 Bullet which hadn't been looked after. The mudguards were that rotten you could have pulled them off by hand, and the swinging arm had also suffered badly from the ravages of winter road salt so that also got replaced. The motor got rebuilt as well. That got run until 2008 when I bought one of the last 350's new. It got a new exhaust and carb, rockers at around 7000 miles, and went for another 40,000 without much bother. The last bike was a huge improvement over the first two. They all got the wiring upgraded, and good preventative routine maintenance which included the yearly replacement of the oil pumps/drive. These bikes were my only transport, sometimes covering up to 15000 miles plus a year. Changed a lot of wheel bearings, chains/sprockets, clutch plates, tyres and a couple of fork rebuilds, but they are easy fixed. The other thing I always replaced were the valves. I've seen the result of a few that have broken the original exhaust valve at the top of the stem, so for the cost involved, money well spent. Strangely, I've never had any gearbox problems. Looking back, I wish I'd kept the last 350, it never really liked going over 50 mph, but it was super smooth and reliable, I had a big tank on it, so it could run all day.

[windmill john]

I’m new on the scene having had my Bullet for only two weeks; 4 speed kickstart, 2003-ish.

Not to offend but we all kid ourselves. The Japanese bikes of the 70s, 80s were superb. You can’t knock them generally. Yes there are stories, what make doesn’t have them. I can list lots of things if you want on just one brand, Honda, stators, timing chains and some cams, but that’s it; okay reg/recs if you’re going to nitpick

I’ve had a lot of bikes, that’s probably a bad thing, but I’ve learned a lot. If I sit down sensibly and say why a Bullet over a CG125..... the head would probably look at the balance sheet and say Honda.

I got the Bullet because I liked the look, the history, the accessibly of the bike for servicing. I’ve since read a whole book on it, twice, got some great help on this forum. Sensibly I cannot explain my reason for having him, but I enjoy the ride.

I’m looking at a second bike, technically a third! and it may be a 70s 80s Japanese bike. I certainly couldn’t afford British except RE.

I ride, so I don’t want a bike for other people’s benefit. Going back to the thread, the PO looked after this bike; although the oil filter hadn’t been changed since 1865! But it looks well put together and I’m happy.

[Duke of Wybourne.]

There is something therapeutic about owning an Enfield.